Happiness - Material Vs. Spiritual

Here we examine the nature of sensory pleasures and how and why they cannot deliver actual happiness. In fact, one can be heavily engaged in sensory pleasures of all varieties, and at the same time, be suffering from depression or even entertaining suicidal thoughts. This is due to the fact that the stimulating of the body or mind does not really ‘touch’ the soul itself and leaves us unfulfilled within.

Transcript

Gauraangam Paribol.

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Is this loud enough?

We're okay?

Or.

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I got a pretty loud voice So as.

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Vishwara mentioned I've been asked to speak on a series on happiness.

So last week we talked about what has been described in the media and by certain mental health professionals as the great unhappiness epidemic that exists in the world.

And the attempts at trying to solve that through chemical solutions.

Tonight as Vishwara pointed out I'll be talking about the difference between material pleasure and actual happiness.

Next week we'll speak about the happiness that is derived from stepping away from self-centeredness,

The me obsession and being a little bit more focused on others showing kindness and serving in the app.

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The experience and happiness that's derived from that.

And then the following week we will be speaking about spiritual love the experience of the awakening of spiritual love as being the greatest possible happiness that a person can experience.

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Albert Einstein was attributed to being the one responsible for the well-known phrase that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.

And I think that's really very applicable in.

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We should keep that in mind in talking about this particular subject that we're going to discuss tonight.

We've pointed out a number of times and I'll just circle back to some of those things.

The nature of what is categorized as material happiness or material pleasure we have to understand that number one it has a beginning all pleasurable experiences have a beginning and because they have a beginning they must have an end.

That is the nature of things in the material world beginnings and ends are inseparable and yet we find that we actually desire that eternal that condition of eternal happiness where I am hoping to live happily ever after as they say that's actually the desire.

Going a little deeper we need to consider you know what's really important and what we brought up last week is that we often have unrealistic expectations of this world and the experiences that this world has to offer.

We live in a hyper commercialized world in the last hundred years have been extraordinary the transformation of whole societies to be absolutely driven by commercialization of everything and of course the constant,

Constant message is that yes we recognize you are empty,

You are lonely and we have this wonderful product or experience that will take that away it'll actually fill you up and they're not ashamed to make those statements I can remember quite a few years ago Coca-Cola their slogan for that period was Coke is it.

Coke is what?

It's just a cute way of saying this is what you're looking for and now it's kind of transcended that into an even grosser level open happiness you know give me a break you know you're gonna pop the top of that thing and all the carbonation and you know just open the bottle of Coke and leave it out in the sun let it warm up and all the carbon dioxide escape and try and drink it I challenge you without gagging you know and yet we get the message and we get the message associated with everything that material experience that material possessions that they can actually bring you to the state of happiness that you so much long for within your heart of hearts the yoga system they weren't anti material pleasure but they said there was a unique danger attached that if you become fixated on and constantly engaged in activity trying to have a renewed experience of sensual pleasure sensory pleasure that it's going to have a really detrimental effect on you it's going to suck you into this bit of a vortex and because you are not being fulfilled by the experience the tendency is to want to you know put a new twist on it they also say that if you become overly fixated overly focused on these experiences in the hope of finding the eternal happiness we seek it will increase your unhappiness because you get disappointed I mean it's I've had an extraordinary life where I've lived in all stratus of society from a monk walking the highways and byways sleeping on the side of the road to flying around in private jets you know with the biggest jeweler in the world I used to decorate palaces and one of the things I you know become so clear and this is a spiritual principle that when people have some yearning oh if only I could have this only I could have that that's actually not as detrimental as getting it because once you once you are just desiring you think oh if I could just have that I'd be so happy and you sort of like hang on to that idea but once you actually get it then you're faced with the reality that it's like you've picked up a handful of sand and the sand all the grains have gone through your fingers it's gone and so people can have extraordinary amounts of you know central enjoyment and just be doing so many things just be whipping themselves into a frenzy and become utterly suicidal and it's because these experiences actually do not contain real happiness there is some pleasurable experience but it's very temporary and it will not fulfill you primary reason because you are not the body you are an eternal spiritual being the person residing within the body and by stimulating the body you can experience the result of that but it doesn't really touch you in the core of your being so the approach that was advised by the great yoga teachers the great sages since ancient times was that one should practice temperance one should practice temperance and one must also have tolerance meaning you should not become overly excited about the possibility of material stimulation or enjoyment don't over fixate on it don't think it's going to be something greater than it is you notice how everybody likes to get around I can remember from when I was a kid you know everybody gets around together they start talking about what they're going to do oh yeah,

