Curiosity about happiness

Acharya Mahaprajna

In front of me is a coconut tree — a straight trunk, some leaves and a few coconuts. But is this all that there is to it, or is there something more to it — like the seed not visible and the sap which, too, is invisible?

Our senses cannot go beyond the visible, physical world. The invisible is simply beyond their reach.

Visibility and invisibility are relative concepts. Having come some distance from where I was, I cannot see the tree now. There is a wall between me and the tree. Any hindrance can make the visible invisible for the senses. Distance too makes for invisibility. What I see is the gross physical world; what enables me to see it, is itself gross and physical.

The subtle truth can be perceived only by the subtle sight that can establish contact with the former and can uncover it.

Unlike the tree, I cannot see awareness, for the latter is abstract. The tree can be out of sight but not awareness, because I — the manifest form of awareness — serves as a link between awareness and subtle invisible universe made of infinite atoms. Both awareness and atom are devoid of hunger. They do not speak either. But I feel hungry, I eat and speak because I am situated at the meeting point between awareness and atom.

The visible world, where happiness and unhappiness prevail, also belongs to the same meeting point. Pure awareness is neither happiness nor unhappiness; it is merely an experience of existence. When awareness is at the above-mentioned meeting point, it is susceptible to happiness, unhappiness, bondage and freedom.

That is why on attaining purity, it comes to be relatively treated as a state of happiness and freedom. This is the point where existence is at its zenith and where all the constraints of the senses having been overcome, there is an experience of infiniteness and unspeakable, limitless joy.

(As told to Lalit Garg.)