Secret to Happiness

