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Editorial:
Blessed Misery
'Then sorrow came
And Wealth and Power went
And made him kinship find
With all the human race
In groans and tears,
And though his friends would laugh,
His lips would speak in grateful accents
"O Blessed Misery! "'1
The serene feeling of equanimity of a man of knowledge has been depicted so beautifully in the above lines by Swami Vivekananda in his poem `Angels Unawares'. The idea may perhaps leave us stranded, wondering how misery can produce bliss! Yet the earlier two or even four editorials have tried to drive home the truth that our surrender to God has many levels to deal with. A right attitude to all miseries or sufferings is the finale to the series. We have discussed God's commandments, counted our defects, emboldened our faith, pushed our prarabdha to its limits, and now we happily drive the last nail of misery on the coffin. Once we have done so, we are free to call it a day and then quietly sit and observe with moist eyes how water is gushing with bubbling noise into the field prepared so thoroughly with our own hard labour!
Introduction
The great discomfort caused to our mind or body is termed misery or suffering. There are miseries and miseries (sarvam duhkham). `The world is full of miseries,' says the Holy Mother. To the wise people everything in the world is either full of misery (duhkham eva sarvam vivekinah2) or full of bliss. Because, their mind is not agitated by adversities (duhkheshu anudvigna--manah), and they are desireless as regards pleasures (sukheshu vigatasprihah). In fact, they transcend both. But, for the ordinary aspirants, it is a mixture of both pleasure and pain that they have to negotiate in the course of their life. Though from our own experience each of us know that one has to accept both pleasure and pain with equanimity, our inherent tendency to avoid pain or, in other words, our weakness to avoid encountering it, has conferred on misery so much importance. `This is a great fact: strength is life; weakness is death. Strength is felicity, life eternal, immortal; weakness is constant strain and misery; weakness is death', observed Swamiji. Can any consideration of even serious injuries ever deter us from participating in our favourite games? Similarly it is a sporting spirit that matters most for enabling us to face miseries squarely. There are two inevitable ends--birth and death--circumscribing our life on earth. What can, therefore, be a greater misery for a life than death? Immortality is that which transcends the limits of life, and goes beyond its transient beauty and glory.
All About Misery
To an embodied being suffering comes in different forms. The sub--human beings are not aware of them though their sufferings are no less. However, we shall see that a part of the adhyatmika suffering is not meant for them. The repetition of the word shantih thrice to invoke peace after all Vedic prayers alludes to three types of sufferings: Adhyatmika--which arise out of physical and mental causes within oneself; Adhibhautika--which are caused by created beings; Adhidaivika--which befall due to the fury of elements, etc.
Adhyatmika: Sufferings under this division are related to the life hereafter. The body and mind are their targets. The mind suffers from impurity, fear, base tastes, licence, anger, greed, hatred, untruth, restlessness, malevolence, pride, vanity, etc. Sufferings of the body are caused by death, disease, old age, accidents, etc. Since we are a compound of body and mind many of the sufferings are correlated and are called psychosomatic. So any suffering caused to either of them permeates both. As our physical ailments affect our mind so also the mental agonies harm our physique. They say, mind plays a vital role in the cure of diseases. Likewise body plays an equally vital role in keeping the mind cheerful. The body--mind complex is a container (adhi) of the self (atma); so the complex is called adhyatma, and all the sufferings experienced by it are called adhyatmika duhkha.
Or as the Vedantins say, `There is an apparently intractable knot or superimposition of these two--the body--mind (of five--sheaths material, mental, vital, knowledge and blissful) and the Self.' These five sheaths together form our gross, subtle and causal bodies. The sufferings experienced by mind and body affect us so much because we feel identified with the mind and body. That is how the observation of Shankara, `there continues a natural human behaviour based on self--identification in the form "I am this "...,' (Shankara's preface to the Brahma Sutras), is explained or understood. As manifested through human behaviour (loka--vyavaharah) the gross body suffers miseries due to myriads of diseases, and troubles like bad odour, deformity, ungainly size, shape, colour, etc. The subtle body suffers from desire, anger, greed, delusion, pride and jealousy. They harm the mindset of people no matter whether they are sensual or spiritual. The worldly persons suffer helplessly surrendering to the baneful influence of desires while the spiritual aspirants suffer fighting against them. The suffering of the causal body is rather obscure and therefore difficult to comprehend3. It happens in the state of deep sleep--we forget ourselves and everything around us, and get up as the same fool as we were before falling into deep sleep. So the causal body has this suffering to bear. There is no difference in this respect between a defenseless baby and a defence minister.
