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Happiness is not a secondary thing, but pain is, and these
from: painful things are obstacles to be got rid of. When they arestopped, you must be happy.
Therefore Patanjali says: "The vrittis are painful and non-painful."
Pain is an excrescence. It is a transitory thing. The Self, who is bliss, being the
all-permeating life of the universe, pain has no permanent place
in it. Such is the Hindu position, the most optimistic in the world.
Let us pause for a moment to ask: "Why should there be pain at
all if the Self is bliss?" Just because the nature of the Self is
bliss. It would be impossible to make the Self turn outward, come
into manifestation, if only streams of bliss flowed in on him.
He would have remained unconscious of the streams. To the infinity
of bliss nothing could be added. If you had a stream of water
flowing unimpeded in its course, pouring more water into it would
cause no ruffling, the stream would go on heedless of the addition.
But put an obstacle in the way, so that the free flow
is checked, and the stream will struggle and fume against the
obstacle, and make every endeavour to sweep it away. That which
is contrary to it, that which will check its current's smooth
flow, that alone will cause effort.
That is the first function of pain. It is the only thing that can rouse
the Self. It is the only thing that can awaken his attention. When that
peaceful, happy, dreaming, inturned Self finds the surge of pain beating
against him, he awakens: "What is this, contrary to my nature,
antagonistic and repulsive, what is this?"
It arouses him to the fact of a surrounding universe, an outer
world. Hence in psychology, in yoga, always basing itself on the ultimate
analysis of the fact of nature, pain is the thing that asserts
itself as the most important factor in Self-realisation; that
which is other than the Self will best spur the Self into activity.
Therefore we find our commentator, when dealing with
pain, declares that the karmic receptacle the causal body, that
in which all the seeds of karma are gathered Up, has for its
builder all painful experiences; and along that line of thought
we come to the great generalisation: the first function of pain
in the universe is to arouse the Self to turn himself to the
outer world, to evoke his aspect of activity.
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