‘Happiness’ – a term well known to all of us. Whether we acknowledge it or not, it is this quotient that propels us to function in the world. For most of us, this ‘Happiness’ is the goal, the level to which we have to reach, perhaps this day, this month…. Or even this year. Ask anyone, ‘are you happy’, rarely would we get to hear, ‘yes, I am happy!’.
If this search has been our primary aim, why is it that despite all our efforts, all our learning, we strive for this happiness? Or do we understand happiness in the first place? A little uncommon weather condition, our happiness walks out of the window. We are sweating in the heat or freezing in the cold, we are drenched in the rain or perhaps just for nothing, we are ‘searching for happiness’.
Gibran mentions, ““Happiness is a vine that takes root and grows within the heart, never outside it.”
‘The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of Unhappiness’ – goes the famous quote.
Dale Carnegie mentions ““It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.”
Ever so often we see children playing, laughing and that laughter reverberates in us – gleefully. What is that resonance of the child’s laughter that is so irresistible, so endearing? The response to this, we all know, is their clear and flawless mind. The heart that responds without malice of any kind. The heart that has no baggage to hold, in the spontaneity of living.
Happiness that we much await, is delayed in time, in space and is limited to objects. Acquiring an object of choice is happiness and giving up an object is a source of immense pain. And that is how our life goes on, revolving around the trivial pleasures and pains. It is Giving that one is Happy, rarely ever in acquiring.
Happiness – is a term we just hear about; we have no clue to it. Pleasure and momentary spurts of joy are no way connected to ‘Happiness’ – that which the word holds in itself. Somewhere we have forgotten to be happy on seeing the rising Sun, the happiness of watching the Full Moon, the Happiness of sitting silent, just without anything, the happiness of being alive to see this day, the happiness of watching the plant grow from the seed, the happiness of watching the bud unfurl into a flower, the happiness of watching the bird fly in the sky, the happiness of feeling the body alive and kicking, the inflow and outflow of breath that brightens up my life, the happiness of just Being……
Small attempts, not large leaps, is what makes the difference. The ten minute forceful laughter at the ‘Laughter Club’ in the nearby park is good for the heart, but that laughter which rejoices every moment, is the clue to happiness – that which is our prized possessions, independent of any object, time or space. A Happy mind can take on any challenge in the world.
Mana'nam 