Pleasure and Pain - Really?

Pleasure and pain are the effects of virtue and vice. They are two kinds of emotions that pertain to the mind alone. It is the mind alone which brings pleasures and pains on itself and enjoys them through its excessive inclination towards objects. Mind contracts during pain and expands during pleasure.

Ego creates the body. Prana (Vital Energy from Breath) does all sorts of efforts. Mind experiences pleasure and pain. If you perform actions through a stainless mind, your body will not share their fruits.

There are only facts, vibrations or phenomena outside. Nature is blind. Nature is quite indifferent. There is neither pleasure nor pain in objects. It is all mental creation, mental perception, mental jugglery. It is only the mental attitude or certain kind of mental behavior towards objects that brings joy or grief, pleasure and pain. Maya (Deception) has her powerful seat in the imagination of the mind.

All pains are not equally felt. There is no pain when you are asleep. It is only when the mind is connected with the body that pains arise. It is the identification with the mind and body, Perception owing to Ignorance, that causes pain.

When the mind is intensely fond of anything, there will be no perception of pain even if destruction awaits the body. When the mind is completely drowned in any object, who else is there to observe and flee from the actions of the body?

When you put one drop of oil on the surface of water, it spreads throughout the surface of water and makes it oily. Even so, a little pain for a luxurious man spoils all his pleasures and makes all objects appear very painful. When you are in acute agony, a cup of coffee, milk or tea does not give you any pleasure. When you are in acute agony, the whole world which appeared to you to be full of bliss while in good health, appears quite dreary. The world loses all its charms while you are seriously ailing. If the pessimist changes his mental attitude, the world will appear to him to be full of Joy and Bliss.

Mind always runs after pleasure. You love a fruit, because it affords you pleasure. Of all things, you love your own self most. This love of the self gives the clue to the fact that bliss must be the nature of the Self.

Soul has no pleasure and pain

Freedom from the body and mind is the real nature of the Self or Soul and, consequently, there being no possibility of virtue and vice, very much less is the chance for any effects of these on the Soul, hence, pleasure and pain do not touch Soul. Soul is unattached. It is Witnesser of the two modifications, pleasure and pain that arise in the mind. Mind enjoys. Mind suffers. Soul is a silent witness. It has nothing to do with pleasure and pain.

Reference

Mind – Its Mysteries and Control by Sri Swami Sivananda