In Pursuit of Happiness

The human race is engaged in a terrific race to reach a state of tranquility & peace, to attain a state of blissful happiness. All kinds of efforts, directly or indirectly, are directed towards reaping that reward for self, as well as for the close members of one’s family. The ways & means to accomplish that goal vary from individual to individual. But despite all the disparities & inequalities of ‘racing equipment’, this is a race that pulls all the inhabitants of this planet as participants.

Step aside for a moment & standing on the sidelines just observe the ‘event’ keenly. As you look at it as a spectator, this race appears to be very funny. You notice that the rules of the game get changed and bent to suit the whims & fancies of various participants. The racing tracks are many & so well laid out that each track seems to be the winning track and attracts a horde of people. All the time people seem to be very eager & in a hurry to reach the finish line the soonest. You also notice that different people apply different tricks to race ahead, even if it leads to elbowing out the fellow racer.

As a spectator you would be in a state of pause. You can observe people using all kinds of skills to make money & then more money. You can watch people as they jostle with one another to grab all available valuables that match the contents of their never ending wish list. You can also sense their intent to undergo all kinds of organic, inorganic & surgical procedures to look handsome & beautiful. You can also observe them spending a lot of time, energy & money on self gratifying pursuits, all considered to be some useful tools for clinching what they have set out for. The list of the means & methods, adopted by people to seek a share of happiness, becomes endless.

Scrutinizing the lives of some of the closely known individuals & families comprising our society, one wonders whether such a mad race really leads one to that goal of securing happiness? Whether happiness resides in money & material possessions which, more often than not, tend to leave many others cold & blue with awful jealousy? Whether name & fame can also earn that lasting contentment? Whether fine toned & well chiseled bodies decked up with other precious adornments can make their possessors really happy?

There emanate true stories of people having tons of money but possessing tragically poor health, that the feeling of elation of having made so much is simultaneously dampened by the physical inability to enjoy the same. There are professionals who have excelled in their fields of interest & earned the bounty of fame, but cannot rejoice by sharing it with their families due to indifference of their spouses & alienation of their children. There are people who worked hard & acquired many invaluable possessions, but cannot sleep peacefully in the warmth of that pride, as their wayward off springs keep piercing their skins by abusing & floundering up those very possessions.

Also, there are tales of men & women who delightfully fell for each other, terming it as love, but soon fell apart to miserable depths calling it mismatch & incompatibility. There are known cases of handsome lads & beautiful girls gleefully riding high on physical attributes, who came crashing down on earth, with their senses ripped apart by disloyal life partners & other self-centered, manipulative family members.

In fact, there are many cases where the joys of having made lots of wealth, the elation of scaling high peaks of professional performance, the delights of physical association with the craved ones & the thrill of having acquired immense knowledge could not last beyond a very limited span of time, due to other negative factors creeping in to shatter all those nice, good feelings.  hq1a

If all that wealth, possessions, fame & even knowledge could not bring in lasting happiness then is this race worth running at all? Why not abandon it altogether & just live out the life aimlessly?

We, the human creatures, are tied & woven into families & societies. Having undergone widespread ages of evolution, we are expected to follow the familial, societal & cultural norms. We are here to provide the best to our families & dependants. We are here to look for progress that conceivably can provide a better future to the next generation. We are here to explore other frontiers to expand our knowledge & reach for the benefit of whole of the mankind.

The problem lies not in the pursuit of wealth, assets & knowledge, but in the lack of pursuit of wisdom that can usher in lasting happiness. We need to gain the wisdom to understand that the external progress in all respects would never compensate for the lack of internal growth of the self. It is the wisdom that enhances the capacity of the mind to understand the futility of attempting to secure happiness through external acquisitions. It is the wisdom that would elaborate to us to always remain mentally detached from all our belongings & possessions. It is the wisdom that would guide us to sail through all kinds of situations, including the adverse ones, all the time maintaining the balance of mind & without ever getting perturbed. It is the wisdom that would make us understand that nothing in life is permanent. It is the wisdom that would provide us the vision to see through the ill-motivated designs of even our loved ones, whose love, otherwise, keeps us blindfolded to their misdeeds & misdemeanors.

It is the pursuit of wisdom that raises our mind to a level of worldly insulation where nothing affects us mentally. It is similar to a state when, sometimes, in spite of being in a crowd you still feel lonely, all to yourself only. A wise mind would keep us unaffected by all the happenings around us, regardless of very much being a part of the same. When this happens, it signals the dawn of perpetual tranquility that opens the doors to lasting happiness.



6 Responses to “In Pursuit of Happiness”

  1. Jagdish kaur says:

    This article is brilliant . Only a spiritually enlightened person could think this way .Really awesome . Looking forward to read more .

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  4. Nereida Bauermeister says:

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  5. Vern Tibbs says:

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