Health and Happiness - Dr Dwarakanath
“The subject, being the abode of the greatest love, one [wishes] ‘May I not cease to be. May I always be!’ Ascertain, ‘I am that.” Vedanta
“May I not cease to be,” Nobody wants to cease to be. One always wants to be. Even the love to have children is a love for eternity. When you want to live through them, when you want to leave something behind, that is a love for eternity. In some form or the other you want to be. Really speaking, the wish is, "I want to be there forever”. This only shows that you love yourself. The self, Atma is the object of your love; you want the self to be. Why? Because it is Ananda! That is also the reason you love sleep. There is Ananda in sleep. There is not only absence of suffering-dukha; there is Ananda- happiness also. When there is total absence of dukha, there is no individuality, which is why sleep is such a wonderful area of Ananda. That is the reason you are very, very conscious about creating the optimum conditions for your sleep. You want to make sure that your sleep is not disturbed, that you get that sleep. You switch off the phone. You don’t even want it to ring. You make sure the pillow height is proper, that there is not too much light and that the mosquito curtain is drawn. Because you want to sleep! Sleep is such an important experience.
The elaborate preparation that is made to go to sleep indicates how important it is. Then, what happens in the morning? You don’t want to get out immediately. You wake up, but you don’t get up; you are so reluctant to get up. All through one's lifetime, it is the same. As a child your mother had to call you and coax you to get up. Later also, it is the same. Right on the bed a man will rub his hand over his face to see if he has to shave. Just to get another ten minutes of sleep.
What does it mean? We are so reluctant to come out of it, but so enthusiastic to get into it. It is like watching the ballgame when your team is winning. You don't even want to get up for dinner. You want a TV dinner, because you want to keep watching. As with sleep, you are reluctant to come out of it, and you are so enthusiastic to go into it. Why? It means the island in between must be a happy island. It is a happy island.
This happiness, is it because of your knowledge? No. Is it a product of your skills? Is it from the big house you have or the boat you are going to get? No. Is it coming from the important job you have, or the business? No. Or from your children, etc, No! Then from what! It is from nothing else. I won’t say it is from nothing, but from nothing else. Nothing else means ‘nothing’, except what is left out. What is left out? Atma, ‘self’! That is the Ananda. What is left out is yourself alone. You are the source of Ananda. In fact, you are Ananda.
And if you are happy without any of these things, everything is a plus. If you are Ananda, everything becomes a plus because nothing is going to make you different. You are what you are. Nothing can sully it; nothing can touch. This is the truth about your ‘self’. Therefore, Atma is not only consciousness. It is Ananda; it is limitless.
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