What is Pain and Pleasure?
Try this experiment: Take a green chilli in one hand and sugar in the other hand. Meditate and touch either side of our tongue with these two. There will be no difference between them. It is we who says that something is hot or cold, sweet or bitter. We are so unconscious that we keep on qualifying all our experiences as pain or pleasure.
There is no difference between suffering and joy. If we go beyond both, we experience bliss, come what may. We continuously pigeon-hole our experiences. That is the reason we see suffering as suffering and joy as joy. We judge the present moment based on our past experience. If you analyze this deeply, you will realize that you are not living in the present; you are just 're-living' the past.
A small story:
An elderly man was returning to his village after a few months, after attending to some work in the next village.
Suddenly, he sees that his hut is on fire. He starts wailing and running around, as he cannot do anything about it.
Just then, one of his sons comes running to him and says, 'Father, don't worry! We just sold our house to our neighbors yesterday.'
Hearing this, the man was overjoyed that the burning house was no longer in his possession. He started dancing around.
Just then, his wife comes running and anxiously tells him, 'But we have not yet received the payment for the house!'
The minute the man hears this, he starts wailing again and is grief-stricken.
Within half an hour, the man has had three different moods. The same house is burning and the same person is seeing this. Within half an hour, he has felt deep pain, deep pleasure and deep pain again!
Pain and pleasure are our rubber-stamps. It is our idea! Both pain and pleasure are part of our psycho-drama. Even without meditation if we feel the truth consciously, we will feel liberated. But when emotions start erupting unconsciously, our conscious will not be under our control. For that we need meditation. As long as we are balanced, all the logic and reasoning will work. But when we are confronted directly by these imbalances, we see a problem. If we are balanced even at that time, we are truly liberated. When we are imbalanced, only meditation will give us the power and energy to shift the balance.
If we have a glimpse of consciousness, we will have an understanding of the s*amatva, the sameness, the non-differentiation between these emotions. All our understanding of samatva* right now is wrong. Our idea of samatva is based only on the dictionary meaning. After the glimpse, it will be experiential.
A small story:
A woman was wearing a fur coat and admiring herself in front of the mirror. She felt it looked really good on her.
Her daughter looked at her and said, 'Mom, how much the poor animal must have suffered for you to get this coat!'
The lady was furious and shouted at her daughter, 'How dare you speak of your father like that!'
The little girl was talking about the furry animal that was killed in order for the coat to be made. But the mother totally misinterpreted her comment and scolded her for talking about her father who had worked to get her the coat! Her daughter's description matched the image of her husband as a man who had to work really hard to earn enough so they could afford to buy her coat.
So understand: experiential understanding is different from the dictionary meaning. Only when we have this experience, will we understand what Krishna meant by samatva.
Even the word 'sex' has two different meanings: the dictionary meaning and the existential meaning born out of meditation.
Buddha was intelligent: he tried thousands of meditation techniques and ultimately became enlightened. He worked with thousands of keys and ultimately found the right key. If we have the courage, we can also do it.
That is why Buddha says with authority, 'To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life; foolish people are idle, wise people are diligent.'
Think about it: if it were us in the place of Buddha, forget twelve years of trying, we would not have been able to do meditation for more than a couple of days! Our ego would not have allowed us to continue. We would be cheating ourselves. Buddha belonged to a different level. We may not be able to do what He did. But atleast we can learn to improve. We always aim very high. We want to fly when we are not even able to walk. Accept reality and start walking first; you will automatically fly!
Forget vaastu (ancient Hindu science relating to house-building), gemology, astrology, numerology; just do meditation. The experience will stand by you at the time of death. It will help you have a painless transition. Understand the truth of dying and you can start living better.
The final step in the NSP is to reach the nirvanic layer. By the time one reaches this layer, one will be without samskaras; one is at the doorstep of enlightenment. We have to let go to reach enlightenment. Enlightenment just happens; it cannot be made to happen. It is like river water. It stays in our hands as long as our hands are open; once we close our hands there is no water.