Daily Readings from the Works of Swami Venkatesananda


Venkatesa Daily Readings Vol 1 — Coming Face To Face With Sorrow & Happiness

October 31, 2025

Sorrow & Happiness — Face To Face

Swami Venkatesananda     As long as we are unable to step out of the conventional attitude towards sorrow, it will continue. We are taught, conditioned and brought up with the concept that if someone insults you, you must punish him. We must try to get out of the group rut and tried to look at this whole phenomenon from a different angle. Then it is possible for us to get a glimpse of the truth.

      A holy man came to a very simple and beautiful understanding — sorrow is s-o-r-r-o-w — nothing more than the word. If the word were not there and if the mind that gave value to that word were not there, where would sorrow will be?

      This holy man discovered that "as you think, so you become". This does not mean what  it is generally regarded to mean. It only means this: I am thinking of sorrow and at that moment I experience sorrow. In exactly the same way, happiness is nothing but h-a-p-p-i-n-e-s-s: the word and the corresponding concept that seems to arise in the mind. Once the concept has arisen in the mind, the mind itself experiences the same concept.

      What is it that gives rise to that concept? When you directly inquire into this, you come face-to-face, not with sorrow, not with happiness, but with the content of these, which is the same — the spirit of the mind.

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