Sukha Dukha is like change of seasons

Disappointment all around……sometimes life is like that. The events surrounding us send us into a topsy turvy ride of alternating happiness and distress. Bhagavan Sri Krishna says in Gita ‘Matra sparsas tu Kaunteya…Sukha Dukha sitosna daha, aagamapayino anityah, tams titikshasva bharatha’…….Lord compares this topsy turvy ride into the scheduled change of seasons. There is lot of difference between the regular change of seasons and the topsy turvy ride. One is random but the appearance and disappearance of seasons in predictable, follows a fixed pattern. By giving more credence to the statement of the Lord, we need to delve deeply whether ‘Sukha’ ‘Dukha’ follows a regular pattern and not random as understood generally.

The seasons has to be tolerated. Right now it is very Cold in North India and we use various protective blankets against the cold. Most take resort to heating their houses using ACs but that comes with its own baggage of side effects. Brittle hair, dry skin are some of the side impacts of it. Many recommend to use humidifier to cancel the effects of dry air. This is called struggle for existence which never ends in this material world. The artificial solutions are never complete, they always need some other cancelling parameter which has additional side effects and the list goes on. Allopathic medicine is one such example……..Doctor recommends anti-histamine to reduce sneezing due to allergy but later gives a expectorant to dilute the hardened cough…..expectorant makes a person drousy for which people take caffeine which has impact on liver….

What do you mean by tolerating happiness? General recommendation in this world is to enjoy or experience happiness but tolerating happiness is not the oft heard advise. Tolerance means not undergoing transformation due to so called undesired event. It can also mean not reacting to a udesirable event. Tolerance means to become more like a shock absorber. In automobiles there are shock absorbers which help in not transferring the impact to the person driving the vehicle. Shock state is a transitory state of the mind. The mind transits to a different state called the ‘Shock’ in which it generates pain or misery vibrations which are experienced by the soul. When we are impacted we shouldn’t allow the mind to transit to the ‘Shock’ state. The shock has to be dispersed or absorbed prior to hitting the mind. Similar to the shock absorber not allowing the force to reach the driver but reduce the impact of the force. Shock absorber is also a protector against damaging forces which arise due to unevenness of driving surface. Similar we have to build mental guards which dissipate the shock forces. The scriptures like Gita act as mental gaurds……….Guru mukha Padma vakya, cittete koriya aikya…….Lord Krishna is the Jagad Guru, His vakya when embraced with full belief build a protective wall around the mental core which ensures the mind doesn’t go aff balance in the topsy turvy ride in the material energy. The mind should be focused on attaining ‘Brahma Sukha’ or ‘ everlasting pleasure of the soul’. But the worldly events cause a distraction in this pursuit. Both happiness and distress thrown the mind off balance and delay his journey towards bliss. Jagad Guru Gitacarya has given the advise to tolerate because when we try to solve and plan to give a reactive force to the worldly event causing the shock we end up wasting lot of time of the human life ‘ayur vyaya’ will happen and the sweet realization of the soul and its occupation will be missed. Our Gurudeva used to say ‘Don’t bring a machine gun to kill a mosquito, learn to tolerate’. The verses of Gita build the quality of tolerance.

The verses has to be heard from Guru Parampara, contemplated, recited, internalized to build a strong mental guard. The Lord recommends the following formula ‘tad vidhi Pranipatena, Pariprasnena, sevaya, upadakshyanti te Jnanam, Jnaninas Tattva darsinah’. The 3 point formula to build mental guard is 1)Acceptance without challenging mindset the words and interpretation of Parampar system 2)Involving in Divine service 3)Engaging in humble enquiry on topics of the Gita