INTRODUCTION
Humanity wants happiness and shuns pain. Humanity moves heaven and earth to get the happiness from sensual objects, and lo, gets entangled in the extricable meshes of Maya. Not knowing these objects are perishable and evanescent, finite and conditioned in time, space, and causation there is failure to get the desired happiness from them. There is enchantment so long as the human does not possess the objects. The moment in possession of the object, the charm vanishes. One finds that they are in entanglement. This is Maya-ic jugglery. The whole world is fraught with temptation.
A SPECTACLE OF SORROW
A worldly person is always drowned in sorrow, ever struggling to get something, some money, some power, some position, always anxious whether or not how to get it. Even when in actual possession of the thing so passionately longed for, he is very anxious lest he should lose it. A rich man has great wealth, but he has no children. And so he is pained at heart. A poor man has fourteen children, but he has nothing to eat, and so he is miserable. One man has wealth and children, but his son is a vagabond, and so he is worried. One man has riches and good sons, but his wife is very quarrelsome. No one is happy in this world. The session judge is very discontented. He thirsts to become a high court judge. The minister is also discontented. He longs to become the premier. A millionaire is discontented; he yearns to become a billionaire. There’s discontent in this world. A doctor thinks that the advocate is very happy. The advocate thinks that the businessman is more happy. The businessman thinks that the judge is more happy. The judge thinks that the professor is more happy. No one is happy in this world. Who is happy then ? A sage is happy. A Yogi is happy. One who has controlled his mind is happy. Happiness comes from peace of mind. Peace of mind comes from a state of mind wherein there are no desires, no Moha, no Vishaya, no thoughts of objects. You should forget all ideas of pleasure before you enter the domain of peace.
PLEASURE IS MIXED WITH PAIN
You cannot have pleasure without pain. Wherever there is pleasure, there is pain. There is no absolute happiness in a relative physical plane of pairs of opposites – our world is built on the pairs of opposites. The pairs of opposites rotate in their turn. Death follows life. Night follows day. Light follows darkness. Pain follows pleasure. Pleasure that is mixed with pain, fear and worry is no pleasure at all. If you carefully begin to analyze this one part of pleasure also, it will dwindle into an airy nothing. You will find that it is mere play of the mind. Pleasure and pain are relative terms only. They are not two entities. They are obverse and reverse sides of the same coin. The difference is not in kind, but in degree only. Pleasure and pain are two names for one thing. They are two aspects of one thing. For a worldly human without philosophical knowledge, they appear as two different entities.
PLEASURE AND PAIN LIE IN THE MIND
What is pleasure for you is pain for another. What is pleasure for you now is pain after some time. The first two cups of milk gives you pleasure. The third cup induces disgust, nausea and retching. Milk does not give pleasure during fever. Therefore, pleasure is not in the objects, but in the imagination or inclination of the mind. Pleasure and pain are all false imaginations of the mind. Mind is a false, illusory product. Conceptions of the mind also must, therefore, be false. Pleasure and pain are in the mind only. It is subjective. Things, when longed for, are pleasant; but are bitter if not longed for.
Desires are the cause for pleasures.
You can convert pleasure into pain and pain into pleasure by thinking, by Bhavana, by imagination. Many vegetarian students who have gone to England to prosecute their studies have become inveterate meat-eaters. Meat was very repulsive to them when they were in India. Mere sight used to induce vomiting. How is it they are able to relish meat with avidity, cupidity and stupidity now? By simple change in thinking. Ignorant persons attribute their pleasure to external objects. This is a serious blunder, indeed. Really, there is no pleasure in objects. There is neither pleasure nor pain in objects. It is all a mental perception, mental jugglery. It is only the mental attitude or a certain kind of mental behaviour towards objects that brings joy or grief, pleasure or pain.
Maya has her powerful seat in the imagination of the mind.
When you are in acute agony, a cup of coffee, milk or tea does not give you any pleasure. When you are in acute agony, the whole world which appeared to you to be full of bliss while in good health, appears quite dreary. The world loses all its charms while you are seriously ailing. A real thing must give pleasure for everybody at all times. Is it not ?
