Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Happiness is what every human should strive for

Happiness is the emotion in which one experiences feeling ranging from contentment and satisfaction to bliss and intense joy. I think happiness is the one thing that every human should strive for/ seek for or pray for. It looks like everything else is included in happiness. If we pray for happiness, for example it will include our health, wealth, sustenance (roti/food, kapda/clothing, makan/housing). Not only that. Even if we (our own household/family) are well off, we might not be happy if a brother or sister or parent or in-law or cousin are having some problems. We will have some dissatisfaction because of that. So to be completely happy all the above mentioned persons should be happy. Apart from that, if a neighbor is unhappy for some reason, it will in one way or other affect us and will not let us be completely happy. Basically every one has a certain set of individuals that need to be happy for them to be happy. For example if I need to be happy, my sister needs to be happy and for her to be happy, her husband and children need to be happy. If you extend that argument, for us as an individual to be truly happy we will need every other human being to be happy.

Sarve Janah sukhino bhavantu = May all the people live happily

But is this possible? Can the above vedic statement ever become a reality in this world? I would like to find out some of your views.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello Nirseek, if you think there are certain variables for everyone to be happy and only when these variables meet a certain threshold, can a person be happy, then that happiness is never long lasting as the variable are bound to change any given minute. Also one man's food is another man's poison. True happiness cannot be bound to any variables in this material life. to be truely happy you need break all things that bind you to this material world. The question you have to ask yourself is, are you ready to do that?. good luck in pursuit of happiness.

nirseek said...

Anonymous,
You are talking like Krishna or the Buddha! I am TRYING to be happy unconditionally. But just trying. If I truly were like that I may not be writing this blog. Thanks for the enlightening post!

Bhaskar Salve said...

Actually,We don't want happiness, we want to be free from unhappiness i.e. Dukkha.
So one should think about the Dukkha to be free from the Dukkha.
But we love/crave happiness and hate Dukkha hence we never get free from the Dukkha and ultimately never get the happiness.
Therefore it is meaningless to strive for the happiness.
One cannot get happiness unless one strives to be free from the unhappiness.