Dr R N Sharma
Happiness is the conscious or unconscious goal of our life.The entire creation including the homo sapiens , animal kingdom, plants, aquatic creatures, ants and worms etc. are all seeking one thing alone and that is happiness. Happiness is the propelling force behind all our thoughts, pursuits, activities and enterprises. The whole process of creation, manifestation, evolution, involution and the entire activity of cosmos is an urge of happiness.
Modes of Happiness:
We derive varying degrees of happiness in several states of our living.
Happiness from Fulfilment of Desires:
Desire is an urge of the mind to look for an outside object which, it believes, would give it pleasure, a measure of satisfaction and happiness.
Basically we have an inward feeling that there is something lacking in our personality, a kind of lacuna, a shallowness or incompleteness. On seeing a particular object, we get attracted by it and believe that particular object would fill up our incompleteness and possessing that object would make us complete and happy. As we approach that object and get closer to it, we start experiencing a kind of promising thrill which gets accentuated on touching it and finally onpossessing the object there is intense pleasure. There is transient feeling that we have fulfilled the purpose of our life and acquired what we wanted. However, the experience lasts only a fraction of few moments and it is gone. The memory of the experience is, however, saved in our mind. Not being satisfied with one object, we keep on experimenting with a large number of objects throughout our life in the hope that we may eventually find the object that may give us permanent happiness. But the result is identical in that the happiness is only momentary with every object of our experimentation. We never succeed in getting the kind of permanent happiness that the mind is seeking. And we do not realize that there is no object in the world which is capable of giving us long-lasting, never-ending acme of happiness. It never occurs to us that perhaps the kind of happiness that the mind is seeking may be elsewhere and not in the objects of the world. Little do we realize that desires can never be satisfied or exhausted by repeating their fulfilment but only get accentuated further like pouring of oil on fire.
Happiness through Expansion of our Consciousness or Mind:
Recognizing that others have a “self” very much identical to the self that we have is the beginning of the process of “expansion of consciousness”. When we consciously try to think and feel in our mind what the other person may be thinking or feeling, curiously, a change starts taking place in our consciousness and personality. This activity of our consciousness and mind can certainly be extended and applied in respect of other persons and even animals and other creatures. This is the process of expansion of one’s consciousness or mind. The degree of happiness that a human being is capable of experiencing is proportionate to the degree of the expansion of his mind.Itis like an electric appliance connected to a powerhouse of electricity. We very well know that an electric kettle would absorb more electricitythan a 100 Watt bulb. Similarly, the person with an expanded consciousness would derive much more happiness from the Universal Powerhouse of Bliss than another person with lesser degree of expansion of mind.
Happiness in deep sleep or Sushupti:
In deep sleep or Sushupti, there is a withdrawal of mind and consciousness into their source; there is complete absence of personality and ego. One does not know what one is in deep sleep. One does not know whether one is a man or a woman, tall or short, black or white, learned or otherwise. Even the worst of pains and sorrows are forgotten. There is levelling of all personality into a single homogeneity of experience. It is doubtful if the deep sleep of an animal or an ant is different from the sleep of a human being. We are really in contact with “theAbsolute” in deep sleep but we are unconscious of it. The impact of that contact is that there is an intense satisfaction or delight, a happiness and a revival of spirit. A faint memory of the experience remains in the mind and when we get up from sleep we remember that we had a very happy sleep. The secret of the happiness of deep sleep is the “impersonality of being and the absence of the ego” in that state. In that state of impersonality, innumerable benevolent forces of nature nourish us; such forces are always eager to help us and nourish the mind and energize it. However, when awake, we shut out these helpful forces of nature by the vehemence of our personality and the assertion of our ago. The difference between the happiness of “liberation” and happiness of deep sleep is that the former is a conscious experience of Absolutehappiness whereas the Bliss of deep sleep or Sushupti is an unconscious experience.
Flashes of Utter Joy:
A passing reference to some flashes of utter joy are being mentioned: (a) Watching a huge, lofty and massive mountain from a foothill or from a distance quietly and alone, (b) Sitting on a bench on the seashore quietly, by oneself and watching the vast limitless ocean with the constant play of waves and tides on its surface and (c) Looking at the vast blue sky silently by oneself for some time. One is absolutely wonder-struck with the beauty, the majesty, the vastness and limitlessness of theirs with complete forgetfulness of one’s individual personality. And we experience then anabsolute bliss for as long as there is an oblivionof our personality.
Powerhouse of Absolute Bliss or Absolute Happiness:
The real never-ending ever-lasting permanent absolute happiness that we all are seeking is not in the outside world as everything in this world is destructible.
All happiness is this world is ephemeral, evanescent and finite. The absolute or infinite happiness that we are seeking is not outside us but within our own self, in the innermost core of our personality. In other words, it is in our Self or Atman.
City of Brahman:
In our own self, in the deepest recess of our own heart is a great secret, a great mystery. This is the CityofDivinityorBrahman. There is a “spiritual heart” in all of us called the City of the Divine. It is a small lotus-like abode, of the size of one’s thumb. It is distinct from the fleshy anatomical heart. It is slightly to the right of the anatomical heart in the centre of the chest close to the spot where a quiet inspired breath terminates in the chest. The space inside this lotus-likeentity is illumined by self-effulgent light or light of its own.At the bottom of this space is aminiscule brilliant dot – it is one’s soul. It is like a speck of sunlight. It contains everything that is in the orb of the sun. The whole of earth and whole of heaven can be found inside this little space. The principles of five elements, earth, water, fire, air and ether, the sun and the moon and stars, lightening and thunder are all contained in it. Whatever we see in the outside world or cannot see in the outside world – all those are present inside our heart.
Our heart is the selfhood of our very being and is true representative of the Ultimate Reality.
By introversion of our consciousness into the depths of our heart, it would be possible to plumb the mysteries of the entire cosmos. This heart is the centre of the universal circle. The radii of the circle converge into the little space of Consciousness which we call the subject of perception. It is the centre of pure subjectivity. Every object of desire is inside our own heart. This heart is not destroyed when the body is destroyed. It is the Atman. It has no hunger and no thirst. It has no sorrow or limitation. It is un-aging. It is self-existent in its own pristine magnificence. It asks for nothing. Whatever It wills is capable of being materialized at one stroke. Its “will” is pure and uncontaminated by any falsehood or externality. The nearer we go to this heart, the more is the strength of our will and the more is our capacity to manifest and materialize anything in the world in our practical life and we can achieve anything that we want.
(The author is former Professor and Chairman Urology SKIMS, Soura, Sgr.)
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