Liberation Passes Through the Transcendence of Pleasure and Pain "
Spiritual bliss is the happiness of your very Soul. It is independent of sensory objects, continuous, homogeneous, eternal, and indestructible."
~ Swami SivanandaThe fundamental tendency of the ego is to seek pleasure and avoid pain. However, what appears pleasant or unpleasant to the ego is not necessarily beneficial for us. As a result, for the vast majority of people, life becomes a constant struggle to avoid the unpleasant and chase the pleasant, always according to the programming of our mind. Due to this basic tendency of the ego, even spirituality can be used by the ego as a tool to make life more pleasant and interesting. Is this necessarily bad? No, but it is not spirituality. It is simply another crutch for the ego to continue living in its illusory world as comfortably and pleasantly as possible. True spirituality, however, aims to transcend the ego's desires — that is, to go beyond pleasure and pain and experience our true nature. It is impossible to experience the peace and bliss of the spirit without transcending both pleasure and pain. Pleasure and pain belong to the lower (rajasic-tamasic) ego and the sensory mind. They do not belong to the Soul, to our spiritual or true Self. Peace, love, wholeness, and bliss are the essential nature of our Soul. But to experience these, the mind must stop seeking pleasant sensory experiences, abandon its attachment to them, and turn inward to the center of our Being, where our spiritual essence shines beyond the senses, the body, the mind, pleasure, and pain. Thus, spirituality and spiritual practice are not tools to "comfort" the ego but means to transcend the ego and ultimately dissolve it. The purpose of spirituality is to transform the mind, purify it of its passions and desires for sensory pleasures, and renounce them so that the mind can focus wholly on the heart, where our eternal spiritual essence resides. This process of purification from lower tendencies (jealousy, greed, pride, vanity, anger, hatred, etc.), desires, and cravings for sensory pleasures (lust, gluttony, etc.) is inherently unpleasant for the ego, even though it is profoundly beneficial for us. For this reason, the ego resists and reacts against this process unless life becomes a complete wreck, filled with misery. However, in my opinion, beyond misery, a genuine yearning for something higher and spiritual is also essential. The work of eliminating lower tendencies is difficult for the ego because it is accustomed to its comfort zone and is unwilling to let go of the sensory pleasures it has long enjoyed with our consent. Thus, the ego creates obstacles to prevent us from making serious efforts to renounce sensory pleasures. This is why many start on the spiritual path, but only a few (at least for now) reach its end. By the very nature of things, we cannot have both entirely — we cannot keep the pleasures of the senses and enjoy the bliss of the Spirit. The mind can either dwell in the senses and their pleasures or reside in the heart and experience the bliss of the Spirit. Sensory pleasures are fleeting and accompanied by much pain and suffering, while the bliss of the Spirit is eternal, indestructible, and untouched by misery or sorrow. Finally, it is worth noting that although the spiritual path may initially be painful for the ego, as the mind becomes increasingly pure and luminous, the difficulties and unpleasant emotional states (which, of course, are created by the ego itself) diminish in intensity, frequency, and duration. Peace, serenity, wholeness, contentment, love, joy, and happiness will increasingly dominate our daily experience. The misery and dissatisfaction we once endured will eventually seem like a distant dream.
