We all use the words happiness and sorrow, but do we know the true meaning of these words? You might say that who does not know the meaning of happiness and sorrow, and that everyone in life experiences it frequently.
Alright, so let’s take the commonly used definition of happiness and sorrow. We get happy when we get what we desire and feel sorrow when we don't get it. Let me now narrate a short story. You went for a tour to a jungle and you lose your way. You keep walking for kilometers together; you are tired and are losing all hopes of returning back safe. Suddenly you see a small hut right in the middle of the jungle. You go inside the hut and request the hut owner to let you stay in the hut. He not only lets you in and gives you a bread, some water and a worn-out bed-sheet to sleep on. What do you feel, happiness or a sorrow? Now, isn't it happiness that you get something to eat and a shelter to spend the night in a deep forest!
Now imagine that nothing of that sort has happened and you are actually watching some sitcom on your TV and I visit you with a picture of the same hut as explained above. I tell you that you will have to spend couple of nights in this hut and eat some dry bread next month as per astrology! Now what do you feel? The forest, the hut and the bread is same but the suggestion that you will have to spend a night or two in this condition makes you worried right from current moment. You not only "will" feel the sorrow in hut but you start feeling it right from current moment and keep worrying about it at least till you forget what I had prophesized.
So as we see that this definition of happiness and sorrow, that what you desire you get bring happiness, is relative. What we desire and what we need to get to bring in happiness is absolutely relative!
Now if you look at it from another angle, some say that sorrow happens only when we desire something and don't get it. That means desire is the source of sorrow. So if we can kill all desires we should be able to come out of the cycle of happiness and sorrow. So some of the scriptures tell us that renunciation is the only way not to feel any sorrow!
But don't we feel happy after getting something we did not desire for? If you put some sugar on a child's tongue would she not be happy? She was neither expecting the sugar nor was she feeling any sorrow for not getting it earlier. So absence of desire may not be the guarantee that we will not feel any happiness or sorrow. Another example can be of a person who has never seen any poverty. The one who is as rich as Richie Rich! He can get everything which is available in the world. So whatever he desires he gets. In that case, by the definition that sorrow happens when desires are unfulfilled, he should not feel sorrow at all. But does it happen? Rich also feel sorrow on various accounts. Though that's not to say we should not be rich! I would much rather cry in a sprawling bungalow than in a small hut.
But the two points which stand out very clearly are these - one, the happiness and sorrow are relative and also they are most likely independent of each other and the desire.
So if fulfilling the desire or slinging the desire out in a deep sea is not the answer for a life time of blissful state that what is? Let’s spend a bit of time on this point.
We use our senses to see, smell, hear or feel what is happening around us in this world. Though, it is the mind which actually experiences the happiness and sorrow. While two people can see the same thing they perceive it differently in their minds. If for some reason there is no connection between the senses and mind then we will not feel anything although our eyes, ears and other senses may be working fine. Therefore whether we feel happiness or sorrow depends on what our mind makes us feel. So if we can train our mind properly we can probably be able to have a blissful life.
There are multiple ways our scriptures have shown to train our mind. One is of ”Santosh" this means being contended with what you have. Being contended is a beautiful concept however many a times it hinders the progress. If all scientists say that they are contended with the discoveries happened so far or all businessmen say that they are happy with progress happened so far then we will have a world which is not having any innovation or economic progress! In India when elders bless they say "Shanti: Pushti-stushti - shchastu", meaning have peace, be contend and progress.
So the aim of our life is not just happiness but also progress. But to progress we need to do our "karma" or in other words we need to work. While doing our day-to-day work we are also bound to face failures and heartbreaks. This will again result in sorrow. When we closely observe this cycle we will understand that the sorrow generated is actually the outcome of results not matching up with our imagined successful scenarios. Whenever we take a task in hand we first think of the results and create the scenes in our mind, imagining out what the success will or should look like. When results in reality do not match our created scenes we feel the sorrow.
It’s when we detach ourselves, not from desire but from the result of our "Karma", we stop feeling this sorrow. So
1. The work we need to do needs to be right thing to do in a given situaion (one which benefits most and does not have any inferior motive).
2. Plan your work for right results but do not get attached to the mental picture of success
3. Understand that result is not in our hands so dont brood over the expected results
Once the activity is over leave everything to that Higher Power!!
"ShriKrishn-arpanam-astu" is a powerful "Mantra".
All efforts of “Bhakti (or devotion)” or “Yoga” are focused in training the mind to understand and stick to this simple principle of “Anasakt Karma” or detached work. We will discuss these in coming chapters.
