Worry and Anxiety
Man always thirsts for possession of objects, wife and cattle. This surely makes him selfish. Selfishness causes attachment. Wherever there is attachment, there are "Ahamta" and "Mamata." The whole misery starts here. The whole Maya Chakra begins to revolve from now. Man becomes a slave now. Strong iron chains are fastened to his hands, legs and knees. He is entangled like the spider or the silk-worm. This is his own self-created web for his own destruction.
Sit for a moment alone in a quiet room. Enquire. Cogitate. Investigate. Happiness is a mental state. It does not depend upon money or possessions. You actually see very rich people are very miserable, while a poor clerk is very happy, and a Sadhu with a loin-cloth only dancing in divine ecstasy.
Enjoyment
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. Milk gives pleasure to some and pain to some others. The fourth cup of milk brings retching or nausea. It does not give pleasure during fever. Therefore pleasure is not in the objects but it is in the imagination or inclination of the mind.
Imagination Makes Something Tasty and Beautiful
Mango is not sweet but the imagination is sweet. Woman is not beautiful but the imagination is beautiful. An ugly woman appears very beautiful to her husband because his imagination is beautiful. There is a grain of pleasure in objects, but the pain that mixed with it is of the size of a mountain.
Sensual Pleasures
Sensual pleasure is tantalizing. There is enchantment so long as man does not possess the objects. He exerts hard. His mind is filled with anxieties. He is under despondency because he doubts if he would get the desired object. The moment he is in possession of the object, the charm vanishes. He finds that he is in entanglement. The bachelor thinks of his marriage day and night. He thinks he is in imprisonment after the marriage is over. He is not able to satisfy the extravagant wants of his wife. He wants to run away from the house to forests. The rich but the childless man thinks he will be more happy by getting a son: he worries himself day and night to get a son, goes on pilgrimage to Ramashvaram and Kasi and performs various religious ceremonies.
But when he gets a child, he feels miserable. The child suffers from epileptic fits and his money is given away to doctors. Even then there is no cure. This is Mayaic jugglery. The whole world is fraught with temptation.
Pleasure is Caused by Pain
When you cannot get the objects, you feel miserable. The man who is addicted to taking tea, who is in the habit of taking fruits and milk after meals, feels very miserable when he cannot get tea or fruits and milk in a certain place. He scolds his wife and servants without rhyme or reason out of sheer irritability. When the wife dies, the husband is drowned in sorrow, not because of the loss of his loving partner in life, but because he cannot get sexual pleasure now. The cause of pain is pleasure. 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.
What Have Made You a Beggar
To wear spectacles at the age of ten, to wear ring-watch, to buy a car by borrowing money, to wear fashionable dinner-uniform and Ellwood hat, health boots, to have a French crop or bobbed hair, to smoke Three-Castles cigarettes or Navy-cut or Manila cigars, to constrict the neck with stiff collars, to walk along the beach with their wives in clasped hands, to have newspaper in their pocket, to have a trimmed or Kaiser-moustache at the middle of the upper lip, to take meat and drink brandy, to play bridge, to gamble, to dance in ball-rooms, to borrow money to go to talkies and, in short, to lead a life of dissipation-this is modern civilisation! Fashion and style have made you a beggar of beggars!
Source: How to Vairagya by Swami Sivananda: https://www.dlshq.org/download/vairagya.htm
Enjoyment
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. Milk gives pleasure to some and pain to some others. The fourth cup of milk brings retching or nausea. It does not give pleasure during fever. Therefore pleasure is not in the objects but it is in the imagination or inclination of the mind.
Imagination Makes Something Tasty and Beautiful
Mango is not sweet but the imagination is sweet. Woman is not beautiful but the imagination is beautiful. An ugly woman appears very beautiful to her husband because his imagination is beautiful. There is a grain of pleasure in objects, but the pain that mixed with it is of the size of a mountain.
Sensual Pleasures
But when he gets a child, he feels miserable. The child suffers from epileptic fits and his money is given away to doctors. Even then there is no cure. This is Mayaic jugglery. The whole world is fraught with temptation.
Pleasure is Caused by Pain
What Have Made You a Beggar
To wear spectacles at the age of ten, to wear ring-watch, to buy a car by borrowing money, to wear fashionable dinner-uniform and Ellwood hat, health boots, to have a French crop or bobbed hair, to smoke Three-Castles cigarettes or Navy-cut or Manila cigars, to constrict the neck with stiff collars, to walk along the beach with their wives in clasped hands, to have newspaper in their pocket, to have a trimmed or Kaiser-moustache at the middle of the upper lip, to take meat and drink brandy, to play bridge, to gamble, to dance in ball-rooms, to borrow money to go to talkies and, in short, to lead a life of dissipation-this is modern civilisation! Fashion and style have made you a beggar of beggars!
Source: How to Vairagya by Swami Sivananda: https://www.dlshq.org/download/vairagya.htm
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