11. Pain Follows Pleasure.
T ranscending polarities or dualities ( dwandwa-atheeth ) is another master key in the Gita. Krishna advises Arjuna repeatedly in different contexts, to attain this state. The common question that intrigues humanity is ‘Why does unpleasantness/pain come to us even when we sincerely strive to attain pleasure’? Instead of looking deeper within, we reconcile ourselves by saying that maybe our efforts aren’t sufficient. However, ahankaar coupled with hope, motivates us to restart the process of pursuing pleasure and this goes on till the end of our lives. Understanding of dwandwa-atheeth helps us to find answers to this question. In the manifested world, everything exists with its polar opposite ( dwandwa ). Birth is the polar opposite to death; pleasure is to pain; winning-losing; profit to loss; attachment-detachment; praise to criticism; longing to aversion; and the list is endless. The natural principle is that, when we chase one of these, its polar opposite autom...