Aristotle said, "Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence." Yet, happiness is an ever eluding goal of mankind. A clever businessman uses this ever present desire of happiness in man to sell all their products which they claim shall make you happy. The leaders and preachers sell their ideas to the people on the promise that those shall make you happy. Yet, in any group, you ask if anyone is really happy, the answer is probability negative as most people are unhappy over something or other.
While we all know what happiness in as we know exactly when we are happy, but it is difficult to define happiness. Therefore, when dictionary.com defines happiness as "the quality or state of being happy", we are not surprised. The Merriam-Webster defines happiness using more words which states it as "a state of well-being and contentment" or "a pleasurable or satisfying experience". Since happiness is our own state of mind, hence no one knows better than us if we are happy or unhappy. Other people can only make a guess as to whether or not we must be happy seeing what have been attained or achieved. However, even if they give us thousand reasons to be happy and conclusively prove using sound logic that we must be happy, we still remain unhappy as we cannot touch the chord of happiness by achievements and reasons.
Search of Happiness
Since happiness is so important to mankind, it is natural that it must be investigated by the seers and philosophers since ancient times. Thousands of years ago, it was stated in ancient Indian scriptures this mantra, "Aham Brahmasmi" which means "I am the Universe (or World)".
It is correct to say that we are part of the world, but it would be better to say that we are (the mirror image of) the world. Hence someone has wisely said, "You do not see the world as it is. You see that world as you are." Hence, in order to know yourself, you must know the world.
Let us first understand how the world is. Most of us find the world as cruel, unfair, unjust, and incomplete. However, the opening couplet of "Isa Upanishad", the ancient books of Indian philosophy written a thousand year before the birth of Christ, says,
Om! That (world) is a complete whole. This (world) too is a complete whole. From the complete whole only, the (other) complete whole rose. Even after removing the complete whole from the (other) complete whole, still the complete whole remains unaltered and undisturbed
Since the world is complete and we too are part of this world, hence every human being must be complete in itself. However, most of us have the feeling of incompleteness and that seems to be the source of all unhappiness a, we as human being always strives for completeness.
The feeling of unhappiness arises when we are lacking something in us or we are missing something from our lives. This feeling may arise at three levels which is responsible for three types of happiness.
PhysicalMentalSpiritualPhysical Happiness
The source of physical happiness comes from the feeling of physical completeness. A human being is made of trillions of cells, and hundreds of body parts which are working together in synergy to create the complete being i.e. us. However, these cells are not permanent as every moment millions of cells are dying in our body and almost equal numbers of cells are being born to replace these cells. The dead cells become toxic material which needs to be removed efficiently from our body. In order to create new cells every moment, we need food, water and air which are used by our body to create new cells. The dead cells are removed from our body by perspiration and other excretion mechanism. Hence we need continuous supply of food, water and air to live.
Our body consists of two-third of water. This water content is, however, not constant as it is taken out from our body by perspiration and urination regularly. When the content of water is complete in our body, we feel happy and satisfied. However, when the content of water decreases beyond a particular level, we start feeling uncomfortable as we start feeling thirsty. Once we supply our body with the desired level of water, we feel happy again. If we fail to drink water when we are thirsty, our feeling of thirst increases and happiness disappears. We may even die; we do not get water soon. In the same way, if the supply of air is stopped even for few minutes, we cannot survive. Similarly, if we do not get adequate supply of food, we feel hunger and we may die as our body shall not be able to make for the loss of the dead cells.
It is important to understand that our body is healthy when it has just the right amount of food, water and air. Yet, no one can fill the body with so much quantity of food, water or air that it can last a lifetime. It is estimated that a human being consumes over 50 tons of food in his lifetime. We also consume hundreds of thousands of liter of water in our lifetime and millions of liters of air. It is easy to see that there is no way; we can fill our body with enough quantity of food, water or air to last even for few days.
We are part of the world which is complete. We too are playing an important role to make it complete. The airs we exhale consist of carbon-dioxide which is consumed by the plants who absorbs carbon from it and release oxygen back to the air. This carbon mixed with mineral and nitrogen creates the plant which is either consumed directly by human beings or consumed by animals that are consumed by human beings. The minerals present in our perspiration and urine are important for the survival of plant kingdom. It is easy to see that the living animals and green plants are necessary for each other as they complement each other. They cannot survive without each other.
Thus, we are not only complete in ourselves, but also make this world complete by playing an important part in it. A child grows and gains weight by consuming the plants and meats, but the net weight of the all the materials of the Earth remains same as in reality nothing is created or destroyed.
Thus, in a healthy person, there is equal amount of give and take from nature and the world. We give to this world what we get from it. This balance makes us and the world complete and happy.
Mental Happiness
In the modern world, it is possible for individuals and even the nations to ensure that each person gets adequate amount of food, water and air. At individual level, it is possible for many of us to accumulate enough wealth in a short period of our lives which can almost guarantee us a lifetime of food supply. Hence, the modern generation is not physically unhappy but mentally unhappy.
Therefore, many experts have rightly defined happiness (or unhappiness) as a state of mind.