Oh yeah,

Oh it's going to be fantastic,

Yeah and everybody's like getting hyped and they haven't done anything and they're really exaggerating yeah it was so cool no it wasn't it may have been interesting and a little bit exciting but it's not like you know so cool man this is just like we have this tendency to want to try so hard to fill up this empty space and so we were advised to be really realistic this really applies also to relationships in our lives which are actually really important relationships are important but if we have so much expectation of others that my partner in life or my children or my parents or my friends are going to be that which will bring me the ultimate happiness I seek that's so unfair to put that burden on another person you want perfection in a relationship that is actually a spiritual ideal and it should be directed spiritually but in terms of relationships and things within this world there is a need to be real about it you can have fantastic really nice relationships with others but it's not going to be everything that you're looking for that idea is a bad idea and that becomes a source for much unhappiness in this world so the yogis were taught that they should not seek to run away from life and run away from this world nor should you dive into it expecting it to be everything because it's neither your security lies in trying to live a spiritually directed life to accept the experiences of this world for what they are okay there's going to be some pleasant things and there's going to be some unhappy things but don't become fixated there I'll read you a verse this is a verse from the Bhagavad Gita says one who is not connected with the supreme or the highest spiritual truth can have neither transcendental intelligence nor a steady mind without which there is no possibility of peace and how can there be happiness without peace so they talk about this foundational requirement that if you want to come to a platform of happiness there must be some condition of peacefulness in your life you can't be constantly agitated one of the problems with sensual stimulation it's kind of like you get a mosquito bite and you've got an itch when you scratch the itch does the itching go away anybody ever tried that?

No,

It doesn't the itch becomes stronger and so you scratch it even harder and then that doesn't fix it,

It becomes even itchier and soon you might have a bit of a scratched area there or an open wound you see it with kids who can't control themselves and you make things worse so when one is engaged without any control and just simply chasing the demands of the mind and the senses you are in effect putting petrol on the fire there is like a fire burning at us and instead of putting that fire out we put petrol on it and so it burns hotter we become more disturbed,

More agitated,

Less peaceful whereas we need to go in the opposite direction so the two requirements are transcendental intelligence whoa,

That's a real big subject and we're not going to dive into that transcendental intelligence and a steady mind both of these things are required to be able to experience peacefulness you know,

The yoga system had a really unique perspective on pleasure and pain of this world,

Really unique Patanjali in his yoga sutra,

In the second padha he describes to the discriminating yogi all the fruits of past actions,

Both pleasurable and painful are considered sorrowful because they all result in further bondage and suffering you know,

This is not a pessimistic view of the world the great spiritual teachers,

Their characteristic is that they are deeply compassionate and more than their own happiness,

More than their own salvation or anything like that they are concerned about you,

Each one of you in their heart they cry for the suffering,

For the loneliness,

For the unhappiness of the materially entangled living beings and they want so much that you and I come to this platform of peace and happiness but if our focus is misdirected,

If we buy into the ideas that I can find everything I need by material experience,

I can find it we are wrong,

Not only are we wrong,

We are going to perpetuate our unhappiness there is another verse from another one of the great yoga texts it states that happiness,

Happiness which is derived from the contact of the senses my seeing,

Tasting,

Touching,

Smelling,

Hearing from the contact of the senses with the objects that they desire it appears like nectar in the beginning but poison in the end and that is kind of like a pretty,

Whoa,

A pretty sober look at the pursuit of material happiness yesterday we did a living in the now one day seminar,

Retreat,

Experience,

Immersion and one of the things I was talking to them about was the nature of we are not very analytical,

We don't really think about things we are discouraged from thinking about things clearly we are really encouraged to become mindless consumers utterly mindless,

