The secret behind how the Divine can take on all pains and blows..
Q: …does this suffering have the same effect upon Him as upon us? That is, does He feel pain and sorrow as we feel them?
No! I can say, No! For, obviously there is an essential difference between a state of ignorance and a state of knowledge. Something painful happen to you, let us say; and in the ignorance this painful thing takes on a particular quality. But if you receive this painful thing in a state of knowledge, it does not have the same effect. Let us take even a material thing, say, a very material blow, a good blow like this (gesture). Well, when one is in the ordinary human state of ignorance the blow has its full effect. It depends exclusively on its violence, on what has given the blow and who has received it, you see. But if the same blow is given in the same way and by the same thing to a being who has knowledge instead of ignorance, instantaneously the reaction of the body will be such as to make the consequences… reduce the consequences to the minimum. And this is a concrete fact! This can go to the extent of even annulling the consequences altogether sometimes. It can go as far as that; that is, it can abolish the consequences, because the reaction is one of knowledge, instead of being a reaction of ignorance. So one cannot say that it is the same thing.
In moral things this is quite obvious, you see, because instead of receiving an emotional shock, for instance, with all the egoistic blindness of ordinary emotion, one objectivises, sees what it is, sees the combination in the vibration; and instantly one throws upon it light, knowledge and truth, and all things are put back in their place. That happens instantaneously. But I insist that even on the most material body, and in the most material way, the effect is not the same. Besides, it is very simple to understand, for if the effect were the same, it would have no happy consequence of any kind for the Divine to take upon Himself bad things! Because they would remain just what they are, and the universe would continue to be what it is. It is because He has the power of transforming these obscure vibrations into vibrations of light that He can take everything upon Himself.
Ref: Questions and Answers 1954
