by
H.H. Sri Swami Chidananda
World President
The Divine Life Society
Pleasure Is Not Happiness
Man�s Triune Nature
The Mental Ferment
The Mechanics Of Sense Satisfaction
Instances Of Irrational Rationality
The Tumult Of The Senses Vs. The Music Of The Soul
Bliss Is Thy Nature � Bliss Is Thy Heritage
Your Unhappiness Is Your Own Creation
Develop Virtue: You Develop Happiness
The Higher Happiness Of Your True Being
Beloved Immortal Souls! I deem it a great pleasure and blessedness that God has given me this unique opportunity of being of some service to you, seeking and aspiring souls upon this earth-plane, and for this privilege I thank Him who is the Indweller of you all, the Source of our very existence, the all-pervading Presence enveloping this very universe, who is amongst us invisibly even at this moment and who blesses us.
"The Path Beyond Sorrow" is the title that suggested itself to me by chance, when I saw a little booklet of quotations from various sources � little sayings from different scriptures about the problem of the human being. Actually, it could very well have been worded "The Path to God", for it does not require to be told that the ultimate cause of all sorrow is that we have forgotten our eternal link with the perennial source of infinite joy, of never-ending happiness. Cutting ourselves from one who is the granter of supreme bliss, who is more than all the happiness of the entire universe, we naturally feel that separation. We feel deprived of that experience which He is. Bliss is in the Eternal Reality, that great Truth, which alone is changeless, timeless, is forever and real. Deprived of our living contact with that Bliss, separation is experienced as sorrow. That only source of true happiness being cut out of our life in a living way, we quest after happiness.
It is a paradoxical situation � happiness being sought in all directions except in that one where it is to be found definitely and unfailingly.
When we observe life on the human plane, what do we see? Everyone is in constant quest of true happiness. Happiness is the quest of smiles; we have concealed sighs and sorrows, much grief and disappointment. Why? Why is this phenomenon observed everywhere in the world? This question has been pondered over, has been investigated, and we have been answered. With the dawn of discrimination, we come to realise that we have done something very foolish, because we have missed the path, which leads to happiness, and strayed off into the by-paths of pleasures. Happiness is one thing; mere pleasure is another. Missing the path to happiness and wandering off into the by-paths of pleasures, we are, as it were, lost beings wandering in a jungle where we do not know the correct direction to take, the correct path to pursue, to reach the destination.
Why did we miss our way? Why this wandering in search of true happiness on the part of all people and their seeming inability to find that after which they quest? It is because the great majority of them never make the right start. Before starting on the search for happiness, one never gets clear as to what is the nature of this happiness one is after and wherein does it lie. Without knowing the destination, without knowing exactly what we wish to obtain, we have started this seeking just because that has been the pattern into which we are born. We are born into a world where all beings everywhere around us are going after something, behaving in a certain way, and we think, "I am born among people living like this and I also have to live like this"; and so that pattern has become an automatic pattern with everyone. We are born into a way of life. We have entered into a current which leads us just where it has been leading the people here from time immemorial � into a whirlpool of disappointments, tears, disillusionments, pains and sufferings, which are inevitable in this embodied state upon this earth-plane. Pleasures can never bring true happiness, because the very nature of pleasure is that it is an experience derived from contacts with sense-objects; and quite naturally, it partakes of the imperfections that are inherent in the sense-objects.
All objects are conditioned in space and time. They are neither permanent nor perfect. They are full of defects; they change; they pass away, and they give experiences, which are mixed, which are not unalloyed. All pleasures are imperfect, because they spring out of objects, which are themselves, imperfect. These sense experiences are of very doubtful value and they are mixed with various side effects. Every contact-born sense experience inevitably has bound up with it a reaction. If you are eating something very tasty beyond your limits, even as you taste it, there is a fear that perhaps tomorrow you will have to take a pill or a dose. Every sense experience has a reaction, which brings in anxiety and lack of peace of mind. In the ultimate analysis, these sense experiences turn out to be purely negative experiences; they do not deserve the name of pleasure or happiness at all. They are not positive experiences at all.
