Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Conscious freedom from Pleasure & Pain by Swami Sivananda


Conscious freedom   from Pleasure & Pain
by Swami Sivananda  


THE PHYSICAL WORLD

There are only facts, vibrations or phenomena outside. Prakriti (nature) is blind. Prakriti is quite indifferent.

There is neither pleasure nor pain in objects. It is all mental creation, mental perception, mental jugglery. It is only the mental attitude or certain kind of mental behaviour towards objects that brings joy or grief, pleasure and pain.

Maya has her powerful seat in the imagination of the mind.

Mind always runs after pleasure, because it is born of Ananda Brahman. You love a mango, because it affords you pleasure. Of all things, you love your own self most. This love of the self gives the clue to the fact that Ananda or bliss must be the nature of the Self.
  
PLEASURE AND PAIN

Pleasure arising from external objects is evanescent, transitory and fleeting. It is mere nerve-titillation and mental deception. Jiva (the human being, the incarnated in a body soul) joins with mind and Vritti and enjoys the sense-objects. The thing that gives you pleasure gives you pain also.

It is difficult to divert the mind which, from infancy, has fallen into the pernicious habit of seeking external pleasure and it shall ever persist in doing so, unless you give it something superior to be amused with, a greater form of pleasure to delight in.

Pleasure is a particular kind of feeling in the mind. The mind expands during pleasure. Coolness prevails in the mind; during pain, the mind contracts. Considerable heat is produced in the mind.

No true, lasting satisfaction comes from the enjoyment of worldly objects. Yet, people rush headlong towards objects even when they know that the objects are unreal and the world is full of miseries. That is Maya
  
IMAGINATION

Pleasure and pain, beauty and ugliness are all false imaginations of the mind. Mind is a false illusory product. Conceptions of the mind also must, therefore, be false. They are all like a mirage in the desert. What is beautiful for you is ugly for another. Beauty and ugliness are relative terms. Beauty is only a mental concept. It is only a mental projection.

Real beauty is in the Self only.

Pleasure and beauty reside in the mind and not in the objects. Mango is not sweet; the idea of mango is sweet. It is all Vritti. It is all mental deception, mental conception, mental creation.

Destroy the Vritti; beauty vanishes. The husband stretches his own idea of beauty in his ugly wife and finds his wife very beautiful through passion.

PLEASURE AND CHILDREN

Some say that children are very happy. It is wrong. They only become exuberant. They get
serious reaction also. They have no balanced mind. They weep for hours together for nothing at all.

It is only a man of balanced mind that can really be happy.


THE WHEEL OF SAMSARA

·         From experience of pleasure samskaras (impressions) are embedded in the subconscious mind (Chitta) (The seed of Samskaras are imbedded in the Karana Sarira (Causal body)
·         From Samskaras emanate subtle desires Vasanas like swarms of locusts.
·         From Vasana flows the stream of desire for sensual indulgence.
·         From enjoyment of objects of desires arises internal craving and memory of pleasures.
·         Then the mind thinks and imagines of objects again and again.
·         Thus attachment is created.
·         Imagination plays a great deal in this process. Maya has her powerful seat in the imagination.
·         The mind plans and schemes. You are swayed by the passions.
·         You exert yourself physically to possess those objects and enjoy them. In your efforts, you favour some and disfavor others through like-dislike (Raga and Dvesha).
·         You will have to enjoy the fruits of your virtuous and vicious actions.

Through this six-spoked wheel of: Raga-Dvesha,  virtue-Vice and Pleasure-pain, this Samsaric wheel of birth and death moves on without stopping from beginningless time.

From Avidya ignorance emanates Aviveka (non-discrimination). From Aviveka originates Ego Ahankara and (identification with body) Abhimana. From Abhimana emanates Raga-Dvesha. From Raga-Dvesha comes Karma. From Karma comes the body. From body comes misery. This is the chain of bondage with seven links.

This is the chain of misery.

DESIRES

Desire is the enemy of peace. You have become the beggar of beggars through desires.
 A desireless man is the richest man in the world. It is the mind that makes a man rich.
Free yourself from the firm grip of crocodiles of desires. Do not get disheartened under trials.
 Cheer yourself up. Stand up like a lion. Destroy the impure mind with the help of the pure mind.
 Make friendship with the Sattvic mind and rest yourself peacefully in Atman.


DESTRUCTION OF DESIRES LEADS TO ATMIC BLISS

Mind associated with desires is bondage. Mind free from desires is Mukta (free). Desires are themselves pain. Non-desire is itself pure Atmic Bliss. Mere annihilation of Maya is Freedom Moksha. With the extinction of the base Sankalpas (thoughts), there is also the extinction of Avidya. Should all longings for the visibles cease, then such an abnegation of mind is itself the destruction of Ajnana (ignorance) or the mind. Such a bliss is generated through one’s efforts only. There is nothing like Purushartha (right exertion).
~  Swami Sivananda  

 
Read also about happiness pleasures and pains:

    
Peace  love  harmony


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