The Hare Krishna Movement

Everyone wants Happiness and wants to avoid Distress, this is a fact. This Krishna Consciousness Movement is meant to deliver all of suffering humanity from the threefold miseries of material existence.

The attempt in this material world to maximize happiness and minimize distress is called the struggle for existence.

…This material world is the world of duality, and we cannot understand happiness without distress or distress without happiness. This is therefore called the relative world. Spiritual happiness is above these dualities, and that spiritual happiness is the perfection of yoga. Yoga ādhyātmikaḥ. Yoga is the happiness of the soul, and the individual soul can be happy when it is with the Supersoul, the Supreme Soul. Nityo nityānāṁ cetanaś cetanānām (Kaṭha Upaniṣad 2.2.13). There is the Supreme Soul, or the supreme living being, and there are many individual souls, individual beings. We are many, but the principal living being is one, Kṛṣṇa. He is the fire, and we are the sparks from that fire. The sparks are illuminated when they are with the original fire, but if the sparks no longer associate with the original fire, they are extinguished. Similarly, our real happiness is in enjoying with the Supreme Being. Happiness is being in His company. Kṛṣṇa is not alone, but is always with His friends, either the gopīs or the cowherd boys, or with His mother and father. We never find Kṛṣṇa alone. He may be with Rādhārāṇī or with His devotees. He is like a king or president. When one says that the king or president is coming, it is understood that he is not coming alone. He comes with His secretaries, ministers and many others. (Teachings of Lord Kapila)

…Everyone is trying to get out of material distress and gain some happiness. In any case, when something is material, there is only so-called happiness and so-called distress. For instance, there may be fireworks going on, and this may be happiness for someone but distress for us. Some people are thinking that these fireworks are very enjoyable, and we are thinking that they are very inconvenient. That is the material world. On one side there is happiness, and on the other side there is distress. Both happiness and distress are actually illusions. In summer, water is happiness, but in winter it is distress. The water is the same, but at one time it brings happiness and at another time it brings distress. When a son is born, he brings happiness, but when he dies, he brings distress. In either case, the son is the same. (Teachings of Lord Kapila)