The Lurker-Body

In addition to using the Violet Flame to disentangle and transmute the lurker, Eckhart Tolle has a description of what he calls the “pain-body.”  My intuition guided me to interchange “pain-body” with “lurker-body.”  Readers may also do so, as the description of the pain-body may be similar to the lurker-body.  

(These chosen excerpts from Eckhart Tolle do not apply to those who are in immediate physical danger.  This is for those who have their basic survival needs met, who live day-to-day existence in ‘the matrix.’)  

There are two levels to your pain:  The pain that you create now, and the pain from the past that still lives on in your mind and body.

Every emotional pain that you experience leaves behind a residue of pain that lives on in you.  It merges with the pain from the past, which was already there, and becomes lodged in your mind and body.  This, of course, includes the pain you suffered as a child, caused by the unconsciousness of the world into which you were born.  This is what is called your “pain-body.”  

A pain-body may be dormant 90 percent of the time.  In a deeply unhappy person though, it may be active up to 100 percent of the time.  Anything can trigger it, particularly if it resonates with a pain pattern from your past.  When it is ready to awaken from its dormant stage, even a thought or an innocent remark made by someone close to you can activate it.

Some pain-bodies are obnoxious but relatively harmless.  Example:  A child who won’t stop whining.  Others are vicious and destructive monsters – true demons.  Some are physically violent; many more are emotionally violent.  Some will attack people around you or close to you, while others may attack you.  Some pain-bodies drive their hosts to suicide.

When you thought you knew a person and then you are suddenly confronted with this alien, nasty creature for the first time, you are in for quite a shock.  However, it’s more important to observe it in yourself than in someone else.  Watch out for any sign of unhappiness in yourself, in whatever form – it may be the awakening pain-body.  This can take the form of irritation, impatience, a somber mood, a desire to hurt, anger, rage, depression, a need to have some drama in your relationship, and so on.  Catch it the moment it awakens from its dormant state.

Pain can only feed on pain.  Pain cannot feed on joy.  It finds it quite indigestible.

Once the pain-body has taken you over, you want more pain.  You become a victim or a perpetrator.  You want to inflict pain, or you want to suffer pain, or both.  There isn’t really much difference between the two.  You are not conscious of this, of course, and will vehemently claim that you do not want pain.  But look closely and you will find that your thinking and behavior are designed to keep the pain going, for yourself and others.  If you were truly conscious of it, the pattern would dissolve, for to want more pain is insanity, and nobody is consciously insane.

Unconscious identification with your pain-body is what nourishes it, as well as your unconscious fear of facing the pain that lives in you.  But if you don’t face it, if you don’t bring the light of your consciousness into the pain, you will be forced to relive it again and again.  The pain-body may seem to you like a dangerous monster that you cannot bear to look at, but I assure you that it is an insubstantial phantom that cannot prevail against the power of your presence.  When you observe your pain-body with presence, feeling its energy field within you, and taking your attention into it, the identification is broken.  You become the observer instead of the pain so that it can no longer pretend to be you, and it can no longer replenish itself through you.  Doing this is accessing the Power of Now.

Unconsciousness creates the pain-body, and the light of consciousness transmutes it.  St. Paul expressed this universal principle beautifully:  “Everything is shown up by being exposed to the light, and whatever is exposed to the light itself becomes light.”  

Trying to fight the pain-body only creates further pain.  Watching it is enough.  Watching it implies accepting it as part of what is at that moment.

You need to be present enough to be able to watch the pain-body directly and feel its energy.  It then cannot control your thinking.  The moment your thinking is aligned with the energy field of the pain-body, you are identified with it and again feeding it with your thoughts.  The pain-body has momentum, so it will not dissolve immediately, but with time.  

Let me summarize the process.  Focus attention on the feeling inside you.  Know that it is the pain-body.  Accept that it is there.  Don’t think about it – don’t let the feeling turn into thinking.  Don’t judge or analyze.  Don’t make an identity for yourself out of it.  Stay present, and continue to be the observer of what is happening inside you.  Become aware not only of the emotional pain, but also of “the one who observes,” the silent watcher.  This is the power of your own conscious presence.  Then, see what happens.

If you are able to stay alert and present and watch whatever you feel within, rather than be taken over by it, it affords an opportunity for the most powerful spiritual practice.  A rapid transmutation of all past pain becomes possible.

For many, it may not be easy to dis-identify and be the watcher of the pain-body.  Resistance may be encountered.  If so, observe the resistance within yourself.  Observe the attachment to your pain.  Be very alert.  Observe the peculiar pleasure you may derive from being unhappy.  Observe the compulsion to talk or think about it.  The resistance will cease if you make it conscious.  You can then take your attention into the pain-body, stay present as the witness, and initiate its transmutation.