Happiness

The quest for happiness is never-ending because people believe that happiness lies in the objects of the world. As long as we believe this, we will never be happy because the world is a constantly changing and ephemeral phenomenon, and what we desire is unending, eternal happiness. How can we get eternal happiness from a temporary substance? Another reason for not getting unending happiness is that we live in a dualistic world where every happiness carries an equal amount of unhappiness with it. Every joy has a sorrow attached to it, and every day has a night. These dualities are known as counter-correlatives. We cannot have one without the other. We cannot have day without night, joy without sorrow, and love without hatred. In fact, the only way we recognize joy is that we have had some sorrow at some time or other. The only way we can be pain-free is that we have experienced pain. We only know light because we have experienced darkness. That's why a man living in the sun will never know the meaning of "light" because he has never experienced darkness!

In our pursuit of happiness, the first thing we have to realize is that there is nothing called pure undiluted happiness. Like everything else in this dualistic world, happiness will always have its constant companion, "unhappiness," accompanying it. Let me give you an example. Suppose you love ice cream. The first ball gives you great happiness. The second and third also are happy moments, but by the 4th, 5th, and 6th, you are getting fed up, and if you stick it out and go on to eat the 10th, you will surely start to throw up. The same object that gave you great happiness in the beginning gives you great sorrow towards the end. So where did the happiness come? Did it lie in the ice cream? If so, where did the unhappiness come from? Did that also lie in the ice cream? You can apply this logic to every single thing in the world, and you will get the same experience, except perhaps money, which people seem to be able to get pleasure out of hoarding much more than they need.

Now let us analyze another thing about happiness. All of us think that happiness comes from possessions and objects of the outside world. People slog hard, doing jobs that give them no pleasure to get a big pay packet. With this money, they go out into the world to buy happiness, whether they go to a disco, restaurant, or a mall is immaterial. What is important is that they think money can actually buy happiness for them. This thought is the basis of their unhappiness. This means that they think happiness lies in the "objects" of the world outside. If we analyze this thought, we will find that happiness does not lie in the object. If it did, then all objects should give equal happiness to all people. This is certainly not the case. Some people love chocolate ice cream, others can't stand it. The object, in this case, "ice cream," is innocent. It is neither good nor bad. It is not capable of giving either happiness or unhappiness. It is what it is. What produces the happiness in the person eating it is his or her own mind. So, happiness and unhappiness are qualities of the mind and not of the objects outside. This is a most important fact which we have to understand if we want to be reasonably contented in life!

Even if you love chocolate ice cream, if your mind is filled with sorrow after hearing about the death of a friend or relative, you will not be able to enjoy the ice cream. In fact, you will not even be able to look at it. So, where does happiness lie? In the object or inside your mind? Another example: a child falls and scratches her knee, and she starts howling with pain. The mother comes and pops a sweet into her mouth, and immediately the howling stops. Has the pain really stopped? Or is it that the mind is now engrossed with the sweetness of the toffee in her mouth? So, where does happiness or unhappiness lie? From these examples, we can say that duality lies in the mind and not in the objective world.

When the mind is happy and free from stress and worry, everything will give us happiness. An ant carrying a load of sugar on its little back will delight us. A flower nestling in the crevice of a rock will send us into ecstasy. A poor child running in rags after a puppy with a smile on his face will make us laugh. A cloud passing in the sky will keep us enthralled! There is no end to the things that can delight us when our mind is free from fear and not loaded with worries! On the other hand, the greatest treasures of the world will fail to make us happy when the mind is clouded with distress.

This is why Sanatana Dharma never wasted time trying to teach objective methods to keep people happy. At no point were we ever told that possessions are the only things that will give us happiness. On the other hand, they told us that the more possessions we had, the less peace of mind we would have, since we would always be worried about how to keep them safe. What they gave us was different methods by which we could have some mastery over the mind.

These methods are pranayama, yogasanas, meditations, mantra japa, etc. If we keep to a strict schedule of following these different types of yogas, we will find that we can keep our mind reasonably free from duality. Of course, happiness will come, followed by its favorite companion, unhappiness, but this is not the end of the picture. This oscillation will keep going in the external world, but once we learn to stabilize our mind, we will be above this. When we reach that state, we will find that the objects of the world will stop annoying us. That is a state of stability of the mind when it is in a state of equilibrium in which neither joy nor sorrow exists. This is true peace or shanti where the mind is the master of itself and not swayed like a pendulum between the dualities of the world – between joy and sorrow, happiness and unhappiness! Thus, we find that in the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna says that yoga is a state where the mind is stable. In that state, nothing can shake it!

“Samatvam Yoga Uchyate””

“Yoga is a state where the mind is stable.”

Hari aum tat sat!