What we experience in this world is the reaction of our mind when we get the association of something we're attached to. That's it. So it's our own kalpit sukh, our own imagined happiness. It seems real to us, but actually we created the attachment. We had a desire for happiness and we saw something in this world. So the original desire was for happiness, not for the world.
In other words, the original happiness was for God, but we saw the world, so we created a secondary desire. If I get that thing, I'll find happiness. If that person loves me, I'll find happiness. That desire we created. Then we start developing attachment to those things. Wherever we have a hope of finding happiness or a faith of finding happiness, we get attached to that thing by thinking about it repeatedly, “This person will make me happy.” Again and again we think that this thing will make me happy. We think it over and over again and our attachment grows. To whatever extent our attachment has grown, when we get that thing or that person, we get that amount of happiness - less attachment, less happiness, more attachment, more happiness.
And when you lose that person or that thing, an equal amount of unhappiness. If you had that much attachment, when you lose that thing, you get that much unhappiness. If you had that much attachment, you get that much unhappiness.
So, in fact, our scriptures say, “There's no happiness or unhappiness in this world. It's all just a creation of our mind.” So those Saints who have said the world is fake, they were not talking about the outer world, they're talking about this world in here (in our mind). Our inner world of raag (likes) and dwesh (dislikes), our world of attachments, of perceived happiness and unhappiness of our own mind. It's not the happiness or unhappiness of our soul, it's just our mind, our confused mind, which was correct in seeking happiness, but confused thinking that it would find it in the world. So it developed false hopes and the world is very alluring. It always offers a new promise.
Well, this person let you down, but that person won't let me down. We always move on to the next, “Oh, I thought I was going to get happiness from this thing. It didn't work out. Oh, I'll get happiness from that thing!”
So the world keeps us hopeful, but never fulfills that hope. Happiness is always just out of our reach just like you see in movies. Sometimes to get the donkey to pull the cart, they put a stick with a carrot hanging down in front of him, so when he moves forward to get the carrot, the carrot moves forward too, because it's attached to him. So then he just keeps going after that carrot, but he never gets it.
So happiness is always just ahead, “Oh, it's so tantalizing. I just just have to get this thing.”
But we spend our whole life like that and we never are done. No one ever is finished. We always have one more thing, one more thing.
So this is the illusion of worldly happiness, which keeps us in its grasp for our whole life. And not only this life, uncountable lifetimes.
