Ibonio D’ Souza
Man is stuck in the dualities of life – in the dichotomy of the pleasant and the unpleasant. The mind gets agitated if one is unable to achieve the desirable. But when a particular desire is fulfilled, another one raises it’s head and the vicious cycle goes on and on. No one wants to come out of one’s comfort zone to embrace the tough, the unseen or the unpleasant.
If you enjoyed reading this article, you can help support our journalism by adding OHeraldo as a preferred source.
We have often believed that if a particular desire was fulfilled, we would be happy and satisfied. But were we really contended then? If yes, for how long? Soon, new desires overtook us without even our realizing it and we found ourselves in the same situation all over again, chasing a new desire!
We learn from our ancient spiritual wisdom that our happiness depends upon the number of desires reduced by us. Our happiness quotient is equivalent to the gap between the number of desires fulfilled, divided by the number of desires entertained. The gap between them decides our happiness. The smaller the gap, the more will be our happiness quotient. This means that entertaining less number of desires or by maintaining a state of no desire automatically takes care of our happiness quotient and ensures peace of mind, where as the absence of this leads to frustration, depression, and even destructive elements in society.
Our era is such that every hand seems to hold a stone to attack the other’s head. One wonders when God is omnipresent and omniscient, why do these meaningless religious conflicts occur ceaselessly? Again, when man knows his fate only too well, why does he nurture his great ego for status and power? No doubt, it is due to lack of our enlightenment, oblivious to the true values of life.
The dualities of life – joy versus sorrow, will cease to affect us only when we learn to hold on to nothing and resist nothing. So, live like the lotus – unaffected by the muddy surroundings in which it grows. Be like the lotus leaf which is unaffected and unwetted by the drop of water on it!
Man seldom lives in the present moment, but wanders in the labyrinths of the past that has gone and the future that has not yet come – in a medley of regrets, despair, anger, worry, fear, etc. Haunted by past failures, he is filled with apprehensions about the future. He thus views and spends his whole life negatively.
You need to have your mind like a calm lake. Enjoy poise by quietening the mind’s ever chattering and desire-driven nature. Be aware of your true divine nature by stilling your mind. You can certainly do this looking inwards without being distracted by outer trivialities.
Happiness is the product of realisation of truth. Happiness according to the Vedantic view, does not lie outside a person but is within that person. It is the very nature of man. It is the ignorance of that essentially happy nature which is the cause of all dissatisfaction and unease. Real happiness cannot be found externally, it has to be realised within. It is a state of mind. Vedanta emphasises that linking happiness to external objects will always be a failed exercise.
The mystic Indian poet saint Kabir has explained this so appropriately: “Just as the fragrance of a flower lies within so also is the essence of human happiness inside the man, yet he acts like the musk dear searching for the musk in the grass where the aroma from the musk within it has spread”. The search for happiness outside will never lead to contentment. Real happiness can only come from within.
