Pain has two origins: the mind and the body. Sometimes it is caused by the mind and held by the body, and sometimes it is caused by the body and held by the mind; and it is the harmony, the cooperation of the two that sustains the pain. If one were absent, or did not partake of the pain suggested by the other part of the being, the pain would not exist, and if it did exist it would vanish. The body, being the servant of the mind, can never refuse to bear the pain given by the mind, having no free will of its own; it is only the mind that can refuse, if it were trained to do so.

The doctrine that some people have, that there is no such thing as pain, is very helpful in the training of the mind, although its truth may be questioned. If it is true that there is no such thing as pain, it can only be true in this sense: that everything in this world is an illusion; it has no existence of its own, it does not exist in reality, compared with the ultimate Reality that is. But if a person says that it is pain only that does not exist, but that joy exists and all other things exist, then he is wrong.

Among Sufis, dervishes have tried to become pain-proof by inflicting upon themselves cruel injuries, such as whipping of the bare arms or cutting the muscles of the body or piercing the body with knives or taking the eyes out of their sockets and replacing them in their sockets again, of which I have been an eyewitness. By this they have discovered a truth and have given it to the thinking world, that mind can refuse to partake of the bodily pain, and by the mind doing so the bodily pain is much less felt than it would otherwise be; when the mind goes forward to receive bodily pain out of fear or self-pity, it increases the pain and makes it more than it would otherwise be. The properties that fear or self-pity add to the pain are ninety-five percent. And the first thing that the healer must do in curing patients suffering pain is to erase the pain from the surface of the patient’s mind by suggestion, and also by his healing power. For in the absence of help on the part of the mind, the body must give up pain, for it has no power to hold it longer in the absence of mind.