People live in a constant search for pleasure, mistaking the fulfillment it provides for real Happiness. You are in Satsang to investigate that, not only verbally but also existentially.
The whole point is that pleasure never comes alone. It is like something you want to buy, but you must pay a huge amount of money – the price for pleasure is pain. Therefore, you will never be able to dissociate pleasure from pain, since in order to get one, you must also have the other. So, mistaking Happiness for pleasure, and this is what human beings do, is a huge misconception. In a totally different way, the Sage considers Contentment as Happiness, that is different from pleasure.
In the Ego, there is never contentment! When things go bad, there is a pain there, and when they go well, even in the presence of pleasure, pain is also there, in hiding, waiting for the next opportunity to show up. So, you are permanently confronted with this matter of duality, and this is how the egoic mind basically works. I want to show you the beauty and the importance of the Natural State, which is Contentment.
Notice the difference: the Natural State is free from worries, from desire’s fulfillments, from the burden of duality, from this matter of pleasure and pain, ever present in the manifestation. Human body is biologically prepared to pleasure and pain, but since in the Natural State you are internally and psychologically free from the egoic sense, you are also free from duality. That means you are free from the need of searching for pleasure or escaping from pain, and that’s the beauty of the Natural State.
In the state of duality you live in, there is this permanent search for something, in the attempt to escape from something else. In other words, in the ego you label what you like versus what you don’t like, what you want versus what you don’t want. This way, there is never contentment and therefore there is no Happiness. The topic here is the basic and natural matter of Happiness.
It is interesting when you observe nature: living beings have no problem with the issue of handling pain, because pleasure and pain are inherent to manifestation. We see this in nature, in animals, and currently studies have observed that in plants too.
However, when you look at human beings, you see this confusion in identifying with the mind, and this way in frequently translating the experience of pleasure and pain on the basis of a personal viewpoint of this false “me.” Thus, there is no Happiness, no Contentment. To the Sage, the acceptance of Life as It shows, as It is, is Contentment. So, there can be Happiness, because there is no search for pleasure by escaping from pain.
Human beings carry a very strong sense of doer, which is pure vanity, suffering and frustration. Have you ever found yourselves complaining about the lack of some pleasure fulfillment in your lives, saying: “How miserable I am! Everything goes wrong in my life!”? Just because you missed or you were denied some pleasure, you got frustrated and angry, too angry, and that means being stuck to this wrong view of life.
I have something to tell you: you will always feel pleasure and pain physically. However, you are not doomed to live forever in this duality of frustration, desire and fear. You just have to awake! When you are free from this inner feeling of duality, from the search for fulfillment through pleasure and from fighting against pain, you are free. This way, it is possible to recognize your Real Nature, which is Contentment, Happiness; and This is Peace, Freedom!
From birth to death, you will always have situations of pleasure and pain, always determined by external things. Physically, you will always experience this, but internally, you can live free from the presence of this personal sense in pleasure and pain experiences
From an external point of view, the Sages live their lives just like any other person. However, from an internal perspective, the Sage is in Contentment, in Happiness, in Freedom, because the Sage knows God determines everything that happens. As the Sages no longer mistake themselves for the body, they have no problems anymore since they are not in favor of pleasure nor against pain. This means all your problems only exist because you see yourself as a "person," as a separate identity, as "someone" able to control something by abandoning another thing.
If your true goal is Happiness, forget about the search for happiness and realize your Natural State of non-duality. Stop mistaking yourself for external experiences, let them on God’s hands. I will be practical now with you: if someone does not like you, this is not your business. You are getting involved in completely wrong situations! Your business is to give up this “someone” you believe to be, and not to care if someone likes or dislikes you. I am giving you an example of how you care about what is going on externally, ignoring the Reality of who you Are internally.
This sense of “me” is frequently paying attention on what seems to be happening outside. This way, you will always be unhappy, since you will always be trying to protect yourself, to defend yourself, to justify, to improve this self-image. The search for pleasure is, in itself, pain, egoic interest. Let things outside there where they belong to. Do not search for pleasure nor escape from pain, and when the one or the other appears, don’t mistake yourself for the experience, because it comes and goes.
The whole point is that pleasure never comes alone. It is like something you want to buy, but you must pay a huge amount of money – the price for pleasure is pain. Therefore, you will never be able to dissociate pleasure from pain, since in order to get one, you must also have the other. So, mistaking Happiness for pleasure, and this is what human beings do, is a huge misconception. In a totally different way, the Sage considers Contentment as Happiness, that is different from pleasure.
In the Ego, there is never contentment! When things go bad, there is a pain there, and when they go well, even in the presence of pleasure, pain is also there, in hiding, waiting for the next opportunity to show up. So, you are permanently confronted with this matter of duality, and this is how the egoic mind basically works. I want to show you the beauty and the importance of the Natural State, which is Contentment.
Notice the difference: the Natural State is free from worries, from desire’s fulfillments, from the burden of duality, from this matter of pleasure and pain, ever present in the manifestation. Human body is biologically prepared to pleasure and pain, but since in the Natural State you are internally and psychologically free from the egoic sense, you are also free from duality. That means you are free from the need of searching for pleasure or escaping from pain, and that’s the beauty of the Natural State.
In the state of duality you live in, there is this permanent search for something, in the attempt to escape from something else. In other words, in the ego you label what you like versus what you don’t like, what you want versus what you don’t want. This way, there is never contentment and therefore there is no Happiness. The topic here is the basic and natural matter of Happiness.
It is interesting when you observe nature: living beings have no problem with the issue of handling pain, because pleasure and pain are inherent to manifestation. We see this in nature, in animals, and currently studies have observed that in plants too.
However, when you look at human beings, you see this confusion in identifying with the mind, and this way in frequently translating the experience of pleasure and pain on the basis of a personal viewpoint of this false “me.” Thus, there is no Happiness, no Contentment. To the Sage, the acceptance of Life as It shows, as It is, is Contentment. So, there can be Happiness, because there is no search for pleasure by escaping from pain.
Human beings carry a very strong sense of doer, which is pure vanity, suffering and frustration. Have you ever found yourselves complaining about the lack of some pleasure fulfillment in your lives, saying: “How miserable I am! Everything goes wrong in my life!”? Just because you missed or you were denied some pleasure, you got frustrated and angry, too angry, and that means being stuck to this wrong view of life.
I have something to tell you: you will always feel pleasure and pain physically. However, you are not doomed to live forever in this duality of frustration, desire and fear. You just have to awake! When you are free from this inner feeling of duality, from the search for fulfillment through pleasure and from fighting against pain, you are free. This way, it is possible to recognize your Real Nature, which is Contentment, Happiness; and This is Peace, Freedom!
From birth to death, you will always have situations of pleasure and pain, always determined by external things. Physically, you will always experience this, but internally, you can live free from the presence of this personal sense in pleasure and pain experiences
From an external point of view, the Sages live their lives just like any other person. However, from an internal perspective, the Sage is in Contentment, in Happiness, in Freedom, because the Sage knows God determines everything that happens. As the Sages no longer mistake themselves for the body, they have no problems anymore since they are not in favor of pleasure nor against pain. This means all your problems only exist because you see yourself as a "person," as a separate identity, as "someone" able to control something by abandoning another thing.
If your true goal is Happiness, forget about the search for happiness and realize your Natural State of non-duality. Stop mistaking yourself for external experiences, let them on God’s hands. I will be practical now with you: if someone does not like you, this is not your business. You are getting involved in completely wrong situations! Your business is to give up this “someone” you believe to be, and not to care if someone likes or dislikes you. I am giving you an example of how you care about what is going on externally, ignoring the Reality of who you Are internally.
This sense of “me” is frequently paying attention on what seems to be happening outside. This way, you will always be unhappy, since you will always be trying to protect yourself, to defend yourself, to justify, to improve this self-image. The search for pleasure is, in itself, pain, egoic interest. Let things outside there where they belong to. Do not search for pleasure nor escape from pain, and when the one or the other appears, don’t mistake yourself for the experience, because it comes and goes.
*Online meeting transcription originally held May 25, 2018 – First published in Portuguese on June 08, 2018. For further information about our meetings, please click here.
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