The Casualty of Happiness

One commodity which is in good demand is happiness. Everyone wants to be happy. There is absolutely nothing wrong in it. But each one is placed differently in life, hence the person’s mental and intellectual stature puts him in such a place unevenly with all others. There cannot be a standard procedure to create happiness for everyone uniformly.

However, the seekers of happiness land themselves in the hands of some advisers who give them standard procedures, without recourse to understand the specific situation of the individual. In this background, a person goes to seek this commodity, well displayed at many places. He joins some meditation course. He comes back very satisfied, practices all the principles sincerely. However, after a week or so, he is back to square one. Then he goes to a spiritual guru seeking his valuable guidance. Again he is satisfied and lands in the same situation within a week.

One such person, after trying his experiments and not getting the desired results, happened to see a devotee on the road singing the praise of the Lord. He was surprised to see this person so happy, energetic and enthusiastic, just singing and singing the glory of the Lord. So he goes to that devotee and asks him the secret behind his happiness. The devotee was surprised and did not understand the question at all. This made the person more worried, he got more confused as to what is happening around. The devotee told the person that right from childhood he has been singing the glory of the Lord and moving around places. Whatever he gets he eats, and wherever he feels the need to rest, he rests. He said, other than this, he did not know anything else. So where is the question of happiness or otherwise. He said he is what he is, just singing and that is all about it.

When this much variations in degree is present in different human beings, we cannot simply standardize a measure. At the same time every one cannot be at the level of Sukh Devji Maharaj, who right at birth becomes an Avadhuta, and just wanders in the world merging with nature. I personally feel that happiness starts with basic contentment cultivated over a period of time irrespective of the position where one is placed. This will help him to analyse and grasp his position, then try to improve upon it, to catch up with specified goals set by him, without losing happiness in the process of achieving those goals.

 SASIN TIPCHAI