THE IRONY OF HAPPINESS

By Venugopal Acharya (Vraja bihari dasa) - 25.3 2020

 “The obsession with instant gratification blinds us from our long-term potential.” –         Mike Doplet

 (Best-selling author, speaker and entrepreneur) We live at times of an excessive fascination with Happiness. We want to feel good and experience pleasure, now and always. If I am not happy, I doubt if I am doing things right. Ironically, it’s doing the right things that’s more important and guarantees a contented life. Today Happiness has become a goal; it’s no longer a by-product of a purposeful life. It’s no longer a gift of God, but my birth right and ‘I shall have it.’ After all, my happiness is in my hands, right? Wrong! Until three hundred years ago, the word happiness meant a chance or luck or fortune- something good that happened to you.

Today we’d like to believe we can be happy when I want and the way I want. However, paradoxically, happiness is as elusive today as it has been for millennia. Happiness is beyond us and the sooner we realize this, we’ll become peaceful. Are we then helpless victims of a fatalistic universal law where death and suffering stares at us every moment? Are we mere puppets in the hands of destiny? No! We all have enormous amount of will and determination but that’s got nothing to do with happiness. We use our human faculties, higher intelligence, and evolved conscience to guide us to contribute positively to the planet and people around us. Yet, happiness, as we today understand is highly selfish, and therefore mysteriously beyond our grasp.

The more obsessed we are or the more we fret and fume over it, pain and suffering envelop our very being. As humourist Evan Essar said it crisply, “An obsession is an idea which you must get out of your mind if you are not to go out of your mind.” Let’s instead let go the passion for bliss; let’s move from titillation of our senses – pleasure, to a more satisfying and purposeful life, where even suffering is welcome if the cause is noble.

The contentment from such a pursuit is far deeper than what our ears, eyes, tongue, nose or sense of touch or our mind can feel. A life of connection to higher truths and service has caused men and women to strive tirelessly and make meaningful contributions. Our generation is reaping the benefits of the sacrifice and toil of our ancestors. But if we preoccupy with the delights that our body and mind can experience, we’ll likely leave behind a messy planet to our future generations. Let’s therefore move from happiness to purpose and live beyond what’s commonly believed as happiness.

“A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?”

Albert Einstein

Imagine a boxer repeatedly getting knocked by his opponent. He dizzily rises, bleeding from his nose and mouth, and stands like a drooling drunkard. Again, he’s beaten, and he crashes on the rope. The referee’s final whistle has to wait for our hero rises, and takes some more jabs and punches. You rush to stop the mayhem.   

  “Why do you keep fighting?” you ask panic-stricken.   

His toothless smile shocks you as he exclaims, “When the cross, hook and the uppercut don’t get me, the point when I am not beaten, I am so happy.” Seems exaggerated! But that’s our story. For most people happiness is merely a point of relief between two states of pain. If you are suffering immensely, some things could offer relief: a movie, drugs, or sex. When we gratify our senses, we move from the minus axis of suffering to point zero- a state of relief. However, pleasure pursuits are often like painkillers. They provide an instant reprieve, but the vacuum of the heart only gets bigger.

The positive axis of Happiness is beyond mere transitory comfort. It’s a state where life-enhancing actions and healthy choices rule our inner world. We discover joy and contentment in simple activities like exercise, prayer, meaningful conversations, and nature walks. Watching a rain on your electronic screen could relieve you momentarily, but when you witness a real shower outside your window, you enter another dimension of existence. We may seek respite to our problems by drowning in the pleasures this world can offer, but that doesn’t cure the problem. It only traps us in a vicious cycle of continually seeking relief from our passions and equating that experience to happiness.

That’s also how addiction works: you need more of the substance to feel the same pleasure that a single puff of smoke or peg of alcohol gave you earlier. That’s why a wise man once quipped that the greatest happiness in this world lies in our imagination! Once it begins to translate into reality, a cycle of cravings, relief, and then more pain grips us. Beyond the titillation of the senses however, there is a sphere of awareness which helps us connect to our own deeper, real selves. When we live in this space, we find true happiness.

At this level, we pursue a noble aspiration, contribute to another’s well-being and live a healthy life. The world may find it strange that you rise early or eat simple foods or spend time in nature, but remember Bhagavad Gita says life for those in the positive axis is different from the men who live in the negative axis. “What is night for all beings is the time of awakening for the self-controlled; and the time of awakening for all beings is night for the introspective sage.” (2.69)