Balancing life through Vedanta -5: Summary of Swami Ishwarananda's lecture

[Guest guest]

Namaste

 

[The following is my brief summary -- errors of fact,

slips of content and faults of logic are all mine -- of

the fifth and concluding lecture of a series of lectures

by Swami Ishwarananda at Portland, Oregon, which I had the

good fortune tgo attend. The fifth lecture (21st April) was

titled: The Secret of Happiness. I have omitted most of

his quotations from Upanishats and other Vedantic works.]

____

The secret of Happiness

 

Religious ideologies portray God as the Absolute

Superhuman Personality. Certainly religion does remove

certain worries by giving hopes of redress from the

Absolute Compassionate God. But people failed to perfect

themselves and therefore they reap the consequences.

Hinduism gives reasons for our unhappiness by citing the

past lives. Whether we are rich or poor, intelligent or

dull, what is the deciding factor? Hinduism says: What I am

is because of what I was. In the world of today this makes

sense. Hinduism extends this maxim to previous lives also.

Thus Hindu religion provides an answer to our unhappiness.

But it does not provide a solution. Only Vedanta provides

the step forward.

 

Vedanta says, instead of blaming prArabdha for your ills,

think about what you can do now. Vedanta is more realistic.

Stop asking why happenings are influencing you the way it

does. Ask yourself: What should I do better today and

hereafter? You don’t have to wish to remember your past

births and all your past which landed you in the present

unhappiness. Ability to forget the past is a boon given to

us by Nature. If it were not so we would be nothing but

miserable because we would remember all our siblings, all

our spouses and all our likes and hates of all our past

lives. Only in forgetting the past events (except those

where we have to show our gratitude to others) can we hope

to have happiness. The very word *sukhaM* has the prefix

*su* (meaning well, good, pleasant) attached to *khaM*

(meaning ‘space’). So sukham is ‘good space’ and ‘duHkhaM’

is ‘bad space’. Naturally when space is narrow and

congested, it is misery. When space is vast there is great

relief. Our sorrows as well as happiness are experienced

only in the mind. In that mind space two things can happen:

 

• The number of thoughts could be large or small.

• The quality of these thoughts could be satvic, rajasic

or tamasic.

 

These are the two criteria which decide our happiness or

sorrow. The fewer the number of thoughts in the mind the

better. In fact the pause between two successive thoughts

has to be larger and larger. That is what makes the mind

space good and less congested.

 

How does the mind get agitated? When the time for the

afternoon tea or coffee comes, the mind rings a bell and

keeps on nagging you until you have the first sip of

coffee. Just that one sip of coffee is enough to stop that

nagging thought. And the thought-agitation is gone. By

acting upon the agitating thought, the agitation

disappears. It is the gushing sequence of all these

agitating thoughts that hides the calm peace at the

bottom. In other words there is no space for peace or fresh

‘air’. In other words again, reduce the number of thoughts

and you get happiness. When you go to sleep all thoughts

disappear. In sleep we were supposed to have been happy.

That is because all thoughts have disappeared. Nothing was

there however that gave you joy. But still it was the very

fact that there was no thought there that gave me joy.

Pujya Gurudev used to tell a joke in this context. The

difference between a cultured man and an uncultured man is

that, the cultured one spreads joy wherever he goes and the

uncultured one spreads joy whenever he goes!

 

So in sleep where is the origin of this happiness of which

all of us are familiar? The important analysis of sleep has

been done by our ancients. The source of happiness exists

as a nature. The definition of Ananda, happiness, goes

like this:

 

aa nandati iti aanandaH*

 

*aa* means *samantaat*, that is, at all time.

*nandati* means ‘satisfies’, ‘pleases’, ‘fulfills’.

 

This ‘aananda’ is present in all of us equally. While I

sleep the quantity of thoughts is reduced to nil. And I am

happy. But I did not know at that time that I was happy.

Why did I not know? Because, the muddy water of the mind

has not yet been cleared to show the crystal-clear bottom.

The muddiness is all the dirt in my mind. That is why

meditation has been prescribed. Meditation has two

purposes. One is the reduction of thoughts; and the other

is the purification of the mind.

 

All religions emphasize purification of mind. Purification

of mind means adopting the values of living that are closer

to the Self. When some one understands you it is easy to

communicate with him. If you are closer to the Self

automatically you are happy. It is as if you are with a

child, with expectations on neither side. Any feeling of

compassion, love, forgiveness, makes you happy. Negative

traits on the other hand take you away from happiness

because they are not your innate nature. Lie or untruth

depend for their existence on Truth. Without reference to a

Truth there is no untruth. And all such negative traits

therefore split you into two personalities – one that knows

the truth and the one that wants to abide by or employ

untruth. That is why values are prescribed for the

spiritual path. They are the ones which bring you closer to

the Self. You experience the presence of the Self when two

things happen: namely, mind is on the path of purification

and thoughts in the mind are minimum.

 

Now let us see whether objects in themselves can give us

happiness. We are in love with objects. Objects are not in

love with us. If objects can give us happiness they should

give us joy all the time. But what happens is the law of

diminishing returns. More of the same saturates us – even

money! The object itself is only a catalyst to remove the

thought ‘I want’ in reference to that object. The moment

the object is obtained the thought ‘I want’ vanishes. We

wrongly attribute the joy of the removal of the ‘I want’

thought, to the object itself. We can sum up the reasons

which establish that the object cannot be the source of

happiness:

1. Excess of any object is only a pain. So the source of

happiness cannot be the object.

2. What pleases one person does not please the other

person. So happiness is not the absolute prerogative of any

object.

3. When you have a bad experience with an object the joy

‘from’ the object is gone. So the happiness supposedly

derived ‘from’ an object is dependent on the context.

4. When the mind meets with obstacles in reaching the

object, it willingly seeks another alternative. So the

happiness which is supposed to have been with the first

object is already negated.

 

Thus it is the superimposition of the idea that happiness

is in the object is what is wrong. When the ‘I want’

thought is gone, the next thought ‘I want’ comes a little

later. In that pause there is happiness. Happiness

ascribed to drugs or addiction is only an effect of the

fact that number of thoughts is reduced by the drug effect.

It is in fact a total delusion. Sleep also takes you to

that state of bliss by reducing the number of thoughts to

nil. When you are ‘happily’ involved in a hobby, then also

you express yourself in that action connected with the

hobby and this expression is the source of that streak of

happiness. In all cases when a little happiness is tasted,

all that joy is because of the presence of the Self.

 

Meditation is to be willingly done to reduce thoughts and

purify them. By developing noble values of life we move

closer to the Self and then such a meditation comes to us

naturally. When you love, when you forgive, when you

tolerate, you are closer to the Self. The *AtyantikaM

sukham* (endless bliss) is reachable only along this path.

Such a one is not any more be perturbed by sorrows, even

the toughest of them. *guruNA api duHkhena na vichAlyate*.

Such a one alone is capable of giving joy to others.

Borrowed joy has only to be sorrowful. It has to be one’s

own joy. When mind is in that state of Own Natural Bliss,

automatically it permeates in the environment and all

sorrow vanishes. ‘prasAde sarva duHkhAnAM ...’ (II– 65).

 

_______

 

praNAms to all the advaitins on this list and to Swami

Ishwarananda.

profvk