Attachment to happiness is often the greatest obstacle to happiness. To be happy, be ready to be unhappy. We all long for happiness, but often the best happiness in the world comes in a counter-intuitive way. The Bhagavad Gita 18.37 states that the things that taste like nectar in the end often taste like poison in the beginning. If we are too attached to happiness, then we want instant happiness. Anything that seems to take away our immediate happiness is something we go away from. Instead, if we can persist through the initial unhappiness, which is only brief, we can get to the eventual happiness which is lasting and even everlasting.
***
18.37 That which in the beginning may be just like poison but at the end is just like nectar and which awakens one to self-realization is said to be happiness in the mode of goodness.
Leave A Comment