BHUMA-VIDYA 26

December 7, 2006

Om Namah Sivaya

The Chhandogya Upanishad

SANATKUMARA'S INSTRUCTIONS ON BHUMA-VIDYA

Section 22

Happiness

Yada vai sukham labhate'tha karoti, nasukham labdhva karoli, sukham eva labdhva karoti, sukham tveva vijijnasitavyam, iti, sukham, bhagavah, vijijnasa iti.

"Well, O Narada, I tell you, nothing can be done unless it is propelled by happiness. Everywhere you will find happiness is the object of every kind of aspiration, activity, desire or enterprise. You will find, prior to everything conceivable, there is the presence of happiness. Everyone, irrespective of the character of one's individuality, tries to be, to act and to conduct oneself in different ways, because of this happiness. You must know what happiness is. It is this that is the propelling force behind everything in creation," says Sanatkumara.

The whole process of creation, manifestation and dissolution, evolution and involution, the entire activity of the cosmos is an urge of happiness. It is happiness that is trying to recover its own consciousness and establish itself in its own pristine all-comprehensiveness. It is this that is called activity. It is this that is called enterprise and aspiration. It is this that is also called cosmic evolution. Happiness is at the back of everything. Happiness alone is.

Here, we have been taken gradually up to that point where it has been concluded that every effort is motivated by happiness. This is not merely a practical fact, but also a psychological truth. But the mere recognition of the presupposition of happiness behind every kind of activity does not solve the problem of happiness, its location, its whereabouts and the means of its acquisition. Normally in our workaday world, we are accustomed to think that happiness is an achievement, by means of an effort, in the direction of an object which is regarded as the location of happiness. It is strange, no doubt, that different subjects endeavouring in the direction of happiness have different objects wherein happiness is supposed to be lodged. It does not mean that one and the same object or every perceiving subject is the house or abode of the happiness of everyone. This is the irony of the whole affair. It seems to be present in every object, inasmuch as every object is the

target of the approach of some subject or the other in this world, though it is true that no particular object can attract the recognition of all subjects at the same time. This is the reason behind a doubt that can arise in the mind as to where happiness lies.

Is it in me or is it in somebody or something else? If it is in the mind of the subject merely, as it is sometimes, no doubt, opined by psychologists, then there will be no point in the mind moving towards an object of sense for the acquisition of pleasure. The very fact that the mind is not satisfied with its own self and feels an obligation to move towards something outside should be indication enough that something is lacking in the mind itself. This lacuna in the mind is the cause for the movement of the mind towards something outside, searching for that which it is not able of discovering in its own self. So, there seems to be a flaw in the doctrine that the mind alone is the source of all happiness, because this doctrine is refuted by the very activity of the mind every day, which moves towards things other than its own self, viz., the objects in the world around us.

But the other doctrine that the world is the source of happiness also seems to be refuted by a deeper analysis that no object seems to be capable of attracting the attention of everyone at the same time, nor even one and the same subject at all times. So, there seems to be some mystery behind even the assumption of the presence of happiness in the objects outside. But it must be somewhere. It cannot be neither here nor there, because the whole world of perceptional activity is a collaboration of the subject and object. And therefore, it has to be either this way or that way. By mere empirical analysis it is difficult to find out where happiness lies, because a mathematical or arithmetical analysis of the situation will lead us merely to the analysis of the mind inside and the objects outside. There is nothing else for us to discover in this world. But, we find that we cannot discover the happiness in the mind, nor can we discover it in the object of sense.

So, the question is, where is happiness? A very stimulating answer comes to this question from the great master Sanatkumara. It is not in the mind, nor is it in the object, taken independently by themselves. Happiness cannot be bifurcated as a property of some particular finite thing in creation. If it is regarded as a property of the mind, it becomes a finite content. If it is regarded as a property of an object of sense, again it is finite in its nature. If you regard the abode of happiness as a blend of the object and the subject in a finite manner, even then the joint action of two finites cannot amount to more than the finite. Two finites coming together cannot create anything more than a finite. A little larger magnitude, physically or spatially, may be added to the joint activity of a subject and the object, but the finitude in the product of these two does not cease. Happiness cannot be regarded as finite, ultimately, because we are not satisfied with

finite pleasure in this world. No one asks for limited happiness, though logically it cannot be defined as to how it can be infinite. The impulse from within which seeks for happiness is an answer to this question. It answers its own question by saying that no one is satisfied with any amount of happiness which is bounded by finitude of any kind. So it is neither in the finite object, nor in the finite subject, merely because of the fact that the finite container cannot afford to lodge within itself that which exceeds the limit of finitude.

So Sanatkumara says, "My dear Narada, happiness is not anywhere and yet it is everywhere; it is in a completeness of Being that you can find happiness." It is not in any kind of accumulation of particulars that happiness can be found. It is not in any aggregate of finitudes that happiness can be discovered. The finitude of a particular situation does not get obviated merely because of the aggregate of finitudes. Even millions and millions of finite objects put together do not cease to be finite in the end. The finitude which is the character of things persists even in an aggregate of finitudes. Even the whole world put together is finite. It cannot be regarded as infinite, because it is limited by space, limited by time, and limited by the very presence of inner discrepancy within its own self. So, what is there which is not finite in this world? Nothing. Then where is happiness? Not in anything that can be conceived by the mind or perceived by the senses.

Happiness cannot be in anything in this world, because everything in this world is finite. Its definition, of course, defies ordinary mental cognition. It is the 'spiritual fullness' which philosophers call the Absolute, which the followers of religion call God, and which psychologists call the supreme Spirit. The infinite Reality that is behind all finitudes, that alone can be regarded as complete by itself, because That alone is independent of any kind of contact with the finitudes. That infinitude is the source of happiness whose reflection in some manner or other in the finite objects of sense becomes responsible for our belief that happiness is in the objects outside.

----Sri Swami Krishnananda

Sivaya Namah

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