Precisely, what are they which cause so much suffering to the core of our empirical existence? The Yoga Sutras4 identify them as ignorance (avidya), egoism (asmita), attachment (raga), aversion (dvesha), and fear of death or clinging to life (abhinivesha). Ignorance (avidya) is the cause of all the succeeding afflictions because it is the repository of all impressions, and it produces contrary knowledges that `I am the body, not the Self,' etc. Of course, the ignorance (avidya) we are talking about here is different from the primeval ignorance (mula avidya) of the Vedantins as when Shankara says, `Who get all the seeds of evil (ashesha--klesha--bijanam) burnt away,'5 he defines mulavidya as the seed or origin (bija) of all afflictions or evils (kleshas which include, among others, avidya). Egoism (asmita) is also a cause of suffering because it produces the ideas like `I am the doer', `I am the enjoyer', etc. `I am the doer' and such other forms of egoism are preceded by the delusion that `I am the body'. So the conclusion is that egoism has avidya for its root. From asmita originates attachment (raga) to all objects of pleasure. There are impressions of pleasures imprinted on the mind--tape that we experienced in the past; we activate them i.e. remember them (which is called smriti) and then feel a thirst for all pleasurable things. Everybody desires for his or her own benefit. It is nothing but a kind of attachment. Because of such attachment, we feel aversion (dvesha) to hostile and unfavourable objects. Though no fool would like to invite misery, they only are wise who are not over--sensitive to either happiness or misery.
The clinging to life or the fear of death is called abhinivesha. Due to the presence of raga we want to cling to life, and similarly, due to dvesha we are intimidated by death. Fear is generated in our mind by an object which, we feel, is hostile to us, and therefore, can cause harm to us. Fear is natural for all beings ranging from the creator Brahma to a lowly worm. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad6 records the first cry of Brahma as `Out of fear he (Brahma) cried.' Swamiji, in his exposition of the word abhinivesha (Yoga Sutras 2.9), has shown how our past experiences of various kinds of fear have been retained by us as fine and hidden impressions, which in the psychological language of the yogis are called samskaras. He summarised the discussion saying, `The recurring experiences of previous fears, in course of time, produce this clinging to life.' And, `Men are so fond of life that they desire a future life also.'
Adhibhautika: These sufferings are caused by two types of beings--those whom we regard as our own (priya) and those to whom we are averse (dveshya). Sufferings inflicted by insects, snake bites, tigers, enemies, etc. are thrust upon us. We have to live with them; so there is no way to get rid of such contingencies. Similarly there are miseries caused to us by our near and dear ones also--sometimes without the least intention on their part. People think that they will continue to live after death in their progeny and in the memories of their near and dear ones. That is how the table of heirship under Succession Acts are chalked out. There are classes of descents. The heirs are given shares of one's estates in that they are benefactors, here and hereafter. But at the same time, they are causes of measureless misery in most cases. We cannot deny that sometimes we are loved by our heirs because of our riches, and sometimes we are even killed by them for the same. This is a continuous natural human behaviour (naisargikah ayam lokavyavaharah); hence an unending source of natural human miseries.
Adhidaivika: Last but not the least are our miseries caused due to natural phenomena called calamities, like storm, fire, flood, earthquakes, etc; they are called acts of gods. Daiva, i.e. providence or destiny is one of the common efficient causes of a work (sadharana naimittika karana). It is always there, manifesting itself at times benevolently, at other times malevolently, and at still other times neutrally. We have hardly any power against daiva, even to act defensively.
Way Beyond Miseries
The Taittiriya Upanishad has given a chart of successively higher and higher grades of bliss. The unit of the highest human bliss has been equated with the joy of a young man--in the prime of life, good, learned, the best ruler, having all the senses intact, strong, and the king ruling over the earth7. From the above list we can easily infer the opposites that can be counted as human miseries. When we are aging, we lament over the past; when we don't get fame, we feel ashamed; when we are not learned, we suffer from inferiority complex; when we are handicapped, physically or mentally, we are helpless; when we are weak, we feel hopeless; and when we are ruled by others, we feel oppressed. These together may very well constitute a unit of human misery.
(i) A Passive Attitude to Misery
Misery as such is impartial. It is on the right attitude of the person that blessedness of misery depends. Jesus has said, `Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.'8 And enduring misery voluntarily as a means for a higher life has been advocated by the scriptures. Explicating physical and mental sufferings to Arjuna, Sri Krishna said in the Gita (2.14):
Contact of the senses with their objects generates cold and heat, pleasure and pain. They come and go, being impermanent. Bear with them patiently, O scion of the Bharata race!
The right attitude is that misery or suffering pertains to the body. Sri Ramakrishna says, `One is aware of pleasure and pain, birth and death, disease and grief, as long as one is identified with the body. All these belong to the body alone, and not to the soul.'9 The Naishkarmyasiddhi (1.12) and the Adhyatma Ramayana (8) present a wheel of death and birth (bhava--chakra) as understood by the Advaitins:
The cause of happiness and misery is the body; its cause is the unseen result of good and bad actions; the cause of these is attachment and hatred; their causes are likes and dislikes, and favourable and unfavourable thoughts; their cause is the idea of difference; its cause is ignorance about the identity of oneself with Brahman.
Let us not increase our misery by our own foolish acts, but let us imbibe a right attitude to endure it. Man--made misery is a penalty we have to pay for our own attachments of varied kinds. Let us purify our attitude and turn `cursed misery' into `blessed misery' in our Lord's name.
