Unsure of the meaning of happiness, I have been exploring this for quite a long. The literature is full of books on the pursuit of happiness. There have been so many movies on the topic. In fact, most of the Bollywood movies are in and around the pursuit of happiness. Some feel that happiness is correlated to marrying their beloved, some relate that to taking revenge, and some set free of the trap of poverty. There is "The End" of the movie after the target is achieved and we presume that the hero lived happily thereafter.
However, in reality, is life like that? Experience tells quite different things. Experience tells us that we keep facing one or the other situation in life. Sometimes we feel health issues, sometimes loss of friends and relatives, sometimes little troubles with the job, sometimes loss or litigation. Astrology tells us that all these things are bound to happen in each person's lifetime. Dashas and Antardashas of different planets keep changing and accordingly, different forces of nature get activated at different points in time.
Even Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana had to leave the comforts of the palace in just a moment and had to move to the forest. Lord Krishna himself was born in a prison and had to stay away from his parents for the whole of his childhood. If happiness has anything to do with getting the desired objects or situations, probably, Rama and Krishna should probably be the most unhappy people on this earth.
I think that we are missing one critical element here. There is a difference between pleasure and happiness. Our body and brain get used to certain habit patterns such as taste and comfort. Body and mind wish these pleasures to continue and feel distressed as and when it feels that these comforts are going to be withdrawn. That is why psychological stress is more painful than the actual pain. There is a threat to the loss of these comforts. Alternatively, our mind sets certain comforts as targets and when there is an apprehension of missing those comforts, we come under stress. Most of these comforts are psychological rather than physical. Social validation is one of the primary comforts. We feel the pleasure of social validation, confirmation, and appreciation, and similarly, we become stressed as and when there is a perceived threat to these.
Rama and Krishna have all these discomforts: physical as well as psychological. Yet they were so happy, probably just to demonstrate that happiness has nothing to do with pleasures and pain. Pleasure or pain is a natural reaction of the mind to the situations. Mind is quite limited just like a stand-alone computer set that is disconnected from the internet. Its response to the situations is based on what it has been fed with.
On the other hand, our existence is far deeper and wider. The more we remember this wideness and depth, the less we get troubled by the reaction of the mind to the situations. One understands that as human beings, we are here to evolve. All the situations are just to help us progress. When that wideness and depth are at the center of existence, the situations actually do not matter much. One remains in a perpetual state of joy realizing that what appears unpleasant to the mind is actually necessary for its expansion. The divine needs to break free of the local computer of all the firewalls to connect it to itself. As soon as we connect to the divine, the first thing the divine does is to attack the firewalls till that firewall gives way to the divine internet.
All our comforts and pleasures are challenged. So long as there are traces of attachment to the comforts and pleasures, we will keep facing the situations that shake us completely. We have a choice to make all the time to either become gloomy or sad since the situations are not going our way. Or alternatively, accept that as the divine's attack on the local firewall and establish the connection with the divine. Once the divine internet is functional, one is no longer concerned about the pleasures and pains. The mind just becomes a tool to express the divine will rather than preventing that by throwing tantrums of pleasures and pains.
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