The World is Full of Difficulties and Troubles
This world is full of difficulties and troubles. No one save a Yogi or a Bhakta or a Gyani is free from these worldly miseries and anxieties. Go wherever you may. It is all the same. Kashmir is a lovely place. But pissus (small insects) bite at night. Man does not get sleep. Uttarakasi is a good place for meditation. It has good spiritual vibrations. But peculiar flies bite you there. They cause severe itching, bleeding and inflammation. Deva Prayag in the Himalayas has very good scenery. The Ganges and the Alagananda meet here. But there are horrible scorpions. There is sunstroke at Benares and pneumonia and dysentery at Badrinath. Develop therefore power of endurance. Lead a life of Tyaga and Vairagya (renunciation and dispassion). Then and then alone you can be happy in the world, no matter which part of it.
Man feels that this world is fraught with pain and misery when he gets severe knocks and blows, when his wife dies, when he loses his joy and when he himself suffers from cataract, diabetes and blood-pressure at the same time. When a little fortune comes, when his pockets begin to jingle with a few coins, when a grandson is born, when a little fat accumulates in his body, he begins to smile and laugh and forgets all about the past. The world appears to be full of pleasure. This is the jugglery of Maya. Learn to discriminate, O Prom, and attain wisdom.
Trishna means an intense craving or sense-hankering. Through constant repetition of enjoyment of an object, the longing for the object becomes very keen and acute. This is Trishna. It is all easy to become a big reseai-ch scholar in the Oxford or Cambridge University and to get an M. A., Ph. D. degree. But it is extremely difficult to eradicate these Trishnas. That is the reason why Vasishtaji says in the Yoga Vasishta to Sri Rama: “You can even uproot the Himalayas. You can even drink the waters of the whole Pacific Ocean. You can even swallow balls of fire. But it is difficult to destroy the Trishnas. Cravings cause incessant trouble in many different ways. These cravings are the seeds of this Samsara.”
A worldly man is always drowned in sorrow. He is ever struggling to get something, some money, some power, some position and so on. He is always anxious as to whether he will get it or not. Even when he is in possession of the thing he so passionately longed to possess, he is very anxious lest he should lose it. There is pain in earning money. There is more pain in taking care of it. There is still more pain if it gets decreased. And when it is lost all of a sudden, imagine for a moment the magnitude of the climax and the amount of pain it gives a man! Therefore renounce money and rest in peace in the blissful Self.
Mamsa-lubdho yatha mathsyo lokasarakum na pasyati;
Sukha-lubdhasthatha dehi Yama-bandham na pasyati.
“Just as a fish in its desire to eat flesh does not see the hook that lies beneath, so also a man in his passionate desire to get sensual pleasure does not see the noose of death.”
Wife is only a luxury. It is not an absolute necessity. Every householder is weeping after marriage. He says: “My son is ailing from typhoid. My second daughter is to be married. I have debts to clear. My wife is worrying me to purchase a gold necklace. My eldest son-in-law died recently.”
If you really want God and God alone, kick this world mercilessly. Enough, enough of tea and coffee, enough of soda and lemonade; enough of father, mother, sons and daughters, brothers, sisters, friends 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. Realise God. All miseries will come to an end.
Source: pgs 129-131, Practice of Bhakti Yoga by Swami Sivananda
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