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So there is an argument that happiness only exists if it has suffering as a reference point. This is a conclusion that can be arrived at if you consider that the idea of everything existing in pairs and as opposites—the idea of Yin and Yang—is fundamental to existence; in this argument, happiness and suffering (I’ll say joy and pain hereafter as they’re shorter words) are not considered to be exceptions to this rule of Yin-Yang opposites, but rather are just another manifestation of Yin and Yang—albeit the most fundamental manifestation of Yin-Yang, as what experience could ever there be in Duality without shades of joy and pain? The argument is that joy can never be separated from pain because joy and pain define each other; they are a pair of opposites, like North and South; they refer to each other to give themselves meaning; without one the other ceases to exist. If all you ever saw was the colour blue then before long you would forget entirely what the other colours were, and the idea of colours, along with the colour blue itself, would then cease to be; considering, say, the greatest joy to be the colour blue in this analogy, the greatest pain as red, and all the degrees of pain and joy in-between—‘rather pleased’, ‘fine’, ‘bit off today’, ‘pretty annoyed’, etc.—being represented by the other colours. [*I know red and blue aren’t directly opposite each other on the colour-wheel, I guess cyan and orange are really, but it suffices for this post.] What’s more, in Eastern thought itself it’s considered that opposites give rise to each other in rotation: mess gives birth to cleanliness, which then becomes messy again; night to day, to night; pressure to expansion, closing into pressure once more; and so on. In this argument it is assumed that joy and pain behave in the same way: the most perfect heaven can become a hell of tedium and constriction if you stay there for too long; and the most violent hell can be inured to and got used to with enough time, until it even becomes a place of amusement and intrigue. Also, in this argument it is assumed that any and all levels of joy—even the very highest, most ultimate, degree of it imaginable—are still just ‘joy’, that all degrees of joy are as valid as each other; there is no splitting of hairs in this argument regarding the possibility of some greatest happiness existing ‘outside the bounds’ of ‘joy’—such a notion doesn’t make any sense from this point of view. I should note here that in this argument while all degrees of joy are considered as ‘valid’, it is accepted that not all beings will gain the same degree of joy from the same stimulus: a TV soap-opera may delight some people while be anathema to others, and meditation may be enormously relaxing and revitalising for some while incredible boring and dull for others; but this point is universally agreed upon by most, I think. There is the further matter of how ‘refined’ each degree of joy (or pain) is, and this actually comes relatively close to agreeing with the concept of an ultimate happiness actually, but stops short enough to still disagree with it considerably—but it is a tangent for another time. The notion of attainment of ‘perpetual-bliss’ is common throughout Eastern spiritual-practices and philosophy: it can be found in yoga, in Buddhist philosophy, and in Daoism (the attainment of Dao), going by various names (I’ve cited some of them in the tags of this post). It is the notion that, with diligence etc. , a person can transcend the plane of Duality and merge with the Non-Dual, whereat awaits perfect bliss and harmony for them, which they may abide in forever after. If we accept the argument that joy and pain are essentially dualistic opposites, then how can we sever them, throw out one, keep the other and then escape into Non-Duality with it? How can we smuggle a dualistic entity—i.e. joy—into the realm of Non-Duality? Wouldn’t Non-Duality be devoid of all experience whatsoever—blanker than blank—as all experiences in existence, including all forms of joy and pain, belong to Duality? even ‘experience’ itself can be thought of as being a dualistic opposite to ‘non-experience’ (though non-experience is impossible to comprehend). Rather than, say, Sahasraha (see Tantric yoga stuff) being an experience of the Non-Dual, isn’t it more apt to consider it as an experience of boundlessness, of formlessness, of unity, of mergence, of the infinite? which qualities are still within the realm of Duality, and therefore the Sahasraha experience itself could still be considered as a dualistic experience. In addition, if the happiness of Nirvana—said to be beyond the ‘illusory’ joys of Samsara—resides in the incomprehensible realm of the Non-Dual, then how can anything—including ‘illusory’ joys of Samsara—be compared to it? If it is