I have often wondered why we cant remain happy and allow ourselves to be manipulated by the circumstances so easily. Is there anything in this world except spiritually realized souls who have the taste of this eternal happiness or bliss? Or how to actually remain happy and keep your moral high when you feel that you are passing through the bad patches in life? How to remain a lotus in the mud? How to acquire a saint like approach and holistic touch for the not s good in the life? Why cant I be happy all the time as I know that happiness and sadness are just state of the mind? Is happiness or sadness is just manipulation of the mind or something deeper than that? And if it is just a manipulation of the mind than how to do that manipulation when its needed most.
Hindu scriptures have often pondered this question of eternal happiness and various sages have written a lot about it. They all say that it can only be achieved by perfect control of the mind. Mind is often described as a Monkey who has drank a lot of alcohol. In all animals monkey is considered as the most active one. They always jump around here and there and what will happen when they are drunk? So this comparison gives a clear indication of the normal state of mind. Normal human mind wonders many places. It doesn’t remain still for long. Many times you are doing something else and in the back of your mind you are thinking something else like the plans for evening, what to buy in groceries, what should be done after you finish the present task or some happy or sad incidents of past or your present state of affairs. Very few of us live in the present moment that we are having in our hand. For majority its either past or future. Majority of us doesnt get satisfaction with present and always dwell in some other time to feel comfortable. I really wonder why its like that. Why we don’t have satisfaction with we got in our hand? Some one can say that if you are satisfied than you wont do much progress in your life. But there is a big difference between being content and being compromised. I am not saying that we should compromise as satisfaction arising out of compromise isn’t going to last long as its going to leave a temporary relief like tiny food but wont satisfy your hunger. On the other hand if you are content in mind then situation is going to be much better for you. To achieve that contentment you have to work hard and even if you don’t get the desired results sometimes then still you will be content that you had put all your efforts. Many times if you have put hard efforts than results are going to be favorable. Outcome of any effort is not in your hand. Your job is to do your duty well. That is what the biggest truth of my life so far.
Most of the times a misery arise out of comparison. If you start seeing what others have got and feel that I am much better person then the other one and deserve something better than him/her. It happens in a job environment a lot. When the time of distributing the annual rewards on the basis of individual’s performance comes up, bosses always play the game. They favor some although they haven’t worked hard and those individuals major contribution was only to inflate false ego of the bosses. I am sure not all bosses do that but still its human nature to favor some people above other. Only problem is majority of the times the ground on which that favor is done isn’t right. If somebody gets favors because he or she has worked hard on the jobs that’s been assigned to them throughout the year than no one in the office is going to question that judgment. As I feel that most of the people are logical enough to see the real performance of their colleagues. But its not like that most of the times as grounds for favors are flimsy and that breeds dissatisfaction in office environment. So it was for the bosses to understand that what their higher goal is. If their higher goal is to score some personal points then they wont promote good people as good people have power to overtake them in longer run. This only happens if bosses are insecure and not sure of their abilities. If the higher goal is larger interest of the organization then they will do justice and reward the hard working irrespective of the personal difference. Its for you to see who will emerge as a better man between the two types. Its for the two type of bosses to realize what kind of person they are becoming. Well every one knows about it so I wont go further on this. My main point was to find the cause for unhappiness and how to address that grievance. I am just using office environment as example. I feel that most of the people genuinely want to work if challenge is thrown to them.
Many times your troubled mind gets sadistic and temporary peace by seeing few more people in same or more misery than yourself. Misery and happiness many times needs a company. Many times sadness and happiness adopt a different approach to that company. Like sadness will convert to a temporary relief when you see other people in same trouble but on the other hand you don’t get happiness by seeing other people happy. So when you are sad for something than you have a greater potential to make lots of people sad about something else when they get in touch with you. It’s a strange thing which makes me to conclude that many people are not unhappy because of their troubled situation but they are in misery to see other people happy. In the end its just the comparison of what you have and what the other one has got. What you are right now and what you want to be is the root of most of the miseries in our life. So what is the solution for all this? The only solution is to be content by doing great efforts for the things that you want in life and never to think about the results. If results are positive than just move on to higher avenues or if they are negative than just tell yourself that the efforts you put in were not good enough.