It is true that each individual self consists of physical, mental and spiritual self which closely resembles to each other. There is no method to measure of see the mind and spirit, but we can understand them from their physical equivalent. We know that our mental state of mind is reflected in our physical symptoms. Hence what is true for body must also be true for our mind and soul.
The problem in the modern man is less due to physical incompleteness but more due to mental inadequacy. Just like in a balance body, there must be equal give and take from the world, the same is true in our mental state too. Most of us lose the balance of our mind since either the intake is more or the out go is more.
The modern man is bombarded with information which he falsely believes to be knowledge. He spends lots of time getting this information which is provided to him by television, internet and friends. However, he does not know how to use this information. Most of the information collected by the person is never used and remains in his mind like the undigested food in the body. This useless, undigested information creates confusion in his mind as it becomes toxic which affects the balance of mind.
The problem of mental depression is hardly found in the illiterate or ignorant people, as they do not learn much and they make best use of whatever little they have learned. The problem is more common in intellectuals who knows too much but seldom use it. The problem of mental completeness can be achieved only when the outgo of knowledge is balanced with the input knowledge.
The first logical method to reduce the mental imbalance is to reduce the input of knowledge by discarding all knowledge which is not needed by us. In this regard the consumption of good unnecessary knowledge is as harmful as the consumption of evil knowledge just as excess consumption of even the most nutritious food is harmful to the body. If we learn only as much as required by us, we can reduce the chaos within and our mind shall naturally become healthy. It is similar to reducing the intake of food, particularly high calorie, fatty food which our body does not need and prefers to eat only fresh and healthy food.
The next state of achieving the completeness of mind is to share the knowledge with others. This is like burning the "extra" calories consumed in the food. We must assimilate the knowledge and use it for achieving the goals of the individuals and the organizations. It is important to understand that this shared knowledge is not same as the information gathered by us since, once we have applied our existing knowledge of the mind, it has created a new knowledge which never existed in this world. If you solve any real-life problem in your life, it is possible only by a new and innovative knowledge since no two problems can ever be same and hence no two solutions can ever be same.
Thus when we balance the input and outgo of knowledge, we attain the balance of our mind and our mind become complete giving happiness to us.
Spiritual Happiness
We are part of the world and we must give to the world what this world has given to us. While we all understand this simple principle for our body, we seldom use it for other aspects of life. There are many people who have accumulated billions of dollars while in the same world there are billions of people who are dying hungry or due to lack of medication and shelter. While excessive accumulation of wealth can be justified on legal ground, it cannot be justified on moral and spiritual ground if we believe that all human beings are children of God.
When we succeed in our life, we start falsely believing that only we are responsible for our success. The truth is otherwise.
When any person is born, he is so small and vulnerable that he cannot survive even for a few days without the support of the parents and the society. It is due to the continuous care and nurture by the parents that man grows up and become adult and able to stand on his feet. It is only with the support of the society and the country that a person can become powerful and rich in the society. In every success, there is a great contribution of the teachers, friends, elders and society. If Bill Clinton would have been born in a poor Asian country instead of being born in USA, he would not have acquired the wealth which he had now.
Yet man is very selfish. He disowns the contribution of everyone and refuses to pay to the world its due.
It is important to understand that our spirit is happy only when we give something to the human being without any selfish interest. When we are spending to get something back (even respect and honor), our soul is not pleased as it knows that the action is not selfish. A Chinese proverb wisely says,
"If you want happiness for an hour? take a nap.
If you want happiness for a day? go fishing.
If you want happiness for a year? inherit a fortune.
If you want happiness for a lifetime? help someone else."
It is only when we seek happiness for others; we get happiness for our own selves.
It is only when we exhale happiness, we can inhale happiness."
The spirit of the person can realize happiness and completeness only when it gives to the world what it takes from it. This is the reason that charity and service had been advocated as the greatest method to please God which means to please our soul which the presence of God in us, which is the only source of happiness in us.
Most of the people fail to feel happy, even after achieving everything they have desired in their life, it is because, their soul is not satisfied. This spiritual satisfaction can come only when we help those who are in the need of our help.
Achieving Eternal Happiness
Just like it is possible to attain the ensured supply of food and water for life by creating surplus every single day, it is possible to attain to the state of completeness of mind and soul by extensively sharing of love, knowledge and wealth. One can start serving people starting from his family and gradually extend to the society, nations and the world. You can also serve the world by sharing the knowledge acquired by you by making useful application of the knowledge to make the people happier. Once your action is directed in making the world better and happier, your own happiness cannot remain unattained.
Life is a mystery which can not be explained either by science or by scriptures. Truth has a body and a soul which we call science and religion. Contrary to popular perception, they are not opposed to each other but complement each other like body and soul. In fact, they can not exist without each other.
I am the founding member of The Science of Soul Foundation in India which works for the synthesis of the diverse disciplines of knowledge like science, religion, philosophy and arts. The website of the foundation is http://www.scienceofsoul.com/
I am working for the creation of a synthesis between science and religion through my articles. I believe that everyone can understand this Truth by the use of intuition and reason. You can contact me at aksinghirs [a] yahoo.com if you wish to know more about the mystery which we call life.
