Thought 111: Worldly happiness (Continued)

If you say that a person is happy now, it refers to the worldly happiness set up by the predominance of Sattva in his mind, which diminishes inevitably after some time. Worldly happiness is a state of the mind. Whenever you are happy or peaceful, it is due to a thought in the mind, which is caused by the predominance of Sattva in the mind. This predominance of Sattva does not last long (No Guna of Maayaa predominates the mind for long). In other words, the happy feeling or thought set up in the mind by the predominance of Sattva, does not last long. Thus, if you think that you have become happy for the reason of acquiring something or getting rid of something, then, the feeling of happiness does not last long.

All progress in this world is directed towards one goal – which is that we want more and more happiness. We seek wealth because we think that more money gives more happiness. We seek objects of the world because we think that more happiness lies in them. We seek relationships, because we think that they give us more happiness. We seek power because we think that power gives us more happiness. When you contact the objects of the world for more happiness, they give you, no doubt, some temporary pleasure, but it does not last long; this pleasure is ephemeral – it comes and goes. Therefore, this kind of worldly happiness soon disappears plunging you into sorrow as usual.

The happiness that we get through the satisfaction of our likes and dislikes (likes and dislikes only appear disguised as desires for the worldly things) is low quality happiness. For a higher quality happiness, which is also known as the relative happiness (as opposed to the Absolute happiness), we have to first clean up our minds.

The basic ingredient of any happiness is peace of mind. Without peace, there is no happiness for any one. Therefore, first look for peace. A simple definition of peace is the absence of conflict in the mind. Peace or lack of conflict happens when the mind is pure; that is, when it is relatively free from impurities such as likes and dislikes, hatred, jealousy, arrogance, greed, selfishness, etc.

The next thought is about “Aananda is the absolute happiness”