The more you are attached to the pain, the more intense it is. - J.Krishnamurthi

Questioner: I am thinking of people who are suffering physical illness. Can meditation bring about a process of healing?

Krishnamurti: Most of us have had pain of some kind - intense, superficial, or pain that cannot be cured. What effect has pain on the psyche, the brain or the mind? Can the mind meditate, disassociating itself from pain? Can the mind look at the physical pain and observe it without identifying itself with that pain? If it can observe without identifying itself then there is quite a different quality to that pain. I do not know if you have observed that if one has a toothache or stomach ache, one can somewhat disassociate oneself. One does not have to rush to the doctor or take some pill; one observes it with detachment, with a feeling of looking at it as though one was outside it. Surely that helps the pain, doesn't it? The more you are attached to the pain, the more intense it is. So that may help to bring about this healing, which is an important question and which can only take place when there is no `me', no ego or self-centred activity. Some people have a gift for it. Others come upon it because there is no ego functioning.