Search for Happiness

Search for Happiness – The driving force behind all our actions is to seek happiness in this material world. If we do not derive any pleasure from activities, then we would never have an interest to perform them. That is the reason why a student burns the midnight oil to study hard, a family man works day and night, a scientist goes on researching, a philosopher writes so many books, a social worker serves the people in society and the list is endless. But the unfortunate part is that we do not get complete happiness and total satisfaction in this material world simply by performing our material activities. Although we see so many advertisements about happiness, practically speaking we see very few people are happy in this world. In this blog, we will go through what truly is happiness

Many people believe that happiness is having fun at a party, the excitement of new experiences, getting pleasure from the opposite sex, and establishing a name, fame, and recognition in their life. Some believe that they can get happiness by fulfilling their desires by the four basic needs of human life such as eating, sleeping, defending, and mating. Some say that happiness is a state of mind which is not permanent in nature and is not necessarily an internal or external experience and is not to be confused with joy, ecstasy, bliss, or other more intense feelings.

Happiness as per Bhagavad Gita

But Srila Vyasadeva, the transcendental professor of infallible Vedic science refutes all concocted ideas of happiness and establishes the words of Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead in BG 2.66

nāsti buddhir ayuktasya
na cāyuktasya bhāvanā
na cābhāvayataḥ śāntir
aśāntasya kutaḥ sukham

“One who is not connected with the Supreme can have neither transcendental intelligence nor a steady mind, without which there is no possibility of peace. And how can there be any happiness without peace?”

We have experienced and witnessed that no one in this material world is peaceful because by nature the characteristics of this material world is asasvatam (temporary) and dukhalayam (filled with miseries) as mentioned in BG 8.13

mām upetya punar janma
duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam
nāpnuvanti mahātmānaḥ
saṁsiddhiṁ paramāṁ gatāḥ

Translation: After attaining Me, the great souls, who are yogīs in devotion, never return to this temporary world, which is full of miseries, because they have attained the highest perfection.

Somehow or other everybody is influenced by the three modes of material nature and becomes the victim of many disturbances and sufferings. How somebody can extract happiness where there is no happiness? So, somebody may ask this question, what about the happiness that we are experiencing?

Our Experience of Happiness

Most of us more or less must have gone through this experience that I had gone through. When I was a little child, my parents told me to go to school, get good marks, get a job, earn money, get married and have children and enjoy life. I followed their instructions with utmost sincerity and I had gone through all those stages to pursue that happiness in my life. But honestly speaking, I was never fully happy. It is just like promising happiness like a signed outdated cheque.

Our story is similar to a story of a donkey who chases after the hanging little carrot which she never gets in her life. Money, fame, recognition, or any material things were like this carrot, they don’t bring any true happiness in our life. I was not even realizing that I was just running like everyone else, behind the same goals, in the same lifestyle, and completely got stuck without even knowing that I was stuck. Sure I was happy at sometimes, but only for a short while followed by anxieties, lamentation, frustration, and struggle for existence. Don’t we experience the feeling of unhappiness and discomfort, struggling every moment to maintain ourselves?

Connecting to our eternal father

As long as a fish is in water, it feels comfortable and happy. The moment it is outside water, it feels uncomfortable and unhappy. As long as the bulb is connected to the powerhouse, it glows, the moment it is disconnected, the light fades away. As long as the branch is connected to the trunk of a tree, there are flowers, fruits, and green leaves, the moment it is cut off, it loses its potency to bear the fruits. Similarly, our unhappiness in this material world is due to our disconnection from our beloved well-wisher father. This is the starting point of our misfortune of experiencing unhappiness in our life.

Material Happiness is ILLUSION

Srila Prabhupada very nicely explains in his purport to SB 4.25.12, “Material sense gratification, society, friendship, and love, is compared to a drop of water falling on a desert. Similarly, the living entity, being part and parcel of the Supreme Personality of the Godhead, cannot achieve total satisfaction without His association. In his wanderings in the different species of life, the living entity may taste some type of enjoyment in one body or another, but full enjoyment of the senses cannot be obtained in any material body. A deer may become absorbed in the musical sounds vibrated by the hunter, but the result is that it loses its life. Similarly, a fish is very expert in gratifying its tongue, but when it eats the bait offered by the fisherman, it loses its life. Even the elephant, who is so strong, is captured and loses its independence while satisfying its genitals with a female elephant.

In each and every species of life, the living entity gets a body to satisfy various senses, but he cannot enjoy all his senses at one time. In the human form of life, he gets an opportunity to enjoy all his senses pervertedly, but the result is that he becomes so harassed in his attempted sense gratification that he ultimately becomes morose”.

Conclusion

Prahlada Maharaja explains that we feel happy in pleasing circumstances and experience a miserable life by the burning fire of material existence. Although there are many remedies by which we can get out of miserable life, such remedies in the material world are more miserable than the miseries themselves. Therefore he suggests that the only remedy is to engage in the service of the lotus feet of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Also in SB 1.2.6 it is mentioned that “The supreme occupation for all humanity is that by which men can attain to loving devotional service unto the transcendent Lord. Such devotional service must be unmotivated and uninterrupted to completely satisfy the self.”