The Cause of Unhappiness : 5.

Thus, it has been pointed out that the klesas – avidya, asmita, raga, dvesa, abhinivesa – are sources of unending trouble. They are made up of trouble itself. There is nothing else of which they are made; and, unfortunately, everyone and everything is made up of these complexes called the klesas. They have also motivated another peculiar law, which is called the law of karma – all of which is a different way of describing the manner in which desires function and the reactions that are produced by the desires. The one mistake that has been committed in the form of error of perception – namely, affirmation of the individuality, asmita – has caused us so much trouble.


These conditions cannot be overcome merely by an action in an ordinary sense. There should be an overall transformation brought about for the purpose of dealing with these vrittis, because any one-sided approach to it will not succeed. If we touch any one aspect of these vrittis, other aspects will revolt. They will support, in affiliation, the particular vritti that has been encountered for the purpose of control. When we attack the vrittis or try to control them, they have to be taken in a group and not individually, because they are connected, one with the other. What we call these kleshas, or vrittis of the mind, are a group. They are intertwined in a bundle, one inside the other; and so when any aspect of it is faced and suppressed with the force of will, the other aspects gain strength – the very same strength which we have withdrawn from the particular aspect which we have suppressed.


Thus, it is not wisdom on the part of any seeker to look at only a single side of this issue, or even at a few aspects of this issue. We should take the total issue in one stroke. This means to say that we have to have a proper understanding of the nature of our mind in its comprehensiveness. We should not study ourselves only as we appear to ourselves today. “What am I today? This is not what I am really, because what I look like today is only one phase of my real nature, and what I am is much more than what I appear today. Every day my mood changes, the desires change, the way of the thinking of my mind changes, and so on and so forth, on account of a certain predominance of the vrittis in the mind.”


If we take an average, for instance, of the various experiences that we passed through for the last one year, we will have a fair idea of what we are made of. We may take an average of even three years, if we like. What sort of attitudes did we develop continuously, for days and days, for the last three years, for instance? This is a difficult thing to remember, but a cautious student will keep a note of all these things. Many of the things can be remembered; we cannot forget them. What are the moods through which we passed? What are the desires that appeared in our mind? What are the things that attracted our attention? What are those things that repelled us? What are the things that annoyed us? What are the things that distressed us? – and so on. Taking an average of all these conditions through which we passed during the last few years will give a fair idea, though not a complete idea, of the stuff of which we are made.


To be continued