The Fear of Enjoying
There has been a fear implanted into our psyches that to enjoy is somehow unspiritual. This is not the authentic teaching of the yogic tradition.
The nature of you is Ananda, bliss.
Joy is not the problem. It’s the ego. The unrefined soul gets attached because it’s afraid. It hasn’t tapped into its own resourcefulness so it’s afraid and it doesn’t know how to rest in itself.
When it goes to itself, it hates itself and so it needs something to escape itself and this need is what breeds attachment.
Pleasure breeds attachment.
If something gives you pleasure, you have attachment towards it. If something doesn’t give you a pleasurable experience, you have no problem avoiding it. Pleasure leaves an imprint and then the mind goes chasing after it.
If the mind hasn’t been refined, anchored, it doesn’t know how to rest itself.
Attachment leads to misery, not joy. Wherever there is attachment, joy will diminish. It will leave immediately because, the moment attachment comes, fear comes with it. The fear of loss comes with it.
A soul which is not in touch with its soul nature, living only through the lower mind, lives at that level of craving and aversion. That’s the lower mind’s tendency, the egoic mind. The positive mind is the attachment mind, the craving mind. The negative mind is the aversion mind, resisting.
If you look at the lower mind, the content is mostly based on that. It’s either craving or trying to avoid something, but the higher mind doesn’t do that, as it’s a refined mind, an intelligent mind.
When you realise you have within you the infinite pharmacy, the mind rests at ease.
Joy is not the problem. It’s the ego, the unrefined mind. If joy was so terrible, why would the rose be so beautiful?
So, we need to refine and culture. That’s why we have 4 pillars: Gyana, Bhakti, Karma, Raja and then Tantra (practices). It’s a whole integrated technology.
This is so we can experience our knowledge viscerally. We can taste the truth of who we are, that bliss, Ananda. We can experience God as a living experience, not just a construct of thought, because God, when experienced, liberates you, expands you.
By - Sattva Connect
Publish date - 2024-01-29
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