Talks with Ramana Maharshi - February 4th 1935, #7

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D. What is happiness? Is it inhering in the Atman or in the object, or in the contact between the subject and the object? But we do not see happiness in our affairs. When does it actually arise?

 

 

Maharshi: When there is contact of a desirable sort or its memory, and when there is freedom from undesirable contacts or their memory, we say there is happiness. Such happiness is relative and is more appropriately called pleasure.

 

But people want absolute and permanent happiness. This does not reside in objects, but in the Absolute. It is Peace from pain and pleasure - a neutral state.

 

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Talks with Ramana Maharshi InnerDirections Publishing, 2000 page 25

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