Many times I have seen people start blaming their fate for all the wrongs in their life. They blame circumstances, working conditions, environment, colleagues, friends, family members or just about anything which can help them in cool down a little bit. And if they don’t find anything then God or fate is there to take all the cursing. Its always easy to blame God or fate as these things are not present like everything else to defend themselves. When someone blames God for misery then they just forget that they are putting blame on someone who is beyond all this cycle of happiness, misery and blames. He is the purest among pure, holiest among holies. There is a reason for everything in this world and if you haven’t got reason for something than you haven’t looked closely into that. So would God punish or give bounties to someone without any reason? Would God favor some of his creations over others without any reason? Would God do partiality and make some of his creations as rich and some as poor, some as healthy others as sick? If you look deeper then your answer will always be a big NO. God cant do that, God doesn’t do that, God wont do that. Its human desires and actions which we impose upon God and feel that God is doing favors to a particular one or being harsh on some one. I agree that fate plays some part in a person’s life but you get that good fate by your own good karma of this life or beyond.
People generally blame everyone except themselves. Sometimes they take the blame and regret their actions for their misery, only to find later on to repeat the same mistake. It happens because that regret wasn’t from deep inside and genuine. The temporary blame they took for their actions was just meant for polishing their own image in their eyes. Because all people feel that they are good from inside and it was only a particular circumstance which made them bad. After doing that they just walk guilt free and commit the same thing again. This vicious cycle will go on unless everyone realize that their happiness and sadness is most of the time their own creation. Well these are all the problems but what is the solution?
Buddha said that desires are the root cause of unhappiness and its better to give up this world and live in monasteries or forests to find out about your real self. God Shri Krishna has talked in Shrimad Bhagvat Geeta about Nishkama Karma or Unattached action. By which he says that you don’t have to leave this world to find that eternal happiness or contented mind, you just have to do your work or karma and never to worry about its result. The only thing that you have in your hand is your work and not its fruits. Those results are only in hand of God alone and whatever he gives you as result of your actions, you should gracefully accept that and never raise a question about that. Because with God its never about how much you put in and how much get. What you get is decided by your own karma in this life and your past life. The past life isn’t in your control anymore. What you have is your present life. So from today itself start doing good karma and make this and future lives more pleasant to live. Actions of your past life affect your present one so if you are getting not so good things now it means that you might have screwed up something in your past life. I am taking rebirth as basis of my thoughts here as it’s the only logical explanation for what is happening in this world. As you all might have seen many times those who are doing bad in their present life still enjoy power and money or some righteous person even after doing good is living like in a hell. What would be a explanation for this except practicality of karma and rebirth.
That’s why in Hinduism (includes Buddhism and Jainism) biggest thing to achieve in Human life is Moksha or Nirvana. After which you become free from this cycle of birth and death. Among all walks of the life present on Mother Earth only Humans have this much thinking power. You all know that Human baby is born without any natural protection from God while all other animal babies get birth with nature’s protection. In many senses all animals except humans have their life preprogrammed in their mind. Like what they will eat, how they will give birth to their children, where they will live their lives predominantly and many other things like that. You might have rarely seen a misfit in terms of animals and their surroundings. Like these animals are born with special protections to live their lives in any surroundings or environment, like polar bears in North Pole but human Eskimos are not born with any special fur. Eskimo has to depend on his brain for his survival in that condition. God is giving us indication every moment to use our brain properly. He has made us intelligent for some thing higher purpose. Its really sad that many of us use this brain for destructive purpose. But God is not to be blamed as Fire is Fire, some one uses it for cooking food and the other one use that for burning some one’s home. Its not the fault of the fire but the person who is using it. So the eternal way of the happiness is to do your work honestly, put all your efforts and just don’t complain or compare, try to be content in all situations and circumstances and never blame anyone including yourself for your deeds. God is showering his Love and happiness all the times. The bigger pot you have to collect, more you will get. Try everyday to make your pot bigger so that this whole universe will becomes like your own good family and there will be eternal happiness all the way. May God direct our intellect in right direction.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment