HOW CAN YOU BE HAPPY…?
By Arun Babani
Two things have been common throughout all ages. Man has lived in deep conflict. And man has lived in search of happiness. The cause of his conflict is same as his search for happiness. His ‘I’. That is very simple to understand. Any primary text of spirituality will tell you that you stand in your way of happiness.
Here’s how. You are happy when you acquire the latest model…but then the next month there’s the next latest model. You are happy when you crack a deal…but then there is another one waiting. You are happy when you get this or that…but then there is another this or that….
The question arises, is there something as happiness in the sense that there is the moon or the bread slice? Is there a substance to happiness or is it just a fleeting stuff like breeze that comes and goes and comes again?
Today suddenly upon waking I realized that I’ve never been really happy about anything anytime in life. And the next question was naturally what is happiness? Is there something called happiness? I began to look around myself, thinking about my brothers and friends, are they really happy? I wondered? Someone must be happy to find his photograph on the cover of a magazine…but then? Someone must be happy to get his son married…but then? I soon was completely certain that happiness appears rather irrelevant to life, comes once in a while and then there is that ‘but then’.
While conflict seems everpresent, everlasting and I’m told that is simply because the ‘I’ wants more and more happiness…the ‘me’ is never content and satisfied…ironical!
One answer to this dilemma of the tug-war between the conflict and happiness seems to be the ignorance, the darkness that man has lived in, the darkness of the real nature of his own self, of the ‘I’. Usually a child is born, becomes an old man and dies without catching a glimpse of his own self even for a full five minutes from his lifetime. That is the crux of the matter. Looking, seeing deep into oneself, what one is all about. Touching life in actuality, in reality. Touching the very ground of life which is the source of happiness and the end of conflict.
How can one be happy if one really does not know what will make him happy? How can you learn to play any game unless you know the rules and stakes of the game? How can you be happy unless you know who you are and what you want? How can you be happy unless you are living and are alive? Machines can function beautifully, efficiently, even achieve much production but can they ever feel happiness, joy and contentment?