Stress Academy Presents:

Web Series – The Story of Stress

Part 1 – Understanding Stress

Episode 13 – Nature of Intrinsic Happiness

In the last few videos, we learned that a passionless state is the natural state of consciousness. Although we experience different types of pleasures and satisfactions under the influence of our passions or emotions, does being passionless help us achieve bliss? Let’s find out.

Most of us derive pleasure and wellbeing from the following aspects of our lives:

1. Physical Wellbeing
2. Worldly or material achievement 
3. Fulfillment of Senses and Desires
4. Affection, Recognition & Respect from others

We will discuss them here one by one.

We desire physical wellbeing including vitality, comfort, decent looks, longevity and absence of pain to fulfill different priorities in our lives, but can we always guarantee it? By associating happiness exclusively with physical wellbeing, we are putting our emotional health at risk in few different ways: 

1. We develop an intense attachment to the body, consciously or subconsciously. We constantly worry and work hard to avoid falling sick or becoming weak. 
2. By equating our happiness with physical wellbeing, we are setting ourselves up for potentially stressful experiences in future. We may be able to control factors related to diet, sleep, lifestyle and ethical behavior, but we cannot control factors such as ageing, most environmental factors or genetic makeup.

Next thing we seek is a sense of worldly achievement, generally associated with wealth and societal stature from career progression and  winning competitions. Having a career is necessary to sustain, but is our happiness contingent upon those achievements? There are two main pitfalls to this approach:

1. For example, would you not feel unhappy if you were neither promoted nor awarded a annual bonus due to the company’s poor financial status despite your exceptional performance?
2. Our desires for these achievements are never ending. After successfully achieving one goal, we instantly set our sights for the next. We convince ourselves that we would feel happy once we successfully achieve that new goal. This pattern continues endlessly. 

In addition to basic necessities such as food and water, most of us want to experience material pleasures through the pleasing five senses. Some examples are watching movies & TV shows, visiting theme parks, concerts, sporting events, listening to music, shopping, eating delicious food and fulfilling sexual desires. Now, note some important points here: 

1. The process of attaining sensory objects lacks a sense of happiness. We do not enjoy something until we obtain the object and indulge with it. 
2. Even after fulfilling these desires, the pleasure is momentary and can be easily  interrupted. How long can you “binge-watch” TV or movies and stay entertained? Would you be able to maintain happiness if you receive unpleasant news while watching it?
3. This sense of happiness is dependent on both – optimal functioning of our senses and the availability of pleasurable objects. If either are missing, are we not setting ourselves up for potentially unpleasant and stressful situations due to our dependence on material pleasure?

We also seek affection, recognition and respect from others for our achievements or for fulfilling our responsibilities. Relationships based on such affection, respect, honesty and mutual trust are the basis of a healthy social life. So, while it is important for us to uphold these values, we cannot let our happiness depend on other people or relationships , if we want to always remain happy as well as stress-free. 

True Happiness is always worry free, continuous and independent. Review of each of the above four aspects shows us that they all act as a constant source of worry and stress, they are not continuous and they are all dependent on other people or things. Though they might appear to offer a sense of “materialistic” happiness, none of these are the ways to achieve true happiness.

All these things give us only physical comforts or sensations and not the happiness itself because the matter substance doesn’t possess any attribute such as happiness. It is due to our own perceptions and beliefs towards them that makes us feel happy or unhappy about them. This is why the idea of sensory pleasure is extremely subjective and varies from one person to another.

Now, let’s try to understand what is the nature of intrinsic happiness that comes from within.

According to Jain philosophy, Happiness (Sukh) is an attribute of consciousness. Happiness attribute also has natural (or independent) and unnatural (or dependent) states. All modes of material pleasures or displeasures are considered unnatural states. Non-sensory bliss (known as Atindriya Anand) experienced in a passionless state is the natural state of Happiness attribute. 

This non-sensory bliss is proportional to the degree of purity of the passionless state. Complete and absolute passionless state requires complete detachment, but we can still achieve a partial passionless state without detaching completely. This is a meditative state. In this state, the sense of “I” remains situated on our own pure consciousness. No forceful concentration towards any external object or part of the body is required. We neither indulge in external situations, body, sensory objects, thoughts or transient emotions nor judge them as good or bad. We may become aware of those changes while remaining only as an observer and NOT the doer or recipient. This is a state of tremendous fulfillment because all intentionally formed desires subside. All external activities cease to occur during this moment except for the involuntary bodily movements. Unprecedented peace and bliss from within is experienced without any sensory object. After coming out of this meditative passionless state, when intentional external activities are resumed and active emotions take place, the bliss would not be felt with the same degree as it was felt while being in a meditative state. However, the self-awareness, peace as well as satisfaction derived from this experience would continue even as we get involved in daily routines, resulting in improved emotional health and resilience to stress. Process of achieving this partial passionless state is known as “Bhed Vigyan” (Art of Self-Identification) which would be described in the future videos. Developing right knowledge and belief about consciousness is prerequisite to achieving a passionless state.

In summary:

1. Sensory pleasures as well as displeasures are states of stress and not happiness.
2. Unlike sensory pleasure, the non-sensory bliss is independent of external objects and comes at no cost.
3. The experience of non-sensory bliss is felt uninterrupted if we maintain awareness and beliefs of ourselves as pure consciousness and remain focused on it.
4. The passionless state is devoid of any desires, attachment, resentment, fears, boredom and potentially stressful situations. 

Acharya Kundkund described the states of sensory pleasure and non-sensory bliss in his famous treatise “Pravachansar ” in the 1st century CE based on Tirthankar Mahavir’s teachings.

Having learned natural and unnatural states of consciousness, we finally have necessary concepts to define and identify stress. So, we will introduce an objective and comprehensive definition of stress in the next video. 

References:

1. Acharya Kundkund. Pravachansar. India. ~100 C.E.

English translation and explanation by Vijay K. Jain, inspired by Acharya Vishuddha Sagar.  2018 C.E.

Available at: https://jainelibrary.org/book-detail/?srno=034445