Man lives in misery. Why? Because, instead of searching for happiness, he dedicates his life to looking for reasons and motives to be happy...
Joy does not need any justification...
Motives and justifications are needed for suffering... Misery needs a cause... Dissatisfaction needs a reason...
It is madness to think that we will not be happy we lack motivation for things like a car, a million dollars, a new year, smoking, drinking alcohol, a very high position, a big new house, parties, birthdays, fame, power, admiration etc., etc.
It was our society that, believing it was necessary to educate us with the objective of attaining bliss, created sour and competitive beings, who are ready to stamp on everyone else in order to attain those reasons to be happy...
Society believed that it needed to train us to fight for our happiness. However, it has created more suffering and loneliness...
It is madness to think that happiness requires conditions... requirements...
Bliss simply is...
Our authentic nature is bliss. Therefore it is natural...
PLEASURE AND SUFFERING ARE IN THE MIND
If you have just finished your dinner, then a plate of rice with samosas would become a reason for suffering for you. However, for a hungry person it would be a reason for pleasure...
One ice—cream might give pleasure, but a third one, a fifth one, can be real torture...
The death of a person means the loss of a beloved one for some, but for the funeral company it is a part of their business, it is just another sale.
A ball hits the net and causes sorrow and pain to the fans of one team, and at the same time is the cause of euphoria for those of the other...
The simple fact that the same object or situation could be a motive of happiness for one person, and of sorrow for another, reveals that pleasure and pain are only mental states... Both of them do not have any real objective existence, they only constitute mental creations...
Furthermore, our identification with the body is a mental phenomenon, which leads us to search for happiness through the body without understanding that it is a part of the relative reality and world of duality, and therefore, can never give us absolute bliss, but instead only a kind of pleasure followed by its corresponding suffering...
It is important to understand this great truth and the mind, and that our identification with it, and with the body and the senses, which are its extension, are the source and origin of misery...
HAPPINESS AND SADNESS ARE ONE AND THE SAME THING
In the Srimad Bhagavad—gita (2.14) we read:
matra—sparshas tu kaunteya
sitosna—sukha—duhkha—dah
agamapayino 'nityas
tams titiksasva bharata
"Oh son of Kunti, the temporal appearance of happiness and distress, and their later disappearance, are like the appearance and disappearance of seasons such as summer and winter. Those come from sense perception, and you must know how to tolerate them without being disturbed."
Pleasure cannot exist without suffering, or happiness without affliction, it is absolutely impossible that one will exist without the other...
The fact that we experience moments of happiness, which we would like to maintain and preserve forever, which later inevitably transforms into sorrow and suffering, of which we want to run as far away as possible, and which later becomes happiness once again, is the irrefutable proof that both are one and the same thing... That is, when we speak about happiness and distress, pleasure and suffering, we are not referring to two different phenomenons, but to one. It is something like two sides of the same coin...
Both joy and affliction, in this relative and dual plane, are two sides of the same coin of misery...
TRASNCENDING HAPPINESS
We think we are looking for bliss. However, the only thing we are doing is running away from suffering, and it seems to us that this escape is a run towards happiness...
We escape from distress, and it gives us the impression that while we are running from suffering, we also pursue joy...We run away from pain and it appears to us that we strive to attain pleasure...
In the state of escapism, which is misery in itself, there is no chance for bliss...
You might escape from pain, but even if you do succeed, it does not mean you will be happy. In other words, if you succeed, the most you can achieve is a certain state of decreased of suffering... The fact that you do not suffer does not necessarily mean that you are happy...
In fact, we go around drinking alcohol, dancing, smoking, taking drugs, buying, acquiring, accumulating money, and we think we are happy. However, the only thing we do is to try to hide misery... We hide pain behind alcohol, fame or riches; we hide behind loneliness behind sex...
Nothing external to you can provide you with happiness for the simple reason that happiness is not about acquiring something, but about consciousness...
Our escape from distress and suffering and the pursuit of joy and pleasure are something impossible, because bliss is found beyond both of them...
