The pursuit of happiness is a fundamental right of every human being and it’s very curious to see that many people have been seen spending a significant part of their lives in pursuing happiness and the remaining part sharing their experience of how wrong they were in their pursuit. Many try to share their wisdom after having been missed their entire life and clearly no one listens because who would like to model a person who seems to be regretting his past choices.
We all wish to be happy, happiness is the ultimate goal that we really aim for, and we all wish to live a life with no regrets. Every now and then we see people enjoying the happy moments with new and old friends, their spouses, their children, their parents, with the nature and their newly acquired material wealth; they feel so excited about these moments that they wish to share this moment with the whole world and do share it on various social media and magnify their feeling. We all know what happy moments are, we all know what an exciting moment is, we all know what a moment filled with an abundance of positive emotions feels like; but how many of us have any idea about a happy life?
What is a happy life, what does being happy all the time means? Is it really something so complicated that that only a few handful souls like Mahavira, Buddha, Dalai Lama and many other gurus can understand and experience. How was Buddha really feeling when he lived on after being enlightened? Was Buddha always happy when got enlightened, what did he feel when he saw some of his own brother or sister suffering in life? He probably wasn’t happy, and he probably wasn’t even feeling indifferent to the circumstances, certainly, he wished to end the suffering in the world as he did not abandon the world once he had accomplished his ultimate goal. He stayed back in the world of attachment and suffering trying to help other people to live a blissful life. In a way, Bhudha was still attached and involved to the humanity at a very profound level but a definite detachment was also observed, which allowed him to stay blissful.
Dalai Lama, a happy man of our times clearly personifies a blissful life. Is Dalai Lama not involved in the world? Does he not feel compassion for others? Is Dalai Lama living in his personal bubble and keep away from the knowledge that there are many souls suffering out there? Of course not, he is involved, he feels compassion for all of the humanity, he keeps himself aware all the suffering around the world; the things that make him Dalai Lama is his personal choice of a blissful life, he is attached to every soul, feels compassion for all but does not suffer with them. He aims to end the suffering but, he is detached from the result of his act like Buddha. This simple detachment from the fruit or the result of an act is one of the most significant ingredients for a happy life.
Thus to conclude, happiness is not an attainment of a perfect state or circumstances, it is acceptance of every result without prejudice, it is about being COOL (Refer my book, ‘In search of Love’). Every human in every circumstance, with every action and result, has a choice to either be blissful; or to indulge in a disempowering emotion. I am not asking you to change your actions for a happy life, I am just asking you to change your emotions towards the same action; because no matter what you desire in life, it would come much faster with better quality of emotions.
It’s now clear from the growing trend that anyone who chooses to postpone his happiness generally waits until he chooses not wait anymore. Finally, I end this blog with one of the most powerful quotes by Thomas Browne, 1642; the quote that resonates with people like me, “I am the happiest man alive; I have within me that transform poverty to riches, adversity to prosperity. I am more invulnerable than Achilles, fortune hath not one place to hit me.”
