The Creation of Pleasure and Pain : 5.

So we are dangerously coming near to the truth that we seem to have a very important part to play in creating our own pleasure and pain. A very inconvenient truth is opening before our eyes, like Pandora's box: It is our mental relationship with persons and things that causes pleasure and pain to us. This is discrimination of the causative factor of pleasure and pain in the world.


What does this discovery mean? “Am I the cause of my pleasure and pain? Can I cause pain to my own self? Will I deliberately jump into a well and break my leg? Should I not be regarded as a sensible person who will want only satisfaction rather than suffering in the world? How is the cause of pain attributed to me?” may be questions that the mind raises. Nobody deliberately causes suffering to oneself. Nobody wishes to go to hell wantonly. Nobody wishes to be hanged, but people are hanged in jail. How does this happen? Nobody wishes to place oneself in such a very miserable state.


It is not that we deliberately create causes of our suffering. Unconsciously we create these factors of our suffering. Though deliberately we will not jump into a well, we may fall into a well not knowing that there is a well in front of us. With open eyes in daylight we may not jump into a well. Yes, perfectly so; it is accepted. But suppose the eyes are not clear in their vision – it is dusk, or perhaps the well is covered over with grass. We are likely to fall into the well unwittingly. We fall into error not because we want to commit error, but because we are led astray by certain factors unintelligible to our understanding.

Swami Krishnananda

To be continued  ....