11. Pain follows pleasure

Transcending polarity or duality known as Dwandwa-atheeth, is another master key in the Gita.  Krishna advises Arjun repeatedly to attain this state.  The common question that intrigues humanity is 'How does unpleasantness and  pain come to us even when we strive to make sincere efforts to attain pleasure'. Instead of looking deeper within, we reconcile ourselves by saying that maybe our efforts are not sufficient. However, ahankaar coupled with hope, motivates us to restart the process of pursuing pleasure and this goes on till the end of life. Understanding of Dwandwa-atheeth answers this question. In the manifested world, everything exists in relation to its polar opposite that is Dwandwa. Birth is the polar opposite to death; pleasure is to pain; win-lose; profit to loss; attach-detach; praise-criticism; conditional love-hate; and the list goes on. The rule is, when we chase one of these, its polar opposite automatically follows. If we lift the stick from one end, the other end is bound to raise. Another metaphor is that of the swinging pendulum.  When it travels to one side, it's bound to come to its polar opposite side.  As per the principle of polarity, the pain of COVID-19 will swing to pleasure in due course and  history shows that similar difficult situations have brought us pleasure through improved  science and technology.  Extreme polarities, like COVID-19, have the potential of accelerating the travel to the inner self. Krishna tells us to transcend these polarities. Being in the present is transcending the past and the future. Similarly, unconditional love is to transcend conditional love and hatred; and so on.  All we need is awareness of these polarities and to observe them when we are swinging between them. As long as we live, exposure to polarities is natural and this awareness would help us transcend them.