- Everything in creation is constantly in movement. Not a movement there is rest.
- Living beings are looking for happiness and avoiding suffering.
- Happiness is a feeling of expansion of the mind. When the mind becomes silent, the bliss of the SELF is reflected (chidabhasa) in the mind. This is called happiness.
- In general, we can look at happiness in four different ways
Pleasure & Pain – body-based
- Body-based happiness is called pleasure. Anything pleasing to senses is pleasure
- Pleasing to eyes, smell, touch, taste… all come under this category. Sex belongs to this category.
- Where there is pleasure, there is a pain also. Thus pain and pleasure are duality
- Pleasure lasts as long as physical contact lasts. The mind keeps longing for pleasure. This leads to addiction.
- Pleasure is always in the present moment.
Happiness & Unhappiness. – Mind based
- Happiness is a mental contact. Pleasure translates into happiness also. However, happiness is more than pleasure. Past events, future imagination can give happiness. Remembering a birthday party can give happiness.
- The counterpart of happiness is unhappiness.
Joy and Sorrow – soul-based
- Joy belongs to the soul. Somebody can be joyful in any situation or sorrowful
- The counterpart of joy is sorrow or depression.
Bliss
- Bliss is of the spirit. It is not dependent on body, mind, and intellect.
- Bliss is no mind.
- The infinite nature of SELF is called Ananta. The experience of Ananta is called Ananda.
Three types of Beings
Tamasik
- Those who seek happiness through passive activity – drugs/alcohol, sleeping, food.
- Kumbhakarna in the mythology of Ramayana is an example of this. His main pursuit in life was eating and sleeping for months together.
Rajasik
- Those who seek happiness through power & possessions through intense activity
- Ravana of Ramayana is an example of this category. He chased power and possession relentlessly.
Satvik
- Those who seek happiness through intellectual pursuits /devotional pursuit or spiritual pursuits
- Vibhishana of Ramayana is an example of this category. He was always engaged in devotional service to Sri Ram – an enemy of his brother Ravana.
Evolutionary instinct
- A single-celled organism level basic instinct of attraction/repulsion (raga, dvesha) drives life.
The organism works on feeling. Threat perceptions like heat makes the organism move away ( dvesha) and food makes the organism to move towards food ( raga)
- Single-celled organisms group together to form a colony for survival. Some organisms specialize in communication and form a primitive nervous system for communication and coordination of the colony. Basic instincts of raga and dvesha gets translated into “fight or flight” for the colony.
- For the purpose of growing colony, masculine and feminine colonies develop each with the primitive nervous system. The instinct of attraction (raga) developed into sex. Thus three primitive instincts called food (ahara), sex (maithuna), and rest (sleep – Nidra) develop.
- A colony of organisms matures into reptiles with a well developed nervous system which later becomes the spinal cord of human beings. The nervous system has communication and coordination functions of the entire organism as a single being. The reptilian brain or spinal cord is for processing autonomous functions based on primitive instincts of food –sex- sleep.
- As more organisms come into being, relationships need to be built between different organisms. This is where the emotional brain ( midbrain) came into the picture. This later developed into the midbrain of human beings. More complex emotions based on repulsion (dvesha) which is nothing but fear (Bhaya) developed – anger ( krodha), jealousy ( matsarya)…… Attraction (raga) based emotions like love (Prema), attachment (moha) and greediness (lobha) developed. All these are based on primitive survival instincts of attraction-repulsion (raga, dvesha).
- Now colonies of living beings started getting built up based on these emotions which are nothing expression of primitive instincts – raga and dvesha.
- While feeling which is based on body and emotion which is based on mind developed, need arose for learning from experience, and projecting into future scenarios arose. Thus the thinking brain or rational brain (neo-cortex) of animals developed. A deer sees the tiger on the way. The feeling of repulsion (dvesha) arises in the body. The emotion of fear (Bhaya) rises in the midbrain. Immediately heartbeat increases, blood pressure increases, and deer starts running away. The memory records the location of the threat and learns from experience. The next day, the deer avoids the danger zone. This is how thinking came into the picture. In human beings, the thinking got more complex with the addition of imagination faculty to project into the future. Imagination helped to create multiple threat scenarios “ How do I kill the tiger. What if my child goes near the tiger…”. Each of these imaginary situations triggers the emotional brain and creates respective emotions and feelings. Thus the faculty of memory, thinking, and imagination can be overused to get into psychologically disturbed conditions like stress, depression, etc.
- Also, the same primitive instincts and emotions lead to the organization of human beings into groups, societies, colonies, and countries. Complex communication and control needs lead to the global nervous system of the internet and telecom.
- Thus the primitive instincts of attraction and repulsion are the basic drives that are driving the more and more complex organization of society.
- Even the great intellects ( nothing but thinking ability) are used for the purpose of serving the raga and dvesha. It is more like a tail wagging the head rather than being the other way round.
- Spiritual evolution is a rational mind (thinking ability) used for overcoming primitive instincts.
- As human beings started understanding the limitation of the thinking, feeling & emotions, the need for growing out of this came. This is where the desire for enlightenment All the spiritual teachings keep stressing the importance of going beyond attraction and repulsion (raga and dvesha) and overcome emotions and thinking. We have to understand the challenge of this. Our body is entirely made up of single cells which are organized as a colony with co-ordinating function – reptilian brain, midbrain, and thinking brain. We need to learn the art of meditation to go beyond thinking and become free from the primitive instincts of raga and dvesha.
Prabhuji – 4th September 2018 – lightoftheself.net