Most of us do not seek suffering, but it comes to us as an inevitable outcome of the very manner in which we seek happiness. We tend to seek happiness through the fulfillment of our desires, but such fulfillment is never assured. Hence in the pursuit of desires, we are also unavoidably preparing for the suffering from their non-fulfilment.

The same tree of desire bears two kinds of fruit: one sweet, which is pleasure and one bitter, which is suffering. Fulfilment of desires does not lead to their termination; they are submerged for a while only to reappear with added intensity. Desire is inevitably the cause of much suffering and this is the law.

Sometimes intense suffering makes him detached from worldly life, but this detachment is often again set aside because of a fresh flood of desired.

There are varying degrees of detachment and not all of them last. Sometimes a person is greatly moved by an unusually strong experience, such as seeing someone die or witnessing a burial or a cremation. But these thoughts, as well as the detachment born thereof, are short-lived. This is known as shamshan vairagya.

Sometimes detachment is more lasting. This is called tivra vairagya or intense dispassion. Such intense dispassion usually arises from some great misfortune – such as the loss of one’s own dear ones or the loss of property or reputation. Under this detachment, the person renounces all worldly things.

The disgust for the world that a person feels in such cases is due to a powerful impression left by a misfortune and it does not endure because it is not born of understanding. It is only a severe reaction to life.

The kind of detachment that really lasts is due to the understanding of suffering and its cause. It is securely based upon knowledge that all things of this world are momentary and passing and that any clinging to them is bound eventually to be a source of pain.

Lasting detachment is called purna vairagya. Desirelessness makes an individual firm like a rock. He is neither moved by pleasure nor by sorrow.

In this state of complete desirelessness one taps the unfailing inner source of eternal and unfading happiness – which is not based upon the objects of the world but is sustained by self-knowledge and self-realisation.

-- By Avatar Meher Baba