New Year is the time for new beginning, and so people wish each other — “Happy New Year,” because everyone wants happiness.
Industries repeatedly bombard us with advertisements and create a demand to their goods which have a magnetic power of attraction and a thousand consumers rush to buy them to satisfy their senses and gain name and fame; a thousand did I say? Thousand over thousands are attracted towards the stuff like a magnet attracting iron filings.
People, who give excessive interest to material possessions, find happiness in showing with pride, the fact that they are the first among their circle of family and friends to buy the best mobile phone, laptops and other gadgets of the latest model.
Materialism is unavoidable as it is necessary to fulfill our original needs of existence. But, wealth and success in material living conditions, brings only a little happiness, a little respect to people. Man, who has everything with all the desires of his heart satisfied, still feels that the thing which gives the maximum and endless happiness for him is missing — and that is God in his heart. This is because the soul, which has a journey through the physical form of the human body, finally hungers to end with the Supreme soul.
Therefore, man has to balance his life with external desires and internal values and achieve the golden balance to connect his inner self with God, because He made us to know Him, to love Him and to be happy with Him forever in the next. Adjustment in life should be done like the balancing in preserving the internal strength with the surrounding as done in the fable of the banyan tree and the reed. The mighty, proud banyan tree said to the reed: ‘I am tall; I can stand erect and even give shade to the weary.’ One day a flash flood in the rainy season uprooted the banyan tree and it fell among the humble reeds. The banyan tree asked, “How is that, you who are so light and weak are not entirely crushed by these strong winds?” The reed said, “We bend and adjust ourselves and stand erect again when floods recede.”
Similarly, humble and happy people who maintain their inner peace, live in the present moment — one day at a time without focusing on the past or future: appreciating and thanking God for what they already have. Unhappy people live in the past and fear about what will happen to them in the future; and spoil the present by worrying at what they don’t have at the moment, in the hand. The Bible says: “The Kingdom of heaven is within you.” But we search for the kingdom of happiness outside us, where it does not exist. In conclusion, I must say that true, everlasting happiness comes from inner calmness. One should forget the past, enjoy the present and live the future in the hands of God. Happiness does not come from material things but from a complete surrender to God.
‘The key to eternal happiness is heaven; god in the heart; and the input to eternal sadness is hell; erroneous thoughts in the mind.
