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temporary and transient and is associated with destructibility, dependence, inertia, powerlessness, insipidity, deprivation, etc. All these accompany sensory pleasures as the shadow accompanies a body. Only undeveloped creatures hanker after such pleasures. The developed beings set the gaining of undivided, eternal and infinite pleasure as their goal and endeavour to achieve it. Such a pleasure is not possible except through affection.
The fact that the real pleasure lies in affection was discovered by the ancient Indian sages in the hoary past. To give it a practical form they started to spread this idea among their immediate associates whence it spread in the form of affection for the family, the society, the country, etc. The members of one's family live closest to him and hence to sustain them, to ameliorate their misery and to give them pleasure even at his own expense became one's duty. The spring of love flows eternal in the family in which all the members are imbued with this feeling of affection. The clouds of divine pleasures shade it and the gods also vie to live in such families. The house in which such a family lives can be compared to heaven. The essence of affection is eternal and it represents immortality. Heaven is the abode of such immortal affectionate beings.
One may get any amount of wealth but it can give him only momentary sensory pleasure, which gets reduced with every passing moment and vanishes eventually. The eternal pleasure cannot be gained through wealth. This is the reason that in some houses the wealth and means of enjoyment may increase but the happiness and peace do not increase and life becomes dry and sapless. The living proof of this can be seen in modern western world where many millionaires live in oldage homes. When some Indian meets those millionaires and introduces them to the family concept as it obtains in India and tells them that in India the children always look after their old parents and try their best to keep them happy and that the old folk also live happily with their children and grandchildren, they shed tears of pain because there the children have no time for them and meet them only occasionally for some time. They do not have the feeling of affection like Indians. This
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