Indifferent to pleasure and pain

 Only the man who is unmoved 

by any sensations; the wise man

indifferent to pleasure, to pain,

is fit for becoming deathless.

Bhagavad Gita 

Say we fall in love again, and after a brief and stormy romance things settle just as they were before in the relationship we outgrew. Errands have to be run; children have to be taken care of and two lives grow into one once again. 

Or take a promotion at work. After some initial excitement the job becomes routine again. Employees have to be hired, trained and let go of. Upper management becomes our new constituent. Yes, the paycheck is higher, but the work is more or less the same. If anything, the stress is probably going up with the higher pay.

Our modern brain has a very simple happiness formula proportional to the desires fulfilled. You might say a measure of unhappiness is the ratio of unfulfilled desires to the fulfilled ones. True spiritual living in contrast happens outside of the world of desires. We are content with what comes by itself!

Many spiritual seekers are lost for a while because they don’t understand that they have a foot in each world and are not totally committed to either. We have a desire to be enlightened and we seek a life full of love and outside the established responsibilities. It’s a fantasy! Everything we need and want awaits right in front of us. The desired twin flame connection is also just a relationship between two people like before and the desired light worker role will have the same annoying commitments as our current job. This does not mean that our life will not receive a big upgrade along a spiritual quest. As our vibrations change, so does the environment we attract. 

Make the orientation to the here and now complete and step out of the world of desires without repressing and without jumping on some spiritual ideals. Just look through the illusionary nature of desires. Pleasure and pain come and go. Stay in the “be content with whatever comes and goes” when it feels natural and inquire into the reasons why when it feels unnatural.