Guest guest Posted August 30, 2009 Report Share Posted August 30, 2009 Wanted to share some of my understanding on" happiness" with you all. Lord Krishna tells Arjuna in Geeta that this world is a place of misery where everything is temporary(ksharam) and where no lasting happines could be found. The world is a realm of experience where birth,unhappiness, misery,decay, old age and death are inescapable for all. It is a universal observation that each one of us are engaged in some kind of of activity or the other which is intented either to increase our quantum of happiness or to reduce our suffering or misery. The Vedas declare that our very essence is bliss. The moment we try to increase it from external sources, our miseries begin. How then can we find happiness? Vedanta tells us that Love towards all and unadulterated and single-pointed Bhakti direct the individuals to look within rather than outside. The Upanishads and all the treatises on Bhakti ask the devotee to rest in bliss which is causeless as opposed to artificial pleasure dependent on a specific source. Lord Krishna advised Arjuna to remain a warrior outside, but a sanyasi within to move in the world, always ready to act appropriately. There is nothing wrong on our part in our observing external events and happenings and their implications with total internal detachment. Temporary worldly joys and happiness are to be viewed as a distraction from the quest for true eternal bliss which lies within. In fact a true spiritual seeker would welcome each affliction and soorow as a sort of springboard for a leap into the spiritual world within. I have heard in a religious discourse, that Saint Kabirdasji used to pray to Lord Rama to always give him miseries so that the latter could always think of the Lord. Another thought comes to me. Have any one of us ever prayed to God for distress? Did we at any time act consciouly in search of sorrow or suffering? Yet, did not grief and anguish come to us totally uninvited? Worldly joys, pleasures and happiness come to us as a result of our Prarabdha or manifest karma by the grace of God. " Both happiness and misery come to us by Divine arrangement", in the words of Bhaktha Prahlada, in the Bhagavata Purana. Lord Krishna describes as how a sage of steady wisdom(Sthithapragyna) behaves in such circumstances,"As the ocaean already flooded continues to welcome rivers that enter it, the sage of steady wisdom resting in divine bliss, welcomes all worldly pleasure that come come to him by Divine arrangement. Yet, when the rivers run dry, the ocean remains ever full with water, never missing them. Similaraly, the sage of steady wisdom even in the severest deprivation, remains ever blissful, never craving, seeking or even mindful of the absent sensual pleasures. Ananda is the very essece of our life. G.Balasubramanian .. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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