Talk:Karm, Dharm and Samsāraa:Disenchantment with Saṃsāra

By Vishal Agarwal

Most humans are completely happy and satisfied with the mundane pleasures that this world has to offer and which are achieved by worldly means like earning money, going on a holiday or visiting a restaurant. But life does not last forever and many want their afterlife to be joyous as well. Therefore, they give charity, perform worship or do other pious activities prescribed in the Vedas and other scriptures in the hope that the fruit of these will take them to a heaven or some other happy place. But none of these two means – worldly or scriptural – are perfect, as the ṛṣis point out:

Sorrow cannot be completely eliminated through ordinary visible means because when these means are used, pain is seen to return later. Sāṃkhya Sūtra 1.2

Ordinary means cannot eliminate pain permanently and certainly. Sāṃkhya Kārikā 1cd Like the ordinary means, scriptural means [religious ceremonies like Yajñas] too cannot eliminate pain because these means are mixed with impurity, decay and excess (inequality). Sāṃkhya Kārikā 2ab

Whatever pleasures are born of contact (of senses with their objects), are only sources of pain. Kaunteya, these pleasures have a beginning and an end. The intelligent man does not rejoice in them. Gītā 5.22

Thus, there are three flaws in happiness that we strive for using worldly and scriptural means:

1. It is not permanent. Happiness eventually decays and sorrows eventually return.

2. It is not pure, because it is mixed with the impurity of pain and tainted with evil.

3. What brings someone happiness often brings corresponding sorrow to another.