Can We Live Without Misery?

 

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Can We Live Without Misery?

Very few people can live without misery. Very few people can afford to live without misery. Misery gives us a sense of being, misery defines us. Misery gives us the ego, the self-identity. Misery gives us something to hold on to, we can cling to it.

Bliss is very elusive. We can possess misery, but we cannot possess bliss - on the contrary, bliss possesses us – it is a happening. We can control misery; we cannot control bliss. In bliss we have to disappear, the controller has to disappear. Very few people can afford that much, they are so afraid to go into the unknown. Misery is known; we are well-acquainted with it. A thousand and one times we have suffered the same thing, the same nauseous thing. But by and by we have become accustomed to it. A kind of familiarity has grown between us and the misery.

The ego, the ‘I’ cannot exist without misery. We will not be there without our misery – just recall Descartes’ famous saying – ‘I think, therefore I am’. Realise this – the moment thinking ceases, our existence ceases – in that sense it is true: I think, therefore I am. So, we cannot afford to lose our power to think.

But when we attain to bliss, thinking disappears – there is no thought in bliss. Even when we recognise that we are blissful it is only later on when the bliss has gone, when the moment has disappeared. When the bird has again flown back into the unknown and we are left in our misery - then we remember. It is always a memory. Yes, we say ’I was blissful.’ We never know the state of ‘I AM blissful.’ No, nobody has ever known that, ‘I am blissful.’ Because when bliss is, I am not. It is simple – when we are in bliss, our I-sense disappears, we disappear, we become non-existence.

Bliss is so vast it simply throws us away. The flood comes and we are gone. If we are ready to die, if we are ready to disappear, if we are ready to lose ourselves – only then will we be able to drop misery. Misery works, it has some utility for us. We have much investment in it. And because it works, we go on clinging to it. In fact, our misery becomes a kind of investment for us.

For example, if we are miserable, it is easy to have people’s sympathy. Now, that is an investment. If we are ill everybody pays attention to us, everybody takes care of us. Once that has happened it becomes very difficult to be healthy again. Because once we are healthy the care, the attention, the sympathy, that we were getting will disappear also. Naturally – it was not given to us; it was given to our disease. Now the disease has a subtle attraction – then why not remain in it? 

When we are miserable the whole world is sympathetic towards us. When we are happy everybody is jealous of us. When we are happy nobody can forgive us. When we are unhappy everybody is so polite to us, everybody is so friendly, everybody is so generous. When we are happy everybody becomes the enemy.

We are miserable because we have decided to be miserable – maybe the decision is unconscious. And we have to be conscious about the decision, only then can it be dropped. Because nothing can be dropped from the unconscious. The unconscious is a great preserver, it preserves everything. Become conscious, become aware for misery to go and bliss to stay.