Happiness & Sorrow

Hislop: What does Swami say about the three states of consciousness?

Sai: There is waking, sleeping, and dreaming, and deep sleep. In deep sleep there is no mind. All are changing states. The past is gone, the future is coming, the present is leaving. None of these changing states is the truth; for all agree that truth is real and the same whether in past, present, or future. You are always that truth; changeless, constant, unaffected by change, always the same.

Hislop: Swami says that ‘I’ refers to the body. But when one thinks of himself he sees not just the body, but also his mind, his conditioning, and his tendencies.

Sai: ‘Body’ means all the five senses and all that is implied by any extension of these.

Hislop: In deep sleep, the body is gone, and the mind is gone. But there is a strong happiness. However, that happiness is only known afterward as memory, and memory is just a thought. It has no reality.

Sai: The difference between deep sleep and samadhi is that in samadhi the happiness is known at the time it occurs.

Hislop: Swami says that in samadhi, happiness is known at the time that it occurs. But how could the person, the subject, be aware of himself as happy? Surely that implies a subject-object relationship. Subject-object is unreal, so experience in those terms must also be unreal, is it not?

Sai: If one looks in the mirror and sees dust on the brow, he will at once remove it, even though he was unaware of it before looking in the mirror. The guru is the mirror.

Hislop: What did Baba mean about the spiritual rays that comprise a human being projected into the vastness instead of the limited ego?

Sai: When the world melts away, when there is bliss, or even when there is a temporary feeling of happiness, hold to that state and stay with it, and do not allow yourself to fall back into ego emotions and thoughts. From man comes a series of spiritual rays whose quality is delight, bliss. All man need do is to manifest that bliss. The idea of search is in error. Everyone already knows the truth. All that is needed is to put that truth into practice, to manifest it. The humanity of man is just these spiritual rays of delight. It is very easy to crush a flower, or to wink an eye. Self-realization is as easy as that.

Hislop: Swami said that it is man’s duty to be happy.

Sai: Happiness is essential for God-realization. It is one of the major gates to divinity. It is not just a fault if a person is not happy; it is one of the most serious of all faults. It is a barrier to realization. Mostly, people are unhappy because of worldly pursuits, attachments, enjoyments. Too much interested in the world. To get free of this fault, a person has to be told of the seriousness of the fault. He should realize that desire is never-ending, like the waves of the sea.

Hislop: Swami says that pleasure or happiness is the interval between two sorrows. What is the implication?

Sai: Pleasure is an interval between two sorrows. Remove the sorrow and only pleasure, delight remains. But nobody troubles to find the cause of sorrow. It is like the lady who went to look for a lost needle under the streetlamp because there was no light in the house where she had lost the article. The house is lighted by the light of wisdom. The lost item must be found where it was lost. Actually, sorrow or pain is caused by desire. The cure is to use that same desire and turn it to God, to desire God. Instantly suffering will cease because the cause, turning from God to worldly desire, has been eliminated. The incidents that caused sorrow will cease to cause sorrow. If a person called ‘my’ suffers, there is a direct pain in oneself. But if one’s desire is for God only, that pain will cease.

Hislop: But one suffers also because of the pain he is aware of in another.

Sai: The suffering one feels for other people who one sees suffering is from imagination. That sympathetic suffering will leave, but the sympathy remains. Compassion is when love is mobile and flows. Personal love is when love is not mobile but remains fixed on husband, wife, child, etc. Devotion is that free mobile flow of love to God.