Man is a being partaking of a triune nature. As an intelligent human being, you have, at the same time, a part which is very base in its expression and full of gross propensities � desire, passion, sensuality, greed, anger, blindness. This is more or less on the level of the brute existence, though it is an inevitable part of the human being � a gross, sensual, animalistic nature. Man is a thinking animal, and it is said that he is essentially an animal having the same urges, the same sensual drives as the sub-human species, but endowed with the superior faculty of rationality � thought � intelligent thought, selective and discriminative thought. That is what makes you a human being, but the physical part of you is animal. Then you have within yourself your true, essential being which is totally forgotten, totally neglected, never heeded, crowded into a corner and entirely overcome by the rational human aspects and the base, gross, animalistic aspects of your being. This three-fold nature goes to make up what you yourself know as "I".
That particular element in you which makes you human is the mind. It is a doubtful bestowal by God upon individual soul. It is not a too happy thing to have, for, rationality and intelligence, though no doubt good, are for the most part never utilized, never properly exercised as they ought to be. In most people, intelligence is not exercised at all. And in those people who do exercise it, it is usually the co-operative partner to sensual man for devising ways and means of satisfying the senses, of feeding all the cravings of the senses. The human mind, the intellectual operation of which is a part of its function, is characterized by never-ending desires. The mind is never still, even for a single moment, except for the short time when you sink into the deep-sleep state. Except for this period, the mind is constantly active and in a state of ferment. You are not aware of this ferment, because you are constantly kept active through it. Most of it is concerned with the immediate fulfillment of desires and, therefore, you are not aware of it. If you try to check the outgoing activities of your mind for a time and try to watch your mind, then the terrible nature of its constant activity � constant irritation and restlessness due to desire � becomes apparent and you know what a thing you have in the mind. This desire-filled and ever fluctuating mind is the root cause for going outward in search of impermanent sense pleasures.
THE MECHANICS OF SENSE SATISFACTION
What happens is this. There arises a desire, a craving is created, and then you are urged to go after some sense-object in order to satisfy the craving and you feel that it has been enjoyable. You tell yourself: "I have felt pleasure. I have enjoyed the sense-object". Actually, this so-called experience which you have undergone is not a positive experience of enjoyment at all. It is just an illusion. The actual experience, in fact, if you examine it, is this � the experience you get at the end of an activity to obtain a sense-object is but the momentary quiescence that ensues in the mind as a result of the corresponding desire-urge having subsided for the time being. When desire arose and craving filled the mind, the mind was thrown into a violent state of restlessness; it lost its peace, its serenity and calmness. As long as the craving was there, the mind was restless, was agitated, and when that object was obtained, the sense took it in. It may have been the sense of taste or the sense of sight or hearing or touch or smell � the sense took it in. And the craving having been satisfied, the agitation or restlessness in the mind, which this craving originally caused, subsided for the time being. And you think, when you vicariously superimpose this fine feeling (this momentary restfulness due to the subsiding of the sense craving) upon your sense-contact with the object, that you have derived this fine feeling from the object. The fact is that this experience of sense-satisfaction has not been derived from the object. The experience you have derived is the negative phenomenon of having got rid of an agitation in the mind. So, when you get rid of an agitation in the mind, you think you have enjoyed a positive experience, but it is just the negative experience of getting rid of a certain fire within, namely, the agitation of a craving.
Actually, it is a peaceful mind, an unagitated mind, that is the condition of true happiness. And an unagitated mind is never in one�s possession, unless one realizes that all experiences born out of the contact of objects outside of ourselves are negative, having no positive value. The reflected experience they give to the mind is only a cessation of the mental craving and agitation for the time being; and because there is a close tie-in, a coincidence, between the sense contacting the sense-object and the immediate sense of satisfaction, we think that these two have a connection. Actually, it is because the mind has now once again obtained its calmness that you are immediately put into a state of satisfaction.
