The next question that arises is:  “Why does he not divide all feelings into pleasurable and not-pleasurable, rather than into ’painful and not-painful’?” A Westerner will not be at a loss to answer that:  “Oh, the Hindu is naturally so very pessimistic, that he naturally ignores pleasure and speaks of painful and not-painful.  The universe is full of pain.”  But that would not be a true answer.  In the first place the Hindu is not pessimistic.  He is the most optimistic of men.  He has not got one solitary school of philosophy that does not put in its foreground that the object of all philosophy is to put an end to pain.  But he is profoundly reasonable.  He knows that we need not go about seeking happiness.  It is already ours, for it is the essence of our own nature.  Do not the Upanishads say:  “The Self is bliss”?  Happiness exists perennially within you.  It is your normal state.  You have not to seek it.  You will necessarily be happy if you get rid of the obstacles called pain, which are in the modes of mind.  Happiness is not a secondary thing, but pain is, and these painful things are obstacles to be got rid of.  When they are stopped, you must be happy.  Therefore Patanjali says:  “The vrittis are painful and non-painful.”  Pain is an excrescence.  It is a transitory thing.  The Self, who is bliss, being the all-permeating life of the universe, pain has no permanent place in it.  Such is the Hindu position, the most optimistic in the world.

Let us pause for a moment to ask:  “Why should there be pain at all if the Self is bliss?” Just because the nature of the Self is bliss.  It would be impossible to make the Self turn outward, come into manifestation, if only streams of bliss flowed in on him.  He would have remained unconscious of the streams.  To the infinity of bliss nothing could be added.  If you had a stream of water flowing unimpeded in its course, pouring more water into it would cause no ruffling, the stream would go on heedless of the addition.  But put an obstacle in the way, so that the free flow is checked, and the stream will struggle and fume against the obstacle, and make every endeavour to sweep it away.  That which is contrary to it, that which will check its current’s smooth flow, that alone will cause effort.  That is the first function of pain.  It is the only thing that can rouse the Self.  It is the only thing that can awaken his attention.  When that peaceful, happy, dreaming, inturned Self finds the surge of pain beating against him, he awakens:  “What is this, contrary to my nature, antagonistic and repulsive, what is this?” It arouses him to the fact of a surrounding universe, an outer world.  Hence in psychology, in yoga, always basing itself on the ultimate analysis of the fact of nature, pain is the thing that asserts itself as the most important factor in Self-realisation; that which is other than the Self will best spur the Self into activity.  Therefore we find our commentator, when dealing with pain, declares that the karmic receptacle the causal body, that in which all the seeds of karma are gathered Up, has for its builder all painful experiences; and along that line of thought we come to the great generalisation:  the first function of pain in the universe is to arouse the Self to turn himself to the outer world, to evoke his aspect of activity.