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DISCOURSE 22
3. The happiness relating to wealth and magnificence. 4. The happiness of the body.
When you have to understand the meaning of the Nirveda type of neutrality thoroughly, you must also understand thoroughly the nature of these four kinds of happiness. Only then can you be apathetic towards those pleasures. Suppose you have in your possession these four kinds of happiness, if you remain uninvolved in them and if you enjoy a few pleasures, you can lead a life of absolute peace and felicity. Only then will it be possible for you to take an X-ray of your pleasures and to see sorrows and perils lying concealed in them. See the inner impurity of pleasures. The inner impurities of pleasures are worthlessness and transient.
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THE HAPPINESS RESULTING FROM PUNYA OR MERIT: THE HAPPINESS OF THE SOUL
Happiness is of two kinds.
1. Worthless and momentary happiness; 2. Worthy and permanent happiness.
All the materialistic (Paudagalik) pleasures accruing from the emergence of punya Karma or merit are worthless and momentary. The felicities of the soul's true form, of the soul's virtues are worthy and permanent. Felicity of the purest kind is the worth or value of happiness. Immeasurable felicity! We experience endless, infinite and ineffable felicity in the happiness relating to the soul. There seems to be felicity in sensual pleasures but, in fact, it is only an aberration of true felicity. It is a mockery of true felicity. A mockery can never be permanent. It is momentary. That is why, sensual pleasures are transient. Sweet words can give us happiness only while we are hearing them. Later, that happiness vanishes. Can you be always hearing sweet words? No. Sweetness does not always surge out through words. Sometimes bitterness also springs through them. Is that not so? Therefore the pleasure of the sense of hearing is momentary. In the same manner you will be happy as long as you are seeing a beautiful person. Can you
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