Supposing you have been exposed on an ice-cold winter�s day, immediately, you come into a room and warm yourself before a fire, take a warm drink, cover yourself with a hot blanket, and say, "Oh, such wonderful pleasure now!" Actually, what has happened is that the discomfort, the painful experience of cold, has been removed by these three things � warming yourself, covering yourself, and taking a cup of something hot � and you think this is a pleasure. But for someone, who is already in the room and has not had the negative experience of the cold, these things would not hold the special value, which they held for you, because in your case the cessation of pain was taken to be pleasure. If you use your intellect and analyse all the contact-born experiences a human being goes through, you will find that they are all just the removal of some painful experience or other, though man deludes himself into thinking that they are of a positive nature. When you feel very hot, to take a plunge seems a refreshing experience; or to go to a soda fountain and take a cold milk shake or Coca-Cola seems wonderful. It is because you have come out of a very hot place where you have been uncomfortable and perhaps perspiring. When you take the cold drink, it seems wonderful; but what has actually happened is that for the time being you have removed the painful experience of heat and perspiration. Every experience obtained from contact with objects outside of ourselves partakes of this nature and, together with the momentary removal of the painful experience immediately preceding it, it also contains within itself the power to give you certain positive reactions. You may sit down to a fine dinner and enjoy it. What has actually happened is: it was preceded by the painful experience of hunger, and by eating the dinner, you have satisfied your hunger and you think that your sense of fulfillment has actually come from the food which you have eaten at the table. While the dinner appealed to you because you were hungry, to another person who was not hungry and felt no desire for food, it would not have given pleasure. He would have turned away from it saying, "No, thank you. I don�t want anything". For him there is no pleasure, as he has not come with that painful experience called �hunger� with which you drew near to the table. If that painful experience had been in him also, he would have enjoyed the dinner equally. So, the so-called pleasurable experiences of this world are nothing but the removal of painful experiences immediately preceding them.
This is the very nature of contact-born pleasure. Lord Krishna, who is one of the Great Messengers and who graced this earth, says in His universal gospel, the Gita, "All pleasures, O man, contact-born, are the source of pain". And, what are our pleasures if not contact-born? Contact of the tongue with a tasty dish, contact of the hand with some object pleasant to touch, contact of our eyes with something beautiful to look at, contact of our ears with sweet, melodious and endearing things to hear, contact of our nose with nice and fragrant things � these are our pleasurable experiences. If unpleasant things are given to us, we are immediately thrown into a state of sorrow. With pleasant objects contacted by the senses, once we become attached to them, the removal or separation of those objects (which have become dear to us due to our becoming attached to them) brings misery, pain. Also, sometimes, the very object, which attracted us in one state, when it changes its condition, becomes an object of pain. Thus, to be brought into contact with things, which are not pleasing � that is sorrow; to be separated from things, which are pleasant and pleasing � that is sorrow. And, if a thing, which was pleasant, changes its nature, that also becomes sorrow. So, all contacts with outside objects have within themselves the seeds of sorrow. They are the potent source of latent sorrow, and also, they have a beginning and an end. Therefore, the man of wisdom is never happy with them. He does not take pleasure in these outside things, because he has analysed and known the nature of these things; and he says, "No, all contact-born experiences are negative. They are not positive experiences at all. Also, they are accompanied by reaction. They have a beginning and an end". Objects themselves are imperfect; therefore, the experience gained from these objects is also imperfect, because you cannot have a perfect experience from a thing, which is not perfect. Therefore, a wise one does not take delight in these things.
INSTANCES OF IRRATIONAL RATIONALITY
How many are wise? How many use the intellect rationally? We have to analyse the objects of this universe. We have to see them, not as they appear to be, but as they truly are and analyse the experiences from the objects as they really are and not as we perceive them in a state of non-discrimination. We have to enquire. This intelligence which God has given us we must use; and use rationally, not with bias.
If you use this intellect with bias, since it is already in league with the senses, is already a slave to the sensual urges, it will give you wrong conclusions only. It cannot give you the right conclusions. Your rationality may be real and correct, but at the same time, it can be a very �irrational rationality� � a sort of pseudo-rationality. It seems paradoxical, but there are very funny stories told in the ancient Indian Puranas to bring out how a person can use his intelligence, yet use it foolishly. They give the example of a very typical being � a young man � who had this type of intellect. He went to cut wood and climbed a tree and went out on a large branch and started cutting the branch. He observed it and said, "The branch is thickest where it is nearest to the main trunk of the tree; and it tapers off toward the end and that part is thinner than the part on which I am sitting. So, I shall get more wood if I cut it off nearest to the trunk of the tree". He turned around to sit on the thinner portion in order to get more wood by cutting more closely to the trunk of the tree. Someone came by and called to the man, saying, "What are you doing? It is foolish the way you are cutting that branch". But the man replied, "It is no business of yours. I know what I am doing. I have given it careful thought and calculation. I don�t want to be fooled by this tree. I want to take as much wood as possible". So he hacked on and on until the branch came down and he with it. He was a person who did use his intelligence. He figured it out and he thought that he would get more wood this way and he was quite correct, but there seems to have been something that was not at all rational. This characterises great many types of intelligence.