PLEASURE IS THE CAUSE OF PAIN
The cause of pain is pleasure. The person who is addicted to taking tea and is in the habit of taking fruits and milk after meals, feels very miserable when they cannot get tea, or fruits and milk, in a certain place. The cause of death is love for sensual life. Give up all sensual pleasures, if you do not want pain. Give up sensual life, if you do not want death. Enjoyment cannot bring satisfaction of desire. On the contrary, it aggravates and intensifies desires and makes the mind more restless through sense-hankering or Trishna, just as the pouring of ghee or oil aggravates fire. The fewer the wants, the greater the happiness.
SENSUAL PLEASURE AND SPIRITUAL BLISS
Spiritual bliss is the highest bliss. Spiritual bliss is bliss of one’s own Soul. It is transcendental bliss. It is independent of objects. It is continuous, uniform and eternal. It is enjoyed by the sage only. Sensual pleasure comes out of emotion. But bliss of the Soul is self-delight. It is the innate nature of the Atman. Pleasure is temporal and fleeting. Bliss is eternal and everlasting. Pleasure is mixed with pain. Bliss is unalloyed happiness. Pleasure depends upon nerves, mind and objects. Bliss is independent and self-existent. There is effort in attaining sensual pleasures, but there is no striving in experiencing the bliss of the Soul. The drop joins the ocean. The Jiva floats in the ocean of bliss. Purify the mind by Japa, Satsanga, charity, control of mind, self-restraint, selfless service, study of the Gita, the Upanishads, Yoga-Vasishtha, Bible, Koran and other religious scriptures, practice of Yama and Niyama, Pranayama, Vairagya and Tyaga. You will then get a proper instrument for meditation, a calm, sharp, subtle, one-pointed mind. Start meditation with the help of this instrument for three hours in the morning and three hours at night. Then a new kind of indescribable Ananda will dawn in you. You will be convinced of a supersensual spiritual bliss. You will have to feel this spiritual Ananda yourself. You will have to eat it yourself. Can you explain the sexual happiness to a boy of twelve ? Can you explain the happiness of sugar-candy to a boy who has not tasted the same ? No, you cannot. The boy himself must eat sugar-candy. He must, when he has grown up, taste the carnal pleasure. Worldly men think they are quite happy because they get a few ginger biscuits, some money, and a woman. O, if they would just taste the nectar of immortality, what should be the intensity of happiness they should feel!
The body is an abode of misery and disease. Wealth brings a lot of trouble in acquiring and keeping safe. Sorrow springs from every connection. Women (or Men) are a perpetual source of vexation. Alas! people prefer this path of misery to that of spiritual enjoyment. Enough, enough of your tea and coffee, enough of soda and lemonade, enough of father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister and relations. You have had countless fathers and mothers, wives and children in the past. You came alone. You will go alone. None will follow you save your own actions. Realize God. All miseries will come to an end. Though surrounded by pleasurable or painful objects to disturb your equilibrium of mind, remain immovable as a rock, receiving all things with equanimity. Be always cheerful. Laugh and smile. How can a mind that is gloomy and dull think of God ? Try to be happy always. Happiness is your very nature. This is termed cheerfulness. This spirit of cheerfulness must be cultivated by all aspirants. Keep the mind in state of moderation or happy, golden mean. Never let it run to excesses. People die of shock from extreme depression as well as extreme joy. Do not allow Uddharsha to crop up in the mind. It is excessive merriment. Mind always runs to extremes, either to extreme depression or extreme joy. Extremes meet. Extremes bring about reaction. Mind can never be calm in excessive joy. Let the mind be cheerful, but calm. This world is a mere appearance. Mind and the senses are deceiving you every moment. You have mistaken pain for pleasure. There is not even an iota of happiness in this sense-universe. Abandon these selfish struggles and schemes for amassing wealth. March directly to that wire-puller who is moving these toys of fleshy human bodies, who is keeping up this big show. In Him only you will find lasting happiness and perennial joy. Merge in Him by practicing daily meditation and japa.