The Cause of Unhappiness :4.

The impressions formed by experiences in this life will produce effects of a similar character at a time when they come as pain rather than as pleasure. Thus, pains and pleasures are both things which we have asked for. They have not been thrust upon us by anybody. When our individual constitution is in harmony with those external conditions, objects, etc. which come in contact with us or with which we come in contact, we call that experience a pleasure. But if that relationship between ourselves and the external circumstances is disharmonious for any reason whatsoever, then that experience becomes unhappiness. Well, this is a very strange thing which the mind at the present moment cannot understand. It is sowing the seeds of its future sorrow now, by pursuing pleasures of sense which it thinks are desirable at present, but later on they will come like pricking thorns. This is the sorrow of samskaras.


Also, the gunas of prakriti are the cause of all experience. These gunas are called sattva, rajas and tamas. It is the rajas that is present in the mind which creates desire. The purpose or function of rajas is distraction, externalisation, or driving the mind towards objects; so as long as rajas functions, there must be unhappiness. The reason is that when the mind is urged against its own self and towards the objects of sense, it is in a state of tension. Therefore, there is unhappiness until the moment of the enjoyment of pleasure, which is all caused by rajas. The cessation of this function of rajas at the time of the contact one has with an object is the cause of pleasure. Sattva is the cause of pleasure; rajas is the cause of pain.


The temporary manifestation of sattva at the time of the cessation of the activity of rajas, on account of the contact of the senses with objects, is what we call pleasure. But, inasmuch as the gunas of prakriti oppose each other and react upon one another, there is no stability of the three gunas. They always rotate like a wheel that is moving, and we cannot say that we can be in any given particular experience of one quality or property of prakriti. One may predominate at this point in time; at another time, another may be predominant, and according to the predominance of the intensity of the manifestation of a particular property of prakriti, there is a particular corresponding experience. Therefore, on account of the movement of the gunas, it is not possible that we can choose only one quality. On account of the opposition among the gunas, or the rotation of the wheel of the gunas of prakriti, it is not possible to have permanent happiness.

To be continued  ...