What are the ways to avoid misery in this life, which is a pursuit of happiness? Bhagawan explained about the Satvika path. Today, He explains the other two and reiterates which is best.

The second way of experiencing Ananda (the height of happiness), after the Satvika way,  is the Rajasika way. In the early stages, this path is nectarous, but later, it slides into misery, for the happiness is derived through the senses from objects of the external world. The pleasure soon reveals itself as unreal, false and exhausting. Once the process starts, it drags on with no facility for rest. Man becomes too weak to pursue the goals of Dharma (righteousness), Artha (prosperity), Kama (wish-fulfilment) and Moksha (liberation), which are laid down for him. His intellect, imaginative skill, and intuitive faculty — all are rendered lame. Man can even lose his humanness. The blind pursuit of objective sensual pleasure has today resulted in this very calamity. Lastly, we have the Tamasika path. People who prefer this way of life are unconcerned with the problems of the world; they sleep away their lives, deriving joy in sloth and darkness. Of these three paths towards the goal of Ananda, man must accept the Satvika road, whatever the hardship, the loss, the misery, the anxiety and the labour. He must attain the awareness of Divinity, the experience of Godhead and be established in the Ananda.