The Trap of Seeking Pleasure - HH SB KESHAVA SWAMI

The Trap of Seeking Pleasure - HH SB KESHAVA SWAMI at the Hong Kong Sai Baba Center

Swami Keshava

Even spiritual people assume more prosperity is more happiness.

Smiling faces, crying hearts.

Success for deep fulfilment?

BG confronts questions people don’t ask.

Sanskrit mantras very powerful, give us the teachings even if you don’t speak Sanskrit.

People take the Gita for granted. It is the conversation between the soul and God.

Krishna guiding the chariot of your life. Open your heart.

Gita teaches you what school didn’t teach you. Gita teaches how to think. Nowadays people don’t think for themselves. Gita teaches mindset.

Gita teaches you how to spend your money. Happiness not from attaining money but how you spend it.

Gita teaches the law of Nature.

Gita teaches you how to deal with failure. Gita teaches character.

Gita will teach you your special talent, Dharma.

BG 2.14: non permanent appearance of happiness and distress. Tolerate them without being disturbed. There are waves of life—this too shall pass. Become tolerant of pain and pleasure.

Why do you have to tolerate happiness?

Sukha vs Ananda = pleasure vs deep happiness.

4 qualities of material pleasure: futility; once you get it, you realise it’s insubstantial; temporary; duality, pleasure comes with something you didn’t pay for (can’t separate a distress from a pleasure).

No problem with material things. Problem is with materialism. Meaning you base your whole life on those things thinking they are everything.

These views are not pessimistic but realistic. Look at the evidence of people who base their lives on material pleasures. Needs to be something else factored in.

There is a serious miscalculation in the equation of the material world, the Gita is addressing that.

Be convinced Sukha will not make me happy. If you get carried away from Sukha, you’ll miss the real thing. Therefore tolerate happiness and keep moving ahead.

Take the wealth and use it for something meaningful. Paramartha: have meaning for your Artha, wealth.

Very few people are engaging their Artha in meaningful things. Then it becomes Anartha, which will make you miserable.

Money without meaning will lead to degradation.

Problem is not with the means, it’s a lack of meaning. People look for means without the meaning / purpose. Therefore we have too much things but emptiness.

4 signs of good Karma:

Family (Janma)

Wealth (aisvarya)

Education (Sruta)

Beauty (Sri)

Kunti says these things can divert you. It won’t make you happy, the means have to be used to pursue something meaningful.

Earn it. But we live to give.

How do we come out of the trap?

Join the 5 am club. Or you’ll meet the 12 pm disaster. Do your Sadhana!

15 mins move

15 mins meditate / pranayama

15 mins read

15 mins reflect (journal)

BG: Arjuna, even when you know it’s wrong, can’t help doing it.

Don’t listen to your loudest desire, listen to your deepest desire.

The only way to change is to change your inner world.

Q: The easy things are easy to get addicted to, God made all the good things hard.

A: All to do with your inclinations. Nowadays people are not changing their inclinations. Giving up their deepest desire for their loudest desire.

Biggest thing in the world is recovery from addiction. 12 steps.

Find meaning: ask Who am I? …..

Know: Service is joy.

In spirituality, the best time of life is the later time of your life. You’ve finished a lot of duties, now let go and explore the inner world. Time to realise the purpose of life.