You try something,

If that doesn't work,

Try something else if that doesn't work,

Try something else,

If that doesn't work and you are just drinking from the same trough you are just going to a different part of the trough the end of it or one side or the other side and putting your head in and drinking and hoping that it is going to be different there has to be a recognition of the limitation of sensual pleasure and we talked about the example of somebody likes a particular type of certain music a certain track when they hear it,

It really gives them this exhilaration this feeling that wow,

This is wonderful but if you tie that person to a chair and put headphones on and you play that same music over and over for the next 36 hours it quickly goes from making you feel exhilarated to driving you crazy and that should tell us something there is no inherent pleasure in that because if there was,

The more I had of it,

The happier I would become right?

Isn't that logic?

It's,

You know,

To.

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Anyway,

We can do it with food,

You can do it with anything any,

Any of the material experiences if you continuously engage in the activity non-stop it quickly goes from being so-called pleasurable to incredibly painful and the yogis thought about it more than that,

Way beyond there was this understanding of the laws of karma for every action I engage in there will be a fruit,

There will be a reaction there will be something that I will have to accept and that may be bitter or it may be sweet either way,

It doesn't solve anything it doesn't solve my inherent problem of my desire for happiness the desire for happiness is a spiritual desire it arises from the soul itself it arises from this eternal spiritual being residing within the body and we need to attempt to fulfill that need and desire with spiritual experience,

Spiritual nutrition rather than just trying to cram things into and onto my body in the hope that it will do the trick so,

Over the next couple of weeks we'll be exploring more about the nature of the spiritual happiness and how we can come to actually taste this how it can become actually a significant experience on an ongoing basis within our life so the big message today is you don't have to run away from the world but don't dive into it like it's everything be realistic yes,

We recognize you put a certain flavor in your mouth and you go,

Wow,

Yeah,

That tastes nice but okay,

Don't live to eat don't try to make that everything it's astonishing all of the,

I mean everybody so openly declares on our foodies I mean when I was a kid growing up there was one one cooking show on TV in New Zealand what was it?

Walk with Juan,

What was that?

Walk with Juan,

Was it?

Right?

Chinese Kiwi guy and he was always you know,

Doing up these things,

He was all excited running all over the place and doing cook-ups but it was kind of a pretty Mickey Mouse compared to what's going on now people are into it,

The textures,

The layers the whoa,

You know but like anything else it doesn't do it it doesn't completely satisfy and fulfill so you want to taste something nice,

Wonderful?

Don't lose the plot become more focused on our true internal spiritual need one of the primary ways of bringing a person to the platform of being able to increasingly experience the wonder of true spiritual experience is through this process of meditation I mean we all experience just coming here and you chant for a little while and it's like wow,

That's really nice you can have a variety of experiences sometimes people even come to the point where they're so touched their heart is so softened they may even feel that they shed some tear not out of sadness or distress but an overwhelming experience or sense of some great happiness the more a person is able to open themself to this spiritual sound the more quickly they will be able to come to the platform of experiencing true spiritual happiness okay?

We're good with that?

Any question?

So,

What,

You had a question?

An illustration of what is spiritual happiness pardon?

I mean,

How do you find and how do you get spiritual happiness?

How do you get spiritual happiness?

Well we have time limitations so I'm told I'm prepared to sit here all night if you come next week and the week after I promise you complete answers I mean really complete answers enough of beating up on material experience you know,

Sometimes a little bit harsh on it a little bit direct but it's because you know,

My desire is that you will all come to the position of actually experiencing this spiritual happiness thank you very much so hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi

Reviews

The later yogis echo the words of the Buddha. Hari Om.

yes. we have come too far...in a bad way. I am highly doubtful we can ever return. I am coming to think even Jesus committed suicide...he got to get outta here sooner than most of us. We all just wanted to be loved by our parents and not be alone in life. Then the things we try to do to make up for this and to achieve this...so sad. Not so much an expectation as a need, maybe. If suicide is the #1 cause of death, why do we bring another generation to suffer just the same? Cant we just end this cycle, please?

thank tou so much!