beyond all things, how can those who tell of it liken it to anything at all, including to ‘illusory’ joy? How can they say “you know what ‘nice feelings’ are, right? Well Nirvana is ‘nice feelings’ times 100!” when Nirvana is supposed to be completely unlike anything that can be experienced in Duality, including pleasure and pain; so surely, then, there is no way to say that Nirvana is ‘nice’, as ‘nice’ is ‘dual’ and Nirvana ‘non-dual’; and yet, are we not in Eastern spiritual-practices encouraged to seek Nirvana for it being supposedly ‘nice’? So how would you counter this argument and uphold the notion of attainable ‘perpetual-bliss’? Have you met anyone who claimed to have attained it? If so, what made you believe them? If that person was indeed sincere in their claim to that experience, how did that person know themselves that they were not just experiencing a very long ‘high’? Also, how could that person have been operating in Duality if they had entered Non-Duality? If you believe in it after having read or heard about it, what that you have read or heard counters this argument? If both the experience itself and any attempt to explain the experience are beyond logic—due to ‘logic’ being tethered to Duality, and ‘ultimate attainment’ residing beyond Duality in Non-Duality—then how do you know about it in the first place and how are you able to talk about it or think about it—as knowledge, thought and speech all belong to the great despot of Duality—? If it is an intuition of yours that it is real, are you really willing to surrender your whole life in an attempt to attain something based on a gut-feeling? If you deduce its existence by extrapolation of your own life experiences—spiritual ones included—how do you do so?: what about your own experiences hints at the possible attainment of ‘perpetual-bliss’? There is a further argument against the notion of ‘perpetual-bliss’ which concerns itself with permanence-impermanence and with beginnings and ends and ‘ultimate attainments’, and though the argument in this post touches on this—through considering how opposites continually roll and transform into one another, and through questioning the true nature of an Enlightenment experience such as Sahasraha a couple paragraphs above—it’s divergent enough to leave it out here. As an aside, I am not debating here that great spiritual-experiences exist—they certainly do—; neither am I debating the immortality of the soul nor of consciousness—it certainly is—; neither am I denying enlightenment when considered as the notion of a progression through higher and higher levels of awareness, ability and intelligence; this is just an argument against the idea of the existence and attainment of ‘perpetual-bliss’.

Universal Messiah Hulagu Khan. The Tibetan schools of Sakya and Kagyu waged a muted, muffled political/religious war behind the scenes, in the shadows of the political vagaries of the Mongol onslaught upon the world. The Kagyu Drikung were caught in the midst of it all for the reason that the Drikung are the same school followed by the Mongol king Hulagu Khan, in the Middle East (and Hulagu wanted to remain faithful to his Drikung creed through thick and thin, but that was not to turn out exactly as he thought.) This is the hair-raising story of the Messiah, the triumphant king Hulagu, the lord of this world. about me: I'm Geir Smith, an American-Norwegian, a scion of the famous families of Norway, (that represent a profile of Modern Norway's builders). A second cousin to Pontine Paus, I'm related to Tolstoy, Ibsen, Wedel-Jarlsberg, Cappelen (great-great-grandmother Inga Sophie Cappelen), Løvenskiold, Munch etc... great-great-grandfather was Thomas Von Westen Engelhart who was Norwegian Minister of the Interior and State Counsel in Stockholm for several years. I'm an original trailblazer and visionary who's family tradition it is to continually forsee the trend and "anticipate the pattern". I am now announcing some hair-raising news. Coming from someone else, it would be totally incredible. But as I come from a very conservative family like mine but who are also innovative builders of the modern society, what I say resonates. I have mastered the Tibetan language through five years of university and thus can speak about the Tibetan Kalachakra and it's mention of Shambhala. I'm also bringing some astounding information too: the Illinois lottery drew #666, the same day as Obama's acceptance speech in Chicago. Being a scion of the famous families of Norway, I'm a ground-breaking force of intellectual prediction, on par with another relative of mine, Thor Heyerdahl, (who re-discovered Tahiti's discovery by the sea), for my part, I project myself instead into Asia and the world." My great-aunt Else Heyerdahl Werring, was the Royal Mistress of the Robes of the Norwegian Royal Palace, and her husband