I was wondering about the madness of the search for happiness in the present-day world. Such a madness did not exist in our childhood. We did not need to search for happiness, rather we were happy. We played happily with our friends, looked at the stars, explored different streams of knowledge, listened to stories, watched television, went to school, and spent time with friends and relatives. Were we ever searching for happiness during our childhood? Wasn't that happiness already with us? Where has that happiness disappeared and where are we searching for happiness?
I feel that the answer lies in the mental stories sold to the children by the discontented society quite unintelligently in the name of motivations. Probably the best-seller fiction being sold in the market is that we need to be discontented to be motivated to work in this world. Almost all parents are inspired by this best-selling story and tell this story day and night to their kids. They tell their kids the importance of careers, good jobs, money, power, and so many different material possessions and since the parent-child relationship is based on trust, the children start believing in these stories and create their own mental stories of discontentment. Out of such self-created discontentment, they set different motivations and their search for happiness in this world starts. However, such happiness is never going to be a reality since their entire pursuit is founded on falsity. Since this story is told to us by almost all our near and dear ones and almost whole of the society, it looks so real that we never examine the truth behind the story.
I feel that the best way to get out of the river is to just look at the river. The moment we look at the river, we are out of the same. Similarly, the best way to get out of our mental stories is just to observe them. The moment we observe our mental stores, we are out of their grip. We have so many examples from the history and mythology. Buddha got enlightenment and still, he came back to the world to teach the world the ways and means to come out of miseries. He was fully contended inside and did not need anything. What was his motivation to come back? It was love. Love is the most powerful motivation to work in this world. Most wonderful things happen in this world when our actions are driven by love. A poet in love with nature creates the best of poetry and a scientist in love with humanity develops the vaccine for the most deadly virus. Krishna fought the battle of Kurukshetra not for himself but due to his love for Krishna and the entire humanity.
It is quite sad that we let go of love for the mental stories about discontentment and live our entire lives running from one mirage to another mirage. We cling to different things and ideas. We search for that happiness in material objects till our forties and at some point in time, we realize that a number of properties we have and the many zeros in the bank balance have made us more discontented than where we started from. We realize that we have caught the wrong train, however, do not have the courage to accept our wrong decisions. In the process, we force our kids also to get into the same train and the entire family suffers together. Some of us realize the futility of what we have been chasing so far and change the train by developing different hobbies failing to realize that they need not take another train but just come out of the train.
We need to come out of the train to visit a place. We too need to come out of our mental stories to see the world as it is. We have almost everything inside. Our needs are very limited and the rest are the stories we have created in our minds by reading the many best-sellers in the society written by the discontented souls. If we take a little break from a relentless pursuit of happiness and observe ourselves, we will soon realize that we need not run anywhere for that joy and happiness. We are in that state of happiness already unless we run away from the same. The moment we observe our mental stories, they get dropped, and we regain our natural state of joy and happiness that we are deprived of due to our own clinging to these stories.
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