Happiness is an inner job

“No one is contended in this world, I believe. There is always something left to desire, and the last thing longed for always seems the most necessary to happiness.” – Marrie Corelli, A Romance of Two Worlds

Do you think that people are capable of finding happiness or are they always searching for something beyond what they have?

“Happiness is an inner job; do not seek it without”, said the great Indian enlightened Master Buddha. At the core of life is the very yearning of the eternal soul to seek fulfilment and complement that it ‘seemingly’ lacks. Alas! The utopian world is but a figment of imagination nowhere to be found. We live in a world that is full of itinerants, that try to wade their way to the fountain of happiness and are thus always in the vain quest of augmenting something more to the already abundant stream of life!

Leo Tolstoy in his story, “how much land does a man require” emphasizes the insatiable desire of humans. Like Pakhom many of us are in a rat race to grab materialistic possessions to which there is virtually no end and thus the bitter defeat is an inevitable consequence - the very desire serves as a deterrent.

In a land that is rife with paupers and half-starved mendicants the very idea of happiness is worthy of heaps of derides. Until and unless the basic necessities of an individual such as food are full filled he or she cannot make any progress toward the higher realms where he or she can find happiness in its true sense. A hungry man can never enjoy the mellifluous notes of Beethoven nor can he digest the sublime wisdom of the bible or the Gita!

Apart from abject poverty and ravenous desire that ignites unquenchable thirst, the soul of men seems to be ravished and blemished! Our myopic outset is the root cause of psychological troubles. Our political, economic and social structure that promotes capitalism will never allow an individual to be at rest with his or her own self lest he or she be made of some different mettle than clay and mud!

The golden age must have been the far-fetched illusion that pulls the curtains down upon the reality at the horizon! Happiness inherently is the virtue that springs forth from the deep of men but to search for the ephemeral – the fleeting is our nature! This is the greatest of the paradoxes – our search for more than we have – and thus we are bound to fail in our endeavors to be happy by burgeoning to the titanic vessel!