Nils Werring, my great-uncle was on the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group in the 50s. .... Hulagu Khan's brother Kublai Khan came to power in China and Hulagu then came under the influence of the Tibetan school which Kublai followed which was Sakya. Conflict erupted between Sakya and Drikung inside Tibet (between the followers of Hulagu and Kublai). Today China's under the Sakya rule, and the followers of Drikung and Hulagu have been absorbed into the empire of the Middle East, where there's a mix of Christians and Muslims that have drowned out the Buddhists of the founder Hulagu''s time. Buddhism's Apocalypse prophecy is in the Kalachakra text that's being propagated worldwide by the Tibetan lamas. And in that prophecy, is the mention of a mythical hidden land called Shambhala (which is situated to the West of Tibet i.e. exactly where Hulagu Khan's Middle Eastern Empire is.). So let's roll this back and sum it up quickly: there's a Buddhist Empire left behind in Tibet by Kublai Khan extending into China, but his brother Hulagu had his own private empire extending from Pakistan/Afghanistan and the Tibetan border areas, all the way to Baghdad/middle of Turkey, Konya etc...and Hulagu's empire was Drikung Kagyu. And bingo! Hulagu's empire of "Hulagid" Ilkhanids aka "The Ilkhanate" fits the description of Shambhala and the Savior of the world known as the King of Shambhala. It's fitting that Hulagu ruled over a puzzle of faiths, including Christians, Jews, Muslims and Hulagu's own Buddhists. He was thus the savior and god-like figure for all those assembled faiths. It's noteworthy that Hulagu's empire outlasted him by far, with an offspring of successors-descendants of his family lineage that lasted for 80 long years. We're thus in presence of the messianic King of Shambhala of the Kalchakra prophecy. What's remarkable is that he's Drikung Kagyu. Drikung was totally taken over by Sakya during their war, but 200 years after Hulagu's death, a Sakya lama (Kunga Zangpo) arose, who split from Sakya because he was independent and wanted to return to a stricter path than Sakya's own path. So, he totally revamped Sakya and asserted his school of Ngor as the primary force inside Sakya by far, as he actually dwarfed Sakya by his work. Then a split occurred because part of Sakya left it to found a new school the Gelugpas, and Kunga Zangpo couldn't agree with them because they adopted a way of practicing that excluded Tantrism until the latter part of the practice when the practitioners were already too old to do meditation, which "Ngorchen" Kunga Zangpo couldn't accept. He thus retreated to his monastery at Ngor and decided to carve out a niche region for his school far from the "roar and heat" of Tibetan politics. Pondering his isolation faced with this opposition that was rising against him, he sought to find a path outside of Tibet, (because neighboring tracts beyond the borders offered Buddhist regions, as well). That's when he traveled to and developed Buddhism in an abandoned stretch of land to the West of Ngor called Ngari which happened to be a traditional land of the Drikung Kagyus who had temples surrounding the Kailash sacred mountain and extending also to Ladakh. And this stretch of land was a dependency of Hulagu Khan's Empire (meaning: Hulagu raised taxes there). So when the Kalachakra speaks about Shambhala it's a mythical faraway land hidden from the view. But suddenly it comes into sharp focus at very close quarters, because the Ngari region is inside Tibet itself, but relies upon the empire of Hulagu who's headquarters are in Iranian Azerbaijan. Suddenly this monstrously extensive, megalithic empire rises out of the past and crushes everything on it's path. By Ngorchen Kunga Zangpo's strenuous efforts, the Ngari region became completely Ngorpa, of the Sakya school, but it's noteworthy to see that it was a traditionally Drikungpa land and one belonging to the Mongol Hulagu. Now nothing happens by chance, and it's good to note that the Kalachakra itself was written by a Sakya lama called Buton Rinchen Drub , just eighty years after Hulagu's death and was certainly a hidden hommage to Hulagu's protective action towards Tibet and Buddhism versus the devastations wreaked by Islam at that time. Therefore, Kunga Zangpo's decision to take over the Hulagu-Drikung part of Tibet called Ngari came once the Kalachakra had become vastly widespread in Tibet and thus Kunga Zangpo was taking an early investment into the Hulagu Empire which the Kalachakra prophecy announces. Kunga Zangpo was thus buying himself part of the dream and prophecy of the end of the world and inserting himself into the past as the rightful heir of the Kalachakra. In such, I think that the successions of reincarnations of Kings of Shambhala, (which was a lineage certainly written by the Sakya lama