Your Nature (H&H)

Health and Happiness - Dr Dwarakanath

Consciousness has no height; it has no width.  From consciousness, no object is away; nothing is away.  What is the distance between space and consciousness?  Is there a distance?  If there is a distance, that distance is space.  When you think of space, it is consciousness.  Space is consciousness, but consciousness is not space.  Time is consciousness; consciousness is not time.  And in time and space is the whole universe, so the whole universe is consciousness, but consciousness is not the universe.  And consciousness is like consciousness.  It is unlike everything else and everything else depends on it. It is this limitless you experience in deep sleep and also while you are awake, whenever you are happy. 

Please understand this one thing.  Some people say that between desires, you become happy.  Between the fulfilment of one desire and the rise of another desire, you become happy. But there is no such rule at all.  After fulfilling a desire, you can also be unhappy.  And you need not fulfil any desire to be happy.  Look at this.  Every human being is like a teabag.  Why, you may ask.  Because you know his or her strength, only when he or she in hot water.  You laughed.  What desire did you fulfil?  None at all! You didn’t fulfil any desire.  Please understand.  That means you need not fulfil a desire to be happy.  That means you need not change to be happy.  That means you are happy. Experiential happiness only reveals your fullness.  To whatever degree happiness is there, to that degree, your own fullness is revealed.  Therefore, it has nothing to do with the world.  It is not going to be disturbed by the world.   The perception of the world cannot destroy happiness.  In fact, perception of the world is an addition to fullness—an addition without any addition.  I consider it a value addition.

 It is something like this. Coimbatore, a small town in southern India, became a big textile center like Manchester. How?  Originally agriculturists were growing cotton in this area. They would sell it to some people who would gin it. Then they thought that they could do the ginning themselves and get the profit from that. This is called value addition. You sell the same cotton, but the seeds are removed so the value is greater, and you can also sell the seeds for cattle feed or cotton seed oil. Then, the ginned cotton is sent to somebody for spinning. So they thought, "Why don't we also spin the cotton?  Another value addition! The same cotton you gin and then you spin it and sell the spun cotton.  Then it goes to the weaving factory. Eventually you add a weaving unit and sell the woven cloth.  It is all value addition, the cotton remaining the same. Similarly, you are already Ananda.  And you have a mind—a value addition. Having a mind means there is a world also, which you are objectifying. Another value addition—the same Ananda, plus a value addition! 

The whole world- Jagat, is a value addition—nothing else.  There is no addition; it is only a value addition. Therefore, already you are full and the world makes life colourful. It’s purely a value addition.  There is no real addition.  That is why the Upanishad says ‘pUrnamidÒ pUrnamidam’—that is whole/ infinite and this whole/infinite.  Infinite plus infinite is still ‘Infinite’. The world, the Jagat, is purely a value addition. Therefore, the subject-object perception doesn’t in any way stand between your happiness and you, because the whole thing is you. This is the vision of Veda. 

It has nothing to do with emptying your head, as so many people maintain. “Remove your thoughts; you will be happy.” This is just nonsense—top to bottom—all nonsense.  Consciousness is the nature, of Atma, yourself.  Ananda also is the nature of Atma; existence also is the nature of Atma, of you! 

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