Sukha and Dukha

Swami Bhoomananda Tirtha

In the second chapter, Sri Krishna says:

Maatraa-sparsaash-tu kaunteya sheetoshna-sukha-duhkhadaah
Aagamaapaayinonityaas-taams-titikshaswa bhaarata

The meaning of this verse is very clear and simple. It describes the contact between the senses of ours and the objects of the world as giving rise to a set of two mental reactions. These reactions are opposed to each other like cold and heat. The instance of cold and heat is up only to show that they differ from one another in the form of  ‘opposites’. Opposites are not just ‘different things’. The difference can be between similar things too. But when two things are opposed to each other, one is totally dissimilar to the other, like east and west, like above and below, like plus and minus.

The names given to these opposites, the reactions or effects produced in the mind whenever an object from outside forms an impression through the senses in the body in us, are sukha and duhkha. These are two words. Using these words and their descriptions, you have to understand what they denote and imply.

To understand them, the physical experiences of heat and cold are mentioned. Even a child knows what is heat and what is cold. Heat and cold are felt by the body, hence one and all who have bodies will experience them. 

Now use the bodily experience to relate the mental reactions, the experiences the mind produces in pursuant to the contact the senses make with the objects outside. When you take your body near fire, it feels the heat of fire. When you place ice on the body, you feel cold.

Likewise, when an impression is formed through the senses about an object in the world, whatever be the object – sun, moon, man, beast, rain, wind, fire or anything – that impression is bound to result either in the experience of sukha or that of duhkha.

What is sukha is not duhkha, what is duhkha is not sukha. One is fully opposed to the other. Sukha denotes pleasantness, acceptability, favourableness, stimulation. Whatever conduces to this is sukha. Duhkha is opposed to it. There is no need to describe them further.

Now comes the crux of the whole philosophy, the lesson of the Geeta.

So the guna-product, namely our body, and the guna-products, namely the world and its contents – you should include everything within the world including heavens and hells, previous lives and future lives, if there are any – the effects produced by these two, any time and all times, is just the two mental reactions, sukha and duhkha.

Whatever follows in life is a result and outcome of these two, an extension and promotion, an expansion and lengthening of them. The ways and means may be many, but the end is just this, no other.

Between sukha and duhkha do you have anything to say, for instance, which of the two in particular do you like, and which do you dislike?

The ready answer of one and all, not given to the pursuit of spiritual tradition or wisdom, will be that only sukha is liked, not duhkha. If sukha is liked, then duhkha, being opposed to sukha, is disliked. The twins of like and dislike are thus forged in the mind, as a result of the body and senses, their existence and activities.

The effort from then on is to preserve and promote the like, the outcome of sukha; abhor and dismiss the dislike, the outcome of duhka. But will this effort succeed ever, the least? As long as the senses and the body live, also as long as the world and its objects remain around, the twin reactions of the mind will be inevitable. Along with them will also emerge likes and dislikes.

So the truth is that both likes and dislikes have to be accepted. Their acceptance, not refusal is called for. The tendency to prefer one of them is wrong, so also to abhor the other. Both are equally to be honoured as part of life, and accepted in full. The ability to live in them, through them, by them, is the real ability. That alone is the state to be achieved, aspired for.

Once the likes and dislikes are thus viewed alike, their causes also equally accommodated, the whole world stands accepted in full. The seeker will remain in full embrace with the creation.

Sukha will be there for him. Along with it dukha also. The causes for both are there in his body and mind. They are also in the world, in every object the world holds within its womb. These causes are created by Nature, by the Creation, by the Creator.

This body is an evolute of Nature. The world is also a similar evolute. Both are designed to meet one another, react with each other, produce and promote the cold-heat, sukha-dukha spiral.

[This is an extract from an article that appeared in January 1980 issue 
of the monthly journal ‘Vicharasetu – The Path of Introspection’ ]

*  *  *