Look around you. You will find that there are people who are glad and people who are sad. Sometimes, people are happy and sometimes, they are unhappy. Have you ever stopped to ponder what makes anyone happy and what is the cause of someone’s misery?
In this world, some people are laughing, joking and enjoying their life. They are enjoying sense-pleasures or the pleasures that gratify the senses like our eyes, nose, ears, tongue and skin. So, there are people who go to restaurants, shopping malls and movie theatres. Unfortunately, we don’t realize that all this gives pleasure but it also brings in pain. In the pursuit of achieving pleasure, we inadvertently experience pain. There is great joy in love but soon, hearts break and people cry. Similarly, there is fun in success but failure can bring tears after the cheers.
People keep running through this journey of life without learning the art of being happy. Isn’t it ironical that people are unhappy because they are running behind happiness? They don’t realize that happiness is like a shadow, the more you chase it, the further it goes away. People are unhappy because they are not content. Instead of counting their blessings, they are only counting their troubles! Therefore, we see people living life like a roller coaster, screaming with joy and shouting with pain.
Most of us are unhappy because we experience the triple suffering on earth – the pain of the body, misery of the mind and the agony of the ego. We do not learn to still the mind and because we don’t tame the monkey mind, it creates fear, worry, stress, anxiety and makes us unhappy. Then, comes the ego that creates anger that burns us from within. We live in hatred, revenge and jealousy and these steal our joy. We are unhappy because we haven’t learned how to live in peace and tranquillity and because there is no peace of mind, we become miserable. There are many reasons why people become unhappy but most of the reasons are connected to the mind. Our mind is our biggest enemy. It can make our heaven, a hell. Therefore, to be happy, we must master the mind.
Happiness is a state of being. Unfortunately, instead of being happy, we are trying to become happy and in the process, we end up becoming unhappy. Happiness is in the moment but we live in a ‘yesterday’ that is gone, a ‘tomorrow’ that is not yet born and become unhappy. When will we learn the art of being glad, eliminating all that makes us sad?
People are unhappy because they have not learned how to be happy. They haven’t made happiness the priority of their life. They are chasing success, money and pleasure which may make them smile momentarily but these will not make them happy, all the while.
If one seeks the ultimate happiness, everlasting peace and bliss, then that can only be attained through Enlightenment - the realization of the truth. When we live in consciousness of the truth, we attain the state of Satchitananda. At death, we attain Moksha, we are liberated from the cycle of death and rebirth and we become one with the Divine.
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