HOW TO BE FREE FROM DESIRE AND FEAR - PART 23
With the knowledge of the True Self or Self-Realization, all desires and fears drop away. Who would desire? Who would fear? For the seeker, still lost in the dream of self-identity, desires and fears are like constant waves in the ocean, providing a stream of experiences - good and bad. The series will share pointers on how to observe these desires and fears as they arise, how to rest in your own nature, and thereby break the hypnotic spell of self-identification.
Pleasure depends on things, happiness does not. As long as we believe that we need things to make us happy, we shall also believe that in their absence we must be miserable. Mind always shapes itself according to its beliefs. Hence the importance of convincing oneself that one need not be prodded into happiness; that, on the contrary, pleasure is a distraction and a nuisance, for it merely increases the false conviction that one needs to have and do things to be happy, when in reality it is just the opposite. But why talk of happiness at all? You do not think of happiness except when you are unhappy. A man who says "Now I am happy" is between two sorrows, past and future. This happiness is mere excitement caused by relief from pain. Real happiness is utterly unselfconscious. It is best expressed negatively as: "there is nothing wrong with me, I have nothing to worry about".
– Nisargadatta
Maharaj
Remember, to know Yourself, return to the silence before words.