Kunti, the mother of the Pandavas, most daringly prays to Sri Krishna, `Vipadah santu nah shashvat...',10 i.e., let misfortune be with us eternally... . Is it not a foolish act of a devotee to impetuously invite endless misery? Her family's lot of miseries was already phenomenal, yet she beseeched for more! Of course, she was, by all means, the most competent person to do so! However, she sets an example of unprecedented heroism. But look at the attitude of hers. Misery wins perhaps the one and only kudos in its life (Misery is as old as Lucifer.) and how astoundingly. In recognition of its (misery's) success, as it were, Swamiji confers `blessedness' on it by calling it `Blessed Misery'.11
Different from Kunti's approach are the cases of the monks or the renunciates. As because they renounce their shares in wordly enjoyments in favour of their friends and relations, they are left with only miseries to suffer. And the body and the mind are the only grounds where one's Prarabdha is worked out tangibly. That too becomes very intense when they want to exhaust all karmas in the present life itself! Hence, suffering is inevitable in the life of the renunciates. Yet, since they establish contact with their spiritual Being which is the absolute source of bliss, they remain happy in the midst of all the load of sufferings!
Our strength to endure miseries is inversely proportional to our elation at delights. Having this test at hand, we can weigh our condition and take steps to equip ourselves to put up a fight against it. When all afflictions along with all happiness cease, there is no birth and death for an aspirant.11
What to speak of small fries like us, even the Incarnations of God themselves suffered thousands of miseries notwithstanding their own redeeming power. No difference can be found between the Avataras on this score. In this one aspect at least their earthly lives have got wonderful tangible similarity! Sri Ramakrishna's own life is an illuminator. He was the dearest child of the Mother Kali. But when he, at the importunities of his disciples, particularly of Narendra, reluctantly prayed to the Mother for lessening his throat pain so that he could eat a little, the Mother admonished him saying, `Are you not eating through so many mouths?' What more should we expect from a suffering God? And Swamiji would muse saying, `And this is maya.'
(ii) An Active Attitude to Misery
Sri Ramakrishna prescribes, as he always does, another simple but active solution to ward off miseries. He says, `Give an about--turn (to all the causes of miseries)!' The Kathopanishad (2.1.1) calls it avrittachakshuh--one whose gaze has been turned away from the sense objects. All the evil propensities that would compel us to run after evil causes should be given a reverse orientation in order to force them to pursue a higher life. How wonderful it is! Suffer we have to, why then not suffer for a sane purpose, for a great cause? The choice is ours. Einstein once observed, `...my formula is neutral. The choice of whether to use it as a blessing or a curse lies with mankind.'
Sometimes the enemies (vairis) thrive due to our active support or passive attitude towards them. Jesus has beautifully described this about--turn in the following: `For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.'12 And he did not make it mandatory for all; so he continued, `He who is able to receive this, let him receive it.' Shankara says, `Karma has its source in desire, since it stimulates action; for no impulsion to activity is possible in the case of those whose desires have been fulfilled ... And fulfilment of desires follows from the desire for the self ... (atmakamatve cha aptakamata).'13 [Elsewhere Shankara has equated atman with Ishwara (svena atmana isha--the Isha Upanishad 1).]
Now, shall we see what the Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi has to tell us in addition in the matter? She, being the Mother, must be very intimately concerned about the welfare of her children. So, her opinion has the maximum importance. And she was too simple to devise any complicated solution! She said, `Nirvasana hao' (in Bengali) i.e., be desireless. There is then no need to show an olive branch to misery or be strong in its saddle, but simply to become desireless! This forms the essence of the Four Noble Truths taught by Tathagata, the Buddha.
On being asked how the internal enemies, such as lust, anger, etc. can be vanquished, Sri Ramakrishna said:
So long as these passions are directed towards the world and its objects they are enemies, but when they are directed towards the Deity, they become the best friends of man, for they take him to God. The desire for things worldly must be changed into longing for God; the anger which you feel towards your fellow--creatures must be directed towards God, for not manifesting Himself to you, and so on with all the other passions. The passions need not, and cannot be eradicated, but they can be educated and turned into a different channel.
References
1. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Vols.8, 7th ed.(Calcutta: Advaaita Ashrama, 1985), 4:.386; hereafter cited as CW
2. Cf. The Yoga Sutras, 2.15.
3. Cf. The Chhandogya Up. 8.11.1.
4. Cf. The Yoga Sutras, 2.3.
5. Cf. The Svetashvatara Up. 1.11.
6. Cf. The Brihadaranyaka Up. 1.2.4.
7. Cf. The Taittiriya Up. 2.8.1.
8. Cf. St. Matthew, 5.4.
9. Mahendra Nath Gupta, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (Chennai: Sri Ramakrishna Math, 2000), 257
10. Cf. The Bhagavatam, 1.8.25.
11. CW, 4:386.
12. Cf. St. Matthew, 19.12.
13. Cf. Shankara's preface to The Taittiriya Upanishad.
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