Buton), are made up of the Sakya school's founder Birwapa, followed by Hulagu (a combined Drikung/Sakya), then Buton Rinchen Drub and finally Ngorchen Kunga Zangpo (among the list of Kings of Shambhala). I see them all as clearly actors in the "Shambhala Saga" and having the status of "Kings of Shambhala". It's good to have proof of things, that's incontrovertible and proof that cannot be denied. I searched for Shambhala on Google and found the land of Bilad-al-Sham, corresponding to The Levant (Israel, Lebanon and Irak/Iran). Then I searched for people called Shambhala. I found two contemporaries of Hulagu which was troubling because I thought they could be allusions to Hulagu. Because indeed, "otherwise why should such people live exactly at the same places (Hulagu's capital was Maragha in Iranian Azerbaijan) and same time as Hulagu?" That's the rhetorical question, which any sleuth like me, researching history, should obviously want to ask themselves. Those two people were respectively called "Shams-e Tabrizi" and "Shams al-Din". They're Muslim luminaries and are rivaling candidates to be the Messiah respectively of the brotherly enemies: Sunnites and Shiites. Seeing the Mongols prospered for eighty years and converted to Islam during forty of those years, it's impossible to not think that Hulagu's heritage was progressively merged into the Muslim heritage. So concretely how did they merge a Buddhist king like Hulagu into Islam via these two "Shams" figures? The answer is perfectly self-evident: The Drikung Hulagu messianic founder of the Ilkhanate dynasty was the future Messiah of the Islamic Sunnites, but also the Shiites. His successors at the helm of the Ilkhanate couldn't let anyone take the role of Messiah from them. Therefore they jealously attributed the top religious role(s) to themselves by using their founder and grandfather Hulagu as their champion and "chosen one". But secretly, Hulagu was and remained Buddhist in their tradition. And in Tibet, many regions remained Drikungpa. Hulagu could thus be named openly as the Messiah in the Drikung regions and temples of Tibet. But that would not have been plausible at all, for one good reason which was that in Tibet also, Hulagu's role as BUDDHIST Messiah was hidden because Kublai's operatives were on guard there. No Mongol such as Kublai would have been ready to grant to his brother Hulagu the role of Messiah and world Savior. That goes against the Mongol grain of one-upmanship among Genghis Khan's offspring's siblings. But over the years, the Sakya realized that they had inherited this surprising, extraordinary and wonder-filled, miraculous war treasure, which was this messianic king Hulagu and they didn't want to let go of it. Thus, the rewriting of the secretive biography of Hulagu in the Kalachakra, left open the possibility for a future resurrection and returning to rule, of that historical hair-raising figure of Hulagu Khan, the Messiah (of all faiths... even sunni muslims, shiites... and jews...and christians of course. Hulagu's quoted in his writings, saying he loved christians. Christians had brought him up. His wife and mother were extremely fervent christians and he had saved the christians in Baghdad when he razed that in the greatest massacre of the whole History of Humanity. The christians in the East had hailed him as the messianic Savior of Christianity: the Messiah). I think I've summed up all the aspects of this multi-faceted Messianic leader, who left his mark upon... and molded all the modern faiths of today, be they Islam, Christianity, Buddhism or Judaism, exactly to his behest and so as for them to come under his boot, his total, rigid and absolute control. Nobody controlled the whole world like the Mongols did, they who are the sole world government that the world has ever seen nor will ever see again in all Eternity. No one put the world under their total and blind control, other than the Mongols/both in politics, war and faith and religion. They totally controlled and submitted the world both physically and in faith, declaring themselves as sole Savior, Lord and God among men for each and every faith inside their domain. (Hulagu's domain was immense, reaching from Turkey's Konya region, to Baghdad, to Afghanistan and as far as Ngari in Western Tibet, meaning a land of a total length of approx. 4500 km, an astounding empire of unheard-of expanse, rivaled only by his Mongol brothers' empires in Russia on one hand and in China on the other.)

https://www.medhajournal.com/non-dual-awareness-is-without-attributes-but-what-about-love/

https://www.medhajournal.com/freedom-is-in-letting-go/

I am really interested in knowing which books have you read, preferably short books that have put you into a state of bliss? Like for example, for me it was Ribhu Gita, chapter 26 as suggested by Ramana Maharshi. Thanks