If both happiness and distress are the same, two sides of the same coin, it is unrealistic think that you can decrease or destroy one side without destroying the other side as well...
It is like wishing that we can increase the illuminated side of the moon, while at the same time decreasing the darker side...The moon as a whole has two sides, either you accept both, or you reject and leave both, and what religion consists of is to renounce pain, distress and suffering, which is not at all difficult, but also to renounce pleasure, joy and happiness, which is a little more difficult. Only by transcending the entire misery as a whole can you realize absolute bliss or ananda...
WE CREATE OUR OWN MISERY
It is our escape from suffering... It is our search for reasons to be happy, which creates misery... We are not happy because we yearn for something, but when we obtain it we give birth to the suffering that comes from the fear of losing it. Anyone who has attained some happiness in this life gives birth to fear. Anyone who believes he is happy carries a hidden anxiety inside...
Let's say a family wants a new car very badly, and both the parents work very hard to save money. The children are not given new toys, and when they ask for them, they are told that it is impossible at the moment because the parents are saving for the new vehicle. After several months, finally, the automobile stands there, in front of them. They all feel that sweet sensation of happiness in their heart... But, let us stop for a moment to analyze what happened... Does this sensation come from the metal? the rubber? the glass? What is it that produces this sensation that we call happiness?... It originates from the simple fact that the ambition and the desire for the car has disappeared. What this family experiences is the absence of desire, which will lamentably, in due course, give birth to the fear of losing the object of their joy...
But it is a fact that misery is produced upon the search of happiness. In other words, it is our search for pleasure, which forms our main obstacle for experiencing bliss...
In the holy Srimad Bhagavad—gita (2.55) it says:
sri—bhagavan uvaca
prajahati yada kaman
sarvan partha mano—gatan
atmany evatmana tustah
sthita—prajnas tadocyate
"The blessed Lord said: Oh, Partha! One becomes situated in the state of pure transcendental consciousness when he abandons all varieties of desires for sense gratification, which are products of the mind, and after being purified finds his satisfaction in the Self alone".
Bliss is absolute, it does not require any opposite in order to exist as a pair, it does not belong to the world duality. It is not of the mind...
You enjoy and get happy from or because of something, for some reason. Bliss is not about having something, but about being... in order to realize absolute bliss you do not need any reason, because bliss is simply what you are...
It is natural, because it is your authentic nature...
To realize yourself as bliss is as simple as to realizing your own dharma... the very essence of what you are...
To be... here... now... is to be bliss...
Your real and authentic nature is sat, chid and ananda... Ananda means bliss... You are bliss...
That is to say, there is only one reason for misery, which is your ignorance about what you really are...
You create misery by searching for bliss...
To search for bliss is the proof that you ignore the fact that you are what you are looking for...
The Chandogya Upanishad (7.1.3) says the following:
Tarati sokam atmavit
"Only he who knows the Self transcends misery".
Sadness is very happy and simple. It is not very difficult for the mind to enter into misery. However, it seems to be that happiness is reserved only for the talented ones...
Sorrow is easy for the mind quite simply because the mind itself is misery... As more happiness is revealed, the mind further dissolves; a state of bliss is the complete disappearance of mental activity...
This is why you can see that once in a while we have to create a certain problem for ourselves, and if we do not have it... we go looking for it...
As much as happiness increases, the mental activity decreases, this is what we call shanti or peace. That internal silence is a state of mental absence... Tarati sokam atmavit... "Only he who knows the Self transcends misery", says the Upanishad... Only when you go beyond the mental level, only by transcending the mind will you realize yoga, bliss, the Divine... You will know the Self...
Dear spiritual seeker, seeker of the soul, always remember to keep from creating an idea or concept and call it "enlightenment"... "God"...
Do not transform your spiritual life into a pursuit of this new reason to be happy...
God and enlightenment are not motives or causes to be blissful...
The realization of your true and authentic nature, enlightenment, or God, is the absolute bliss itself...
Do not search for reasons to be happy... search only for yourself, because there is one and only one reason for bliss, and this reason is you... simply realize yourself...