Swamiji: Where and how do you experience ‘happiness’? Audio Disc 132 track 3.

श्रीभगवानुवाच |
इदं शरीरं कौन्तेय क्षेत्रमित्यभिधीयते |
एतद्यो वेत्ति तं प्राहु: क्षेत्रज्ञ इति तद्विद: || 2||

śhrī-bhagavān uvācha
idaṁ śharīraṁ kaunteya kṣhetram ity abhidhīyate
etad yo vetti taṁ prāhuḥ kṣhetra-jña iti tad-vidaḥ

Originally transcribed 18 September 2025

To hear Swamiji speaking this track, please click HERE.

The same happiness we are looking for in the world, if we think about the joy we derive from different activities, we will realise that we experience happiness not in the activities but within ourselves. For example, when you look at a beautiful picture, where do you feel pleasure – in the picture – or in yourself? When you eat a delicious meal, do you experience satisfaction in the food, or in yourself? When you meet a friend and feel joy, is that joy in your friend, or in you, yourself? 

The truth is that the joy you find in all these things, is simply a reflection of the joy of your own Self. The testament for this is our sleep. At the end of every day, no matter how much we ate or drank, or earned or enjoyed, we are exhausted. All we want to do is to go into our bedroom, turn off the light and take refuge in a blanket. 

During sleep we are completely alone. We do not want our wives, our husbands, our friends, our possessions. We do not eat anything, we do not earn anything, we do not enjoy anything. While we are sleeping, the weariness of our eighteen hours [of labour] is removed independently by the strength of our own spirit. In the morning, when we wake up, we feel completely rested. This is an experience that we have every day. 

If we think about why we become exhausted from everything we do during the day and why we get so much peace from sleep, we will understand that the real source of our contentment is not in eating or drinking, or anything outside ourselves, but it is within. During the day the mind trends outward. However, in the sleep state, the mind takes some rest in the Self. And it is this which removes our fatigue. Absorbed in the little bliss of sleep, we forget the pains of the waking state. 

If we were to go just beyond sleep and enter into the state of meditation, we would be able to drink the nectar of love and happiness which lies in the heart. That nectar is what we are looking for in all the activities of the outer world. What we are really seeking is the Supreme Truth, and through meditation we can experience that truth vibrating in the form of sublime happiness in the heart. 

Truly speaking, a human being is ‘denying’. It is only our understanding that keeps us small. We think of ourselves as a body. We think that we are a certain physical structure with hands, feet, legs and eyes. We think of ourselves as a man or a woman, as belonging to a particular class or country. We identify ourselves with our past, our talents, our good or bad actions. But none of these things is what we are. 

Within us is a Being who knows all actions of the body and mind, and remains untouched by all of them. In the Bhagavad Gita Sri Krishna says – and here Swamiji chants the Gita sloka. Translated, it is: ‘O Arjuna, this body is called a field [of activity], and one who knows it, is called the knower of the field,’ [Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 13, Verse 2]. 

The one who knows the field, must be different from the field. For example: One who says, ‘My book’ must be different from the book. Whoever says, ‘My table’ must be different from the table, in the same way that one who says, ‘My body’ must be different from the body. One who says ‘My mind’ must be different from the mind. 

Who is that Being who observes the activities of our waking hours? At night, when we go to sleep, that Being does not sleep but stays awake and in the morning reports to us on our dreams. Who is that Knower? In the Gita, Sri Krishna answers this question. Swamiji chants from the Bhagavad Gita. ‘O Arjuna, I am the Knower of all these fields.’

The one who lives in the body but is apart from the body as the Knower of it, is our real Self. The Self is beyond the body, beyond the mind, beyond distinctions of name, colour and gender. It is pure ‘I’ – the original I-consciousness which has been with us since we came into the world. We have superimposed different notions onto that ‘I’. When we turn our attention within and focus on our inner being, just as we focus on external objects, we are meditating on the Self. 

Meditation is such a great purifier that it washes away the sins of countless lifetimes. And removes all the impurities and tensions which beset [afflict] the mind. Meditation rids us of disease and makes us more skilful at everything we do. Through meditation, our inner awareness expands, and our understanding of inner and outer things becomes steadily deeper. 

Through meditation, we travel to different inner worlds and have innumerable inner experiences. Above all, meditation stills the mind, which constantly wanders, which constantly causes suffering. Meditation establishes us forever in the state of supreme bliss, which is independent of any external factors. Ultimately, meditation makes us aware of our own true nature. It is this awareness which removes all suffering and delusion. And this awareness comes only when we see face-to-face, our own inner Self.

The free-to-read or download, 396 page Flipbook version of Swamiji’s biography is available by clicking HERE. If you’d prefer the PDF version, please click HERE.

These recordings or the excerpts from them, were made from the early 1970s onward, by Mother Radha, a close devotee of Swamiji’s and edited for uploading here by our gurubhai and her son, Brother Tim. Please be mindful that what Swamiji was saying may have been specific to an individual or a group of people with him, at the time.