At another time, a man was asked to look after his very old and senile grandmother. India, like all tropics, is a land of mosquitoes and flies, and the man was diligently fanning his grandmother. But many flies persisted in sitting upon her, even though the man fanned vigorously. He finally said, "Look here, do not bother my grandmother," and continued fanning her vigorously. Eventually he became extremely annoyed with the persistence of the flies and said, "Look here, if you are not going to obey me, I am going to teach you a lesson"; and after a few more moments of vigorous fanning and the equally vigorous persistence of the flies, he looked over and saw a wooden club and he picked up this club and said, "Do you flies think you are more intelligent than I?" So saying, and carefully aiming the club at one fly, he smacked the fly and brained his old grandmother in the process! Most of us are clever, very clever, but we start with fundamental errors. The man should have known whether the life of his grandmother was more important or the killing of the fly. But he did not, and we laugh at him. At the same time, we make the same error of judgement.
THE TUMULT OF THE SENSES VS. THE MUSIC OF THE SOUL
It is peace of mind, which is the condition prerequisite for the experience of true happiness. Is that not more important than the removal of a little restlessness and craving, a little agitation caused by desire? Which is the more important? You may say: "If desires come, we have to satisfy them. That is the way to remove them and that is the way to get pleasures". So saying, you remove the �fly� of desire rather than protect the �grandmother� of true peace of mind by which alone you can find happiness. Real happiness comes out of peace. When the mind is tranquil, serene and peaceful, bliss wells up from within you. You do not have to manufacture happiness, for it does not lie outside of you. Happiness is not in changeful, perishable objects which are merely material. True happiness is right here where you are sitting. You are yourself happiness. Happiness is your essential nature. That aspect of your being which completely transcends your sense nature and your mental desire-nature � that third aspect of your true being, your real nature, is, in one word, bliss � pure bliss. If you want me to define what you are, I say you are pure, unalloyed, absolute bliss. That is the stuff of the soul. The soul is bliss; it is ecstasy, peerless joy. Even as this table is made of wood, even as your very clothes are made of wool or cotton, even as the very stuff of candy is sugar � the very stuff and fabric of your true nature, the true "I" deep within you, in the very centre of your consciousness, that is bliss. You are your Self, the Atma. You are Spirit, a never-ending, perennial fountain of spontaneous, self-existent joy and happiness. You are not this body, mind and intellect.
The East views the individual being in a totally different light from the West. The West says, "Man is an animal endowed with a superior faculty called intelligence". The East says, "Man is a glorious, ever-perfect spiritual entity, full of light, full of bliss, and possessing an inferior faculty called intelligence or mind which is his servant, which is his instrument". Mind is but the medium that God has given you so that the joy, the beauty and perfection of your Self may be expressed, unfolded, made manifest upon this earth-plane, but you have made a travesty of your life. The normal human being lives a life of prostitution, by which I mean, he totally forgets and neglects his glorious spiritual nature and prostitutes all his energies in satisfying the animal within him. The pattern of his whole life is just a constant effort to satisfy the sensual urges of the animal within him. Nice things to collect, nice things to wear, nice things to see, nice things to enjoy � pleasure, pleasure, pleasure � and happiness is destroyed, as it were, in a constant round of pleasures. There is so much noise through the tumult of the senses that the music of the soul, though it is always there, just gets killed completely.
The great joy of my message to you is � nothing can destroy this happiness, because it is imperishable. In your true nature, you are indestructible; you are imperishable. So, the joy that you are is also imperishable, indestructible; nothing can touch it. No sorrow can penetrate that exalted realm where you dwell as pure bliss, right within the very centre of your being, the innermost core of your consciousness where dwells the true "I".
