Infinite Happiness
In the hills south of Santa Barbara there is a beautiful meditation temple where I would occasionally go to meditate or to hear the sunset vespers of the resident nuns. One evening I went to hear a lecture by an elderly Indian monk who had lived many years in America and was the author of my favorite translation of the Bhagavad Gita (a well known Indian spiritual text). I was accompanied by a female college friend who also practiced meditation.
Sitting in the midst of the audience of fifty or sixty people, I was surprised when, in the middle of the lecture, the elderly monk singled me out to make a point.
“Take this young man here,” he said, pointing his finger at me. “He has a very beautiful wife,” referring to my female companion. “But there is nothing in this world that gives permanent happiness. No matter how much pleasure something gives you, nothing lasts forever and you will feel pain at its loss.”
Some of us are not very good at taking hints. Indeed, I did marry this woman, and when she took our young son and left me, I was devastated. Despite the strength and courage derived by continuing my meditation practice throughout this painful period, it took me a long time to recover from the experience.
The first noble truth of Buddhism is that “Life is Suffering,” a reference to this aspect of life that even those things that bring happiness eventually also bring you pain through their loss. Buddhism advocates right living and spiritual practice to escape from this suffering.
I personally feel this approach of Buddhism is somewhat negative in that it focuses on suffering and how to escape from suffering. The approach of yoga is actually the opposite in that it focuses on infinite happiness and how to attain it.
Regular happiness is a congenial mental feeling that results from getting what one wants. But this happiness is temporary and does not last. Within oneself there is a deeper happiness that is independent of the external world, a happiness associated with consciousness itself. This infinite happiness is called “ananda” (“bliss”) in Sanskrit.
It is through the unification (yoga) of the individual consciousness with infinite consciousness that one fully attains this state and experiences infinite happiness or bliss. This is the purpose of the spiritual practice of yoga.