Prof Anil Kumar How we can achieve Permanant Happiness & Swami's Reply

[Guest guest]

Prof. Anil Kumar: Swami! Kindly let us know how we can achieve anandaprapti, permanent happiness, and removal of suffering, dukhanivrutti.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bhagavan: These two levels of consciousness are not separate from each other, as you have stated. When suffering is removed, you derive happiness. Absence of happiness is the cause of misery.. Both are interrelated. Absence of light is darkness: Where there is light there is no darkness. Absence of one of the two is the presence of the other. So, if you explore the methods of removing suffering, happiness naturally and automatically dawns. If you investigate the reason for misery, you will know that ignorance is the cause of all misery. What is responsible for ignorance? It is the ego. What is ego? It is attachment. What is attachment? It is the body, consciousness. So, misery occurs due to attachment to the body. But, one can be happy physically as well as spiritually if one's senses are under one's control. In fact, sadness is not natural to man. Therefore, methods have to be found out to remove sadness, which is

artificial. Misery can be removed only by prayer and by following the spiritual path. If idle horses are overfed, they will be still lazier. Similarly, if you act according to the whims and fancies of your senses, your senses will get strengthened day by day and ultimately you will cease to be a human being.Man faces three types of miseries - adhyatmika, adhibhautika and adhidaivika. Adhyatmika miseries are physical and mental. Physical suffering makes you mentally sick. Your mental irregularities add to your physical sickness. Therefore, physical and mental sufferings are branded as adhyatmika. The second one is the suffering called adhibhautika, which is caused due to a snakebite or a scorpion bite or injuries inflicted by animals and other creatures.. The third type of misery called adhidaivika befalls due to cyclones, floods, earthquakes, fire accidents and various other natural

calamities.

Primarily you should know that the mind is the cause of both pleasure and pain. If your mind is positive, it doesn't matter if you are either at your home or in a forest. You should fill your mind with love. With constant thought of God, developing more and more of faith in Him, and following the spiritual path, you can undoubtedly remove your suffering. Of course, control of senses is absolutely necessary.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you understand your true self, atma, you will have ananda, bliss. Bliss is the state, which is above pain and pleasure - bliss is non-dual. This is also called prajna. Since prajna is vast, the scripture says, Prajnanam Brahma. Prajna is divine. Prajna is uniformly present in the body, the mind and the intellect. Prajna is also known as antarvani, the inner voice. By exercising control over external and internal sense, you can listen to your antarvani. If you follow and act according to your Inner Voice, you will be blissful.Janma or birth is responsible for all misery. Where there is no janma there is no chance for either pleasure or pain. However, janma is due to karma, the consequence of past actions. For karma, the causes are raga, attachment and dvesa,

hatred. You take to an activity only if or when you like it, or prefer it to some other activity, otherwise not. Isn't it? So all actions are born of either of these two states of mind, raga and dvesa. They in turn arise out of ahamkara, ego and ajnana, ignorance... Ajnana is the main cause of misery. Ignorance goes away only if ego is given up. For ego to be dropped one must rise above attachment and hatred; for these two to vanish there should be akarma, inaction, because these actions and their consequences lead to punarjanma, rebirth. As the Bhajagovindam of Adi Sankara states: Punarapi jananam punarapi maranam punarapijanani jathare sayanam, "one takes birth life after life, lying in the womb of the mother, again and again after deathâ€. Birth and death are responsible for all the misery. In fact, one should follow the spiritual path in life not to be born again.

Instead of consuming sugar, you can become sugar itself! This is the sugar of ananda, bliss. This is the sugar of liberation. This is the sugar of sayujya, merger with God. Therefore, mukti, liberation, is the only solution for the alleviation of suffering.The happiness that you get from listening to a person whom you like, or hearing about an article that you wished to acquire is described as priyam, pleasure.. When you actually get what you really want, that is called modam, joy. The experience of joy after acquiring what you want is called pramodam, supreme joy. If anybody starts talking to you about what is dear to you, you will be happy. So it is called priyam. If you see or meet those who are dear to you, you will be extremely happy. This is called modam. On receiving and possessing what is dearest to you, your experience is described as pramodam.When

you hear of the divine power from great epics like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata and of the leelas of God incarnate and devotion celebrated in Bhagavata, and other texts, you will be very happy. This is priyam. If you practice all that you have heard from these immortal books, you will derive a kind of joy described as modam. If you identify yourself with the divinity and merge in it, the supreme bliss you get out of it is called pramodam.

 

 

 

 

 

You do not have to sacrifice the world, You have to give up worldly thoughts and feelings.You do not have to sacrifice your properties, but you must establish proper-ties with God.

So one has to hear about God, priyam in the first stage, practice all that is heard, modam in the second stage and finally experience the bliss thereafter, pramodam in the third stage. This is anandaprapti, the way to be blissful.----------------

 

Ram ChuganiKobe, Japan