BLISS IS THY NATURE � BLISS IS THY HERITAGE
This name and form, this Mr. So-and-So, this Mrs. So-and-So, this is not the true �you�. It is just a personality superimposed upon your true being by your parents. They gave you a name. They called you �this� and they called you �that�, but this name-form personality is not the true you. Changeless from childhood, into youth, into adulthood, into middle age, into old age is that "I" which is within you. It was within you when you were an infant; it was within you when you were a child running here and there; it was within you when you began to grow. It was within you when you were an adult and lost your peace of mind by going after pleasurable objects; it was within you when you became weighed down with the responsibility of a householder�s life; and it will be within you when you come to experience old age. This unchanging "I" within � try to find out what it is. Give yourself a chance of turning within, a chance of stilling the mind and not allowing it to go externally towards objects. And then look within and try to find in silence, in a little peace, the "I", and you will find that the real "I" within is peace, bliss, all-light, all-fullness. There, there is no need, no want. You do not feel any lack of sufficiency there. It is all-full and no desire permeates that sacred realm, for it is an experience of all-fullness. Every one of you can possess this supreme experience of all-fullness, all-joy and peace right now, right here; it does not have to be manufactured. You do not have to go out of yourself somewhere in order to reach that blessed state. It is your birthright. It is your privilege and prerogative to claim. Stop being a slave to the senses and stop this ceaseless running outside towards petty and imperfect objects and be silent with your Self and know that you are bliss, know that you are fullness. Rise above desire and be aware of your true nature, which is incomparable bliss, which is indescribable happiness.
This incomparable bliss is within the reach of every single human being, from the very fact of your being a human being. It is your claim. It is your heritage from your Divine origin. You are all from that perennial source of Infinite Bliss, which people call "God", which people call "The Supreme", "The Reality", "The Truth", "The Spirit". Call It what you may; approach It however you will; worship It in whatever way you want to � it does not matter. But know that It is right here within you: that perennial and changeless source of ineffable and indescribable bliss and joy. It requires nothing to attain; only willingness on your part to give away that which is petty, that which is paltry, and to aspire for and seek that which is incomparable, which is peerless � the "I" within you, which is your true essential nature.
The first condition is to make use of your intelligence and try not to be deluded by the attractive objects of the senses. They will lead you on a merry-go-round, a wild goose chase, which never ends, for pleasures, you see, can never be subdued by satisfaction. The enjoyment of sense pleasures tends only to accentuate the desire for them. Enjoyment intensifies craving. You cannot put an end to desires that way. You can put an end to them only by awakening to a higher sense of discrimination and knowing the sense-objects for what they are worth, saying, "I, who have been made in the spiritual image of my Divine Parent, will disdain to go after these paltry things which are like bones thrown before a dog. I am the son of the Emperor of emperors and I shall claim my priceless heritage and not go after paltry things". And, if you do that, if you discriminate and reject that which is paltry, you become heir to that which is of supreme splendour.
Inner renunciation implies discrimination between what is really happiness and what is merely an appearance, and rejection of that which is not of the essential nature of happiness and turning away from it mentally. Mental renunciation born of discrimination � that is the secret of this spiritual quest. That is the starting point of the path beyond sorrow. In one of the greatest Upanishads, the teaching comes to us: "O man, before each human being there always present themselves two paths � one which is merely attractive and seemingly pleasant, and the other which leads towards the good, towards your true welfare". The unthinking one easily succumbs to the route of that which is pleasant and seemingly attractive; and thus he misses his own welfare, his own good. Whereas, the one who is wise, with discrimination awakened within him, examines the two paths and finds out the true nature of the apparently attractive and pleasant, and rejects it and always takes the other path, which takes him towards the good, and there he finds his welfare. There he finds true happiness. This choice of paths presents itself to every one of you, every day, always, all through your life, from the very beginning. And upon you alone will depend what path you take � whether you are lured away by that, which is pleasant and apparently attractive, or whether you have within you the light of discrimination, which irresistibly takes you towards that which is good, which leads towards your welfare.
YOUR UNHAPPINESS IS YOUR OWN CREATION
This unhappiness is your own creation. It is self-created. It is due to non-discrimination and due to your having become the slave of your own senses. And therefore, what you have yourself caused, you have it within your own power to cast aside. So, even as your sorrow has been self-caused, your happiness too can be self obtained through your own efforts. It does not have to be self-created, because it is there already. It has only to be grasped and this is in your own hands. You are the one who has to move towards that which is awaiting you to experience it.
