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HAPPINESS AND DISTRESS.‏

This body is made by material nature under the direction of the Supersoul, and whatever activities are going on in respect to one's body are not his doing. Whatever one is supposed to do, either for happiness or for distress, one is forced to do because of the bodily constitution.
(Bhagavad-Gita---13:30---purport).

One should try to keep himself satisfied in any condition of life—whether distress or happiness—which is offered by the supreme will. A person who endures in this way is able to cross over the darkness of nescience very easily.
(Srimad Bhagavatam---4:8:33---translation).

A devotee is not concerned with enjoyment or distress; he simply desires to execute devotional service. It is said in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that devotional service should be apratihatā, unchecked by the material conditions of happiness or distress.
(Srimad Bhagavatam---4:12:13---purport).

A devotee is always situated on the Brahman platform. He has nothing to do with material happiness or distress. When one is strongly fixed in devotional service and free from all material attachment, uncontaminated by the material modes of nature, he becomes fit to return home, back to Godhead.
(Srimad Bhagavatam---4:30:18---purport).

A devotee is neutral in all conditions of life, whether in the heavenly planets or hellish planets, whether liberated from the material world or conditioned by it, and whether blessed with happiness or subjected to distress. These are all merely dualities created by the external energy.
(Srimad Bhagavatam---6:17---summary).

Whatever distress or happiness we manufacture by mental concoction through the subtle mind has no reality, but is simply a mental concoction. One should therefore not imagine so-called happiness through mental concoction. Rather, the best course is to engage the mind in the service of the Lord, Hṛṣīkeśa, and thus feel real blissful life.
(Srimad Bhagavatam--7:2:48---purport).

One who is not envious but is a kind friend to all living entities, who does not think himself a proprietor and is free from false ego, who is equal in both happiness and distress, who is tolerant, always satisfied, self-controlled, and engaged in devotional service with determination, his mind and intelligence fixed on Me—such a devotee of Mine is very dear to Me.
(Bhagavad-Gita---12:13-14---translation).

Sense perception is the cause of feeling all sorts of happiness and distress. Form, taste, odor, sound, and touch are different sense perceptions, which render happiness or distress in cooperation with the mind. In winter, bathing in cold water gives us pain, but in summer, the same cold water gives us pleasure. In winter, fire gives us pleasure and warmth, but in summer, the same fire gives us distress. Thus, neither fire nor water has any intrinsic power to give us happiness or distress, but they appear to us as agents of happiness or distress, according to our mode of sense perception in various circumstances. Therefore, everything that exists in the world is neither an object of happiness nor an object of distress; everything is simply subjective—that is, subject to our sense perceptions as they relate to our processes of thinking, feeling, and willing.
(Message of Godhead).

Living entities have different kinds of bodies, in terms of the different aspects of nature, they are induced to act according to that nature. This is the cause of the varieties of happiness and distress.
(Bhagavad-Gita---14:5---purport).

Material happiness and distress come as soon as we accept a material body, regardless of what form.
(Srimad Bhagavatam---7:6:3---purport).

The difference between conditional life and liberated life occurs when we purify the mind and the consciousness. When they are purified, one becomes transcendental to material happiness and distress.
(Srimad Bhagavatam---3:25:16---purport).

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