Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
M. What makes you unhappy?
Q. I have what I don't want, and want what I don't have.
M. Why don't you invert it: want what you have and care not for what you don't have?
Q. I want what is pleasant and don't want what is painful.
M. How do you know what is pleasant and what is not?
Q. From past experience, of course.
M. Guided by memory you have been pursuing the pleasant and shunning the unpleasant. Have you succeeded?
Q. No, I have not. The pleasant does not last. Pain sets in again.
M. Which pain?
Q. The desire for pleasure, the fear of pain, both are states of distress. Is there a state of unalloyed pleasure?
M. Every pleasure, physical or mental, needs an instrument. Both the physical and mental instruments are material, they get tired and worn out. The pleasure they yield is necessarily limited in intensity and duration. Pain is the background of all your pleasures. You want them because you suffer. On the other hand, the very search for pleasure is the cause of pain. It is a vicious circle.
Q. I can see the mechanism of my confusion, but I do not see my way out of it.
M. The very examination of the mechanism shows the way. After all, your confusion is only in your mind, which never rebelled so far against confusion and never got to grips with it. It rebelled only against pain.
Be alert. Question, observe, investigate, learn all you can about confusion, how it operates, what it does to you and others. By being clear about confusion you become clear of confusion.
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