Jnanis Awareness of the material body; do the experience pain?

Ramana Maharshi after a surgery

from ("Living by the Words of Bhagavan"):

 Question: I am puzzled by some aspects of this teaching. There is no doubt that Bhagavan was realized, but in that state he was still aware of his body. When Bhagavan was ill he didn't say, ‘I have pain,' he said, ‘It has pain’ . Since he had awareness of that pain in the body he must still have been a little identified with it?

Annamalai Swami : Even when the body was experiencing pain, Bhagavan was beyond it. He was not affected by anything that was happening to the body.

Question: He was beyond in the sense that he was not concerned or troubled by it, but he was still aware that the body was experiencing pain.

Aannalai Swami: There was an awareness of pain but there was no feeling, ‘This is my body; I have pain’. You can be aware of birds flying in and out of a tree without thinking, 'I am this tree, these birds are mine'' similarly Bhagavan could be aware of bodily sensations without thinking 'I am this body; this pain is mine’; Bhagavan wore a body in the same way that other people wear a dhoti.

You are attaching too much importance to bodies, both Bhagavan's and your own. It is possible to exist without' being aware of the body in any way. Your experience in deep sleep should satisfy you that this is possible. Your questions and doubts are all coming from the body-mind level, from the idea that you are a body and a person. You can find out what the relationship between the body and the Self is by experiencing the Self as it really is. But to get that experience you must first be willing to give up the idea that you are a body and a person. You will never have the experience while you are still clinging to erroneous ideas about the body. You will not resolve your doubts about the body by discussing them, you will only resolve them by giving them up.