DEVELOP VIRTUE: YOU DEVELOP HAPPINESS
How can you set about doing it? The basic thing is that happiness springs out of a life of virtue. That is what the great Science of Yoga tells you. There cannot be happiness without virtue. Here, I wish to make it quite plain that I am not sermonizing. Someone told me, "In the West, people do not like sermonizing. Don�t sermonize". Well, I cannot completely fulfil that wish, for to some extent, this humble servant who stands before you and speaks to you at this moment does sermonize; but then, this sermonizing is of a different variety. He does not sermonize from a pedestal, but rather as someone humbler than yourself, but who has been given a message to convey and, as your servant, he presents it to you. Also, if I do sermonize, it is not that I say, "Oh, you are all sinners. You have all gone to a degenerate state". Rather I say, "Look at the glory that is already in your possession. Why don�t you claim it?" I am telling you what a wonderful thing you are missing. Do not miss it! Now is the time! This unique opportunity of a human birth has been given to you to obtain something which is grand and which is glorious. Delay not! Why should you prolong your bondage because of desires? Why not assert your essential master-nature and claim that glory which is already there? This I would not call sermonizing. And, when I say that virtue is the essential condition for obtaining this happiness, I just acquaint you with a great law. It is not merely a psychological law, but also a spiritual law, for virtue refines your nature. Your nature always manifests itself, expresses itself, upon a threefold plane � the plane of body, an interior plane about which you do not know (there is a plane of psychic energy within, which makes this body active, dynamic, and function), and the third plane of your mind where thoughts, ideas and desires constantly keep operating. And virtue is that factor, that force in your life, which refines your entire being on all the three planes. It refines the physical, it refines the psychic within, and it refines your mind; and it is only in a mind thus refined and made pure that steadiness, balance and absence of desire become possible.
You may try your hardest, but from a mind that is not pure, you cannot drive out desires, because mental impurity and desire are synonymous terms. Passion and impurity tend to put your entire being into a state of agitation on the three levels upon which I have commented. It is the nature of passion to agitate. Likewise, it is the very nature of purity to steady, to sustain, to strengthen and to make inward.
Therefore, it is a deep psycho-spiritual truth that the practice of virtues like purity, simplicity, truth, compassion, selflessness, humility, removal of greed, and removal of envy and jealousy and prejudice brings about a slow transformation in all your nature and makes it refined, subtle and pure; and with the advent of purity, the condition of the mind undergoes a change. That mind which was restlessly plunging outward towards objects of the senses, begins to go inward, begins to develop calmness. I do not want to use the term "introverted"; actually the mind becomes inward � it is no longer filled with the tendency to become externalized. With the mind thus collected within through purity, you slowly begin to have little glimpses of the true happiness that springs from your own inner Self.
These are old-fashioned recipes; but they are the only effective recipes. One cannot be impure and hope to have happiness. One cannot cling to objects in blind delusion and attachment and yet hope to have happiness. You cannot, out of your selfishness and hardness, cause pain and sorrow to others and at the same time hope to have happiness for yourself. The more you give happiness to others, the more you get happiness. This is the law. The refinement of one�s nature, the culture and purity of one�s whole personality � that is the indispensable prerequisite for the dawn of happiness in one�s life.
Thus happiness is the product of selflessness; the product of negating the constant pull of the senses, the product of virtue actively practised in your everyday life. This law has always been there and it will continue to operate in human nature as long as humanity exists, and this is the only effective recipe. If you are pure, all the unhappiness that comes out of the guilt of impure living is gone. If you are simple, all the complications and frustrations arising out of a desire-ridden personality are gone. A simple life immediately relieves you from the strain of constant desires. If you are truthful, you can yourself know that the whole world of constant fear and anxiety which follows untruth is immediately gone. One untruth, and to protect it you have to repeat a dozen untruths, and then your mind is in a constant state of fear and anxiety: "If found out, what will be the result?" By sticking to truth, you totally eliminate all the fear and anxiety and unhappiness which untruth or falsehood puts you into.
Then, contentment. When you are contented, you are the richest person in the whole world. You do not have any jealousy. When you are fully contented with what you have, you do not envy others who have more than what you have. Rather, you rejoice in the good fortune of others.
THE HIGHER HAPPINESS OF YOUR TRUE BEING
Thus, developing virtues is the direct way to experience happiness on the lower psychological level. But on a higher level, this is not enough. You should not be satisfied with the happiness that you get on the mental level, though even that experience you will find most exhilarating. That itself is a great gain, but still greater is the happiness that you should aim at. That greater happiness is the happiness of your true being, of your real nature, of the Spirit within, and that comes by constantly being above body, above senses, above mind and intellect. Beyond all these is the eternal, changeless, silent Witness (Consciousness) of all the changeful modes of these lower aspects of your being.
You are not the mind; the mind is your instrument. You are not the body and the senses; the body and the senses are but your external apparel. They are just your covering, your material sheath. More glorious than all, supremely transcending all, You are there within as an untouched spiritual personality, which is Divinity Itself. Infinite Bliss is Its very nature. No sorrow, no fear, no desire, can ever touch It. Therefore, try to go into a little calm, silent, inward Meditation every day. Feel yourself as you really are. Once you get even a moment of that experience, once you get even a little glimpse of that experience, you will never give up Meditation. You may give up your eating and drinking, but you will not lose this opportunity of being silent, going inward and knowing yourself as you really are.
Inward, within yourself, lies the Path Beyond Sorrow, the path to perennial joy, the path to the real happiness in the truest sense of the term. It is an unalloyed experience of joy totally devoid of any painful reaction, of any imperfection, of even the least vestige of any material earthly blemish. It is a perfect condition of joy, full of peace, full of ineffable light and satisfaction within. And it is within the power of every one of you to tread this Path Beyond Sorrow. It does not require special qualifications. You do not have to be an aristocrat. You do not have to be a man with a fat bank balance. You do not have to have an M.A. or a doctorate degree. God, as He has made you a human being, has given you all the faculties necessary for this inward practice, for this wonderful gain of true happiness. The only condition is that the paltry has to be rejected and the glorious has to be accepted as your ideal, as the object of your quest in life, as the central seeking. Make that your goal. Make the realization of the Truth within, the God within you, your True Nature, the central goal of your life. Let all other things be secondary to it; let this quest be the main thing. You will begin to experience it, begin to get a glimpse of that joy right from the first day you start this inward quest through discrimination, through inquiry into the real nature of things, through mental renunciation of that which is paltry, and through deep faith in yourself, in your own powers to ascend unto this experience, and deep devotion to this quest, to this ideal, and daily effort through calm contemplation and Meditation. This is the supreme panacea. This is the destroyer of all sorrow, all pain. This will give you the great experience here and now, not in some other state after you have passed the barrier of death. This experience has to be right here and now, in this life, so that you go out of this life gloriously, triumphantly, as a Master, laughing with joy. That should be your destiny. That should be the great purpose of your life. No fear of death. No fear of anything at all, for you are deathless by your very nature.
We have to reject only those which destroy our happiness, and when we reject these little sense pleasures and objects, we are not rejecting anything at all. On the contrary, we are doing the wisest thing, for we know them to be those factors that rob us of our happiness and, therefore, we reject them. We do not reject things of worth, but we reject only those factors that are the real enemies of true happiness, factors that stand in the way of our getting the Supreme Experience, factors that destroy the real happiness by a spurious substitute in the nature of some sense experience which is not at all genuine and which is not a positive experience at all. Establish your life, therefore, upon intelligence, common sense, and true discrimination. Use intelligence in a true and rational way and know that objects do not give the Supreme Experience. So, build your life upon discrimination, constantly inquiring into what is real, what is unreal, what is perishable, what is imperishable, what is paltry and changeful and evanescent and what is true, everlasting and changeless. Thus discriminating, always move towards that which is eternal, that which is perfect, that which is enduring and real, and reject all that is of a contrary nature. That is the heroic life.
God bless you. May the Eternal Indweller shower upon you His divine grace and may all the great saints and sages of East and West, bygone as well as present, shower their blessings upon you and give you inspiration, the strength to tread this path that leads to the Supreme Blessedness, Supreme Joy, and put you in possession of this great joy right here and now in this very life. That is the sincerest wish and heart�s prayer of this most humble servant of yours, a brother-seeker on the path that leads beyond sorrow to the supreme Atmic (Soul) experience, to the Truth experience, to the realization of the Bliss within. May God bless you all.
Footnote
This article has been extracted from the book "The Path Beyond Sorrow" which is a compilation of a series of lectures delivered by His Holiness Swami Chidananda in Canada in the year 1960.
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