The End of Sorrow

by Eknath Easwaran

  In developing the capacity to love and respect all, we must go beyond superficial gestures. We must learn to be understanding and sympathetic to all. It is easy to appear cosmopolitan, to seem well disposed to all, but deep inside there still may be a tacit sense of superiority – the feeling that our culture, our country, our religion, or our race is greater than someone else’s. Some of the books, for example, that are published about different countries by respected scholars are attempts, whether conscious or unconscious, to deprecate other countries and other cultures simply because they are foreign.

  One of the deep causes of agitation in India during the British regime was the quiet pervasion of all levels of society with the attitude that British culture was superior. The worst thing about foreign domination is that it can gradually undermine the self-reliance and self-respect of a nation. Because of these far-reaching consequences of long periods of foreign misrule, it is not surprising that most of the Asian and African countries which have endured colonial governments have a kind of national neurosis. Western nations which have not had the misfortune of being dominated by a foreign power must bear with these nations of Asia and Africa, remembering that because they have been mercilessly exploited, they have the constant suspicion that they are likely to be exploited again.

  As Mahatma Gandhi has pointed out, imperialism damages not only the ruled, but the rulers also. Even young Englishmen – often university graduates from Oxford or Cambridge – who came to India with high ideals and the desire to serve would in the course of a decade or so slowly become arrogant and come to believe that they belonged to a superior race, culture, and country. In recalling the dark days of foreign rule, however, we should not forget that many British people tried to make amends during the freedom struggle by joining Mahatma Gandhi to help him in his work. Today there are many British people who have settled down in India as citizens and who love the country as much as they loved England.

  We begin the practice of equal love and respect for all right in our home. We need not be afraid or agitated if there are people with different opinions living in the same home. What makes us afraid of opinions opposed to ours, often causing the so-called generation gap, is the tendency to identify ourselves and others with opinions. Just because you happen to be one color and I happen to be another does not mean that we are different; we are just wearing different colored jackets. Similarly with opinions: even if our opinions differ, this is no reason for us not to love and respect one another. Even though there may be differences of opinion between them, each generation can greatly enrich the life of the home. There is a contribution that older people can make with their experience of life, for which there is no substitute. Similarly, young people make a contribution to the home with their vitality and freshness. Children also can add to the life of the home with their innocence; they remind us of the words of Jesus: “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.”

  In this verse Sri Krishna also refers to animals. We should show love and respect even to animals because the Lord is in them also. I need hardly say how much animals respond to a person who really loves them. Because they understand in some way that we have great love for them, that we are trying to realize the unity that makes us all one, more and more creatures are now coming to Ramagiri. I remember how nervous the jackrabbits were when we first moved to Ramagiri. As soon as we saw a jackrabbit, he would go sit behind a bush and say, “I am a bush.” I used to reply, “If you believe that, all right. I won’t look at you if you don’t want me to.” Then I would go away. They had probably been chased and were afraid. But our people at Ramagiri are extremely loving and particularly solicitous of the welfare of the creatures which live there, and one year has changed the atmosphere of the place considerably. So yesterday, when I saw a jackrabbit and immediately said, “That’s a bush,” he didn’t try to hide. In fact, he might have heard me – jackrabbits have very long ears – because he turned around, came back close to the path, and started performing.

  19. Such people have conquered separate existence. Their minds are even and reflect the unity and perfection of Brahman.

  In order to look with an equal eye of love and respect on all, whether they conduct themselves selfishly or selflessly towards us, we must have the capacity to keep our mind even at all times. In the Gita, Sri Krishna defines the unitive state as evenness of mind (2: 48). Now what usually happens to most of us is just the opposite of even-mindedness. As soon as someone pleases us, we begin to get exhilarated; when someone does what we want, there is an automatic sense of satisfaction. On the other hand, when someone says no to us, we immediately get dejected. This constant fluctuation of the mind takes away from our capacity to deal with everyday difficulties. To deal successfully with a difficult situation, all that is usually required is that we preserve our equilibrium and not get agitated. When someone is flying into a rage, it is very easy for us to get angry in return, which can only change things for the worse. Arithmetic tells us there are now two people in a rage. The question is, how has the situation been improved by doubling the number of people in a rage?

  When we are getting agitated and angry, the best thing we can do to maintain our equilibrium is to go out for a long, brisk walk repeating the mantram in our mind. In the early days, after going around the block, we will want to come back because we have thought of a sparkling repartee which in our normal state of consciousness we wouldn’t have been able to think of. When we want to come back, knowing what satisfaction our ego is going to get by making one more crack, that is the time to propel ourselves onwards saying the mantram. It is painful, because we have such good things to hit with. It seems a sorry waste. But after we have kept walking for an hour and the rhythm of the footstep, mantram, and breathing has calmed the mind, we will remember some of the nice things about the other person. When we were upset, it was unmitigated evil that we saw embodied before us. But it takes only an hour’s walk, with the repetition of the mantram, to know that the evil is mitigated. If we can control our anger a few times this way, we will be able to remember when someone provokes us that even though he is angry now, when he comes back to normal he will be good, kind, and loving.

  When we are burning with anger, we often conclude that this burning is going to last forever. But if we could quench the flames of anger consuming us and remember that in a little while we will have forgotten our anger, none of us would go to the extreme of moving away from people, which we now often try to do. Moving away is the worst thing to do in case of differences. Alienation deprives both parties of becoming aware of the unity in that relationship, and it weakens both. By strengthening the other person, in contrast, we are also strengthening ourselves. Living in peace and harmony with people who are agitated is one of the greatest services we can render them. Everyone is prepared to move away from people who are troubled, who are angry or afraid, but when troubled people find one person who can bear with them and support them, and at the same time guide them by his personal conduct, they respond beautifully with greater love and respect. It is the capacity to bear with people, whatever they do, which is the secret of love.

  20. They are not elated by good fortune or depressed by bad. With mind established in Brahman, they are free from delusion.

  The rare person who is able to receive good fortune without getting excited and bad fortune without getting depressed, who is able to treat those who are good to him with love and those who are not good to him with love, will never be deluded by the seeming multiplicity of life. When the mind gets agitated, we do not see life as it is, as one. The scriptures say that it is the constant agitation going on in our mind that deludes us into believing that you and I are separate.

  The question we may ask is, “If we are to have neither pleasure nor pain in life, are we not likely to become insensitive to the joy of life?” The Gita
says this doubt arises from the wrong assumption that in life there is only pleasure and pain and nothing else. One of the fatal weaknesses of the intellect is that it must always cut things up into two classes – everything must be either this or that. Because of this intellectual trap, we may find it difficult to understand that the person who has gone beyond both pleasure and pain lives in abiding joy. The Gita is telling us to go beyond pleasure and pain so that we may come into our legacy, which is the state of continuous joy and security.

  To enter this state of abiding joy we must be very vigilant in the early years of our sadhana and often say no to pleasure while welcoming pain with a smile. In this way the nervous system can be reconditioned. Because of the conditioning we have received through the long travail of evolution, we are always looking for what is pleasant in life and trying to run away from what is not pleasant. This is the reaction that has now become inscribed on the nervous system: to the pleasant it says “Good, good,” and to the painful, “Bad, bad.” The Gita does not say we should not go after pleasure. When I first heard this from my Grandmother, I really took to the Gita immediately, but I wasn’t expecting what she said next: “The Gita doesn’t say not to go after pleasure; it says that when you go after pleasure you are also going after pain.” It is not possible for most of us to accept this. There is always the distant hope in every one of us that while no other human being has ever succeeded in isolating pleasure, we are going to achieve this magnificent feat and live in a state of pleasure always.

  For a long time, sadhana is a reconditioning of the nervous system to accept a temporary disappointment, if necessary, when it is for our permanent well-being. Sometimes on the spiritual path, when we want to eat a particular dainty that appeals to us, or when we want to eat a little more than is necessary, we can’t help feeling a little tug at the heart as we walk out of the restaurant. We cannot help thinking that we could as well have stayed on at the table and had five more minutes of pleasure, forgetting that it would probably be followed by five hours of stomachache at night. The right time to get up from the meal is when we want just a little more. This is real artistry, real gourmet judgment: when we find that everything is so good that we would like to have one more helping, we get up and come out.

  We should learn this art not only with food, but in all aspects of daily life. Even in personal relationships, when we call on a person or are at a party, we shouldn’t linger until we reach the dregs of the cup. When the party is really bubbling and everyone is saying, “You are the life and soul of the party. Why don’t you stay on?” – that is the time to leave in good dignity. If we can do this, we are living in freedom. To be able to break up the party at its zenith, before the downward curve begins, we must not get caught in it. In everything, we must have the freedom to drop what we are doing at will. We may not get the little pleasures that we have been going after, but we shall gradually find ourselves in the permanent state of joy which is indicated by the mantram Rama.

  21. Not dependent upon any external support, they have realized the joy of spiritual awareness. With their consciousness unified through the practice of meditation, they live in abiding joy.

  When the mind has become even, when we can retain our equanimity in pleasure and pain, friendship and enmity, treating everyone with equal love and respect, we truly have realized the Lord who is enthroned in every heart. Then our love will be given to all those around us without any expectation of return. This is the mark of true love. As the Catholic mystic St. Bernard puts it, “Love seeks no cause beyond itself and no fruit; it is its own fruit, its own enjoyment. I love because I love; I love in order that I may love.” The moment we say, “I love you because I want something from you,” it is no longer love; it is a contract.

  When we are able to love all those around us and to live only for their welfare, we will find that all our support comes from within. It is when we are expecting something from the other person in return that we are leaning on him for our support, but when we do not expect anything in return, and love with all our heart, we are free. We are not dependent upon any external support but derive our support from the Lord within. When we discover that the Lord of Love is ever within us, we have entered into the state of joy and security which Jesus calls the kingdom of heaven within.

  This joy and security that knows no end can never come to any person who is dependent upon external circumstances and external stimuli for his satisfaction. It is when you become dependent entirely on the Lord within, who is the source of all joy and security, that you become free; and until you have this freedom in some measure, you will not be able to use even material resources wisely. In order to use money or any material resources wisely, you must have no attachments to them. Otherwise you will get caught in them, as can happen when, for example, you start going after money. I often tease a friend who works with the media by saying that one day we hope to make a movie called Leave the Money and Run. “Take the money and run,” as the real title goes, and you run into despair. Leave the money and run, and you run into fulfillment. In order to use any material possession wisely, whether it is a house, a car, or a guitar, you must not be attached to it. When you are greatly attached to a guitar, for example, the guitar will say at the time your term paper is due, “Now is the time for you to strum on me,” and instead of writing your paper you will have to play your guitar.

  If we are to enter into a state of unending joy, Sri Krishna says, on the one hand we should not be dependent on any external circumstances for our happiness, and on the other, we should be meditating regularly with complete concentration on the Lord who is within us. For a long time, until we break through the surface layers of consciousness, meditation is nothing but arduous discipline. But once we enter the depths of our consciousness, we shall begin to sense the deep peace that is called shanti in Sanskrit. When the tensions of the nervous system are relaxed, there is such profound peace inside that even the body turns over like a little cat and basks in this new-found joy.

  22. Pleasures conceived in the world of the senses have a beginning and an end and give birth to misery, Kaunteya. The wise do not look for happiness in them.

  He or she is not wise who goes after any pleasure which has a beginning and an end. Our need is for joy that knows neither beginning nor end, for the eternal joy called Rama in Sanskrit. No lasting joy, no lasting security can be ours if we pursue finite things, things that pass away.

  A little pleasure will satisfy us as long as we are living on the surface level of consciousness, but when we break through to the deeper recesses of our consciousness, our capacity for joy is unlimited. If we just keep throwing little pleasures inside, they will be completely lost in that vast space that is the world within. People with access to deeper consciousness, with deeper states of awareness open to them, will not take seriously the blandishments of material possessions, because they know that these cannot satisfy them.

  It takes a long time for most of us to learn that pleasure is not permanent. If we go to the beach on days when the sea is stormy, we sometimes find big footballs of foam and froth. We are tempted to pick them up and say, “Why not bring these home to play soccer with?” They look very round and inviting, but if we pick up a big foam bubble in the hope of keeping it permanently, by the time we get it home, it has vanished. This is the way pleasure slips through our fingers: when we are almost sure we have got it right here in our palm, it vanishes.

  In the early years of our life, it is permissible to have the attitude that pleasure is something we can have always. But the Gita warns us to learn as quickly as we can that pleasure is impermanent. It is like the bubble that is blown away, dissolving immediately. The sooner we are able to learn this lesson in life, the less suffering we will be forced to undergo. The Gita is not talking only about the situation as it existed in India twenty-five hundred years ago, but about contemporary problems. What it says will always be found valid, because wherever we live, our fundamental need is to find within ourselves
the Lord of Love who is the source of all joy and security.

  The timelessness of the Gita was brought home to me today as I was reading an article about a recent convention of psychologists in San Francisco. One of the major concerns of the psychologists and medical doctors attending the conference is the increase in the use of “legal psychoactive” drugs, such as tranquilizers. Many patients who do not have an organic illness go to their doctors because of emotional problems and are given drugs which will calm them, help them sleep better, or stimulate them. As these psychologists point out, this chemical therapy is based partly on the assumption that we should all be in a state of continuous pleasure, untroubled by stress. The consequences of taking these drugs are far-reaching, and dependence upon them actually takes away from the capacity to deal with the problems of life. Also, dependence upon drugs by the older generation can influence their children to seek instant happiness through the more powerful mind-altering drugs.

  23. Those who overcome the impulse of lust and anger which arises in the body are made whole and live in joy.

  24. They find their joy, their rest, and their light completely within themselves. They live in freedom and become united with the Lord.

  This is the same truth conveyed by Jesus when he tells us the kingdom of heaven is within. He is warning us not to roam the outer world looking for security. We can only find security by entering the world within, and then we shall find we can function with complete freedom in the outer world.

  25. With all their conflicts healed and all their sins removed, the holy sages work for the good of all beings, and attain the nirvana of Brahman.

  In this verse, the word nirvana is used to indicate the goal towards which, according to the founders of the great religions of the world, all creation is moving. The mystics are not theorizing when they declare that the supreme goal of life is to become aware of the indivisible unity that is the Divine Ground of existence. They are drawing upon their own personal experience in which they have realized that all life is one.