Are You Really Happy?

Is there any man on earth who is absolutely happy? When the marriage of his second son is being celebrated, the remembrance of the death of his first son who passed away only some time ago, torments his mind.

Mind is so constituted that the rhythm of pleasure and pain is kept up like the rhythm of systole and diastole of the heart.

You entertain the fear that the happiness will pass away son, when you are in happy surroundings. This kind of feeling adds pain when you are in the enjoyment of sensual pleasures. Even if you remove the pain by some means or other, it again manifests itself in some form or other such as loss of property disease, death, hostility and disappointment.

Every man feels that he is in want of something, the nature of which he does not understand. He seeks in the accomplishment of ambitious projects, the rest and peace that he feels he is in need of. But after all he finds to his great sorrow and disappointment that worldly greatness, when secured, is a delusion and a snare. He actually does not find any lasting happiness in it. The coveted degrees, diplomas, titles, honours, power, position, name and fame prove of no avail in the long run. In short he gets all that he imagines will give him happiness. But actually he finds no rest or peace.

You can never achieve absolute happiness in a relative physical plane of the pairs of opposites. The pairs of opposites rotate in their turn.

Death follows life; Night follows the day. Light follows darkness. Pain follows pleasure. If you really want God, you will have to give up all objective pleasures and the desire for them. If you really want God, you will have to give up Kamini and Kanchana (lust and gold) in thought, word and deed. The real Viveki will shun the objects ruthlessly.

There are four kinds of pleasures, viz., sensual pleasures, emotional pleasures of poets and artists, intellectual pleasures of orators and philosophers and spiritual bliss of Jnanis. The last is the highest form of transcendental happiness. 

Happiness comes from peace of mind, peace of mind comes from a state of mind wherein there are no desires, no Kama, no Vishaya, no thoughts of objects. You would forget all ideas of pleasure before you enter the actual domain of peace. Happiness is in Atman. It is in meditation; it is in the study of the Upanishads.

Hence, the best mode of getting rid of any class of pain is through will-power and Titiksha, through diversion of the mind, the withdrawal of the mind from the body, taking the mind out of the body, and fixing it in Atman.

Have real Vedantic Vichara. Keep your mind ever in auto-suggestion. Ever feel that the pain is going. It is half-gone. It is nearly gone. Feel that you are better than yesterday. Feel that you are all right. Feel that you are all-healthy. Feel that you are Immortal Sat-Chit-Ananda Svarupa. Tat Tvam Asi, - That thou art.

pgs. 278-279, Conquest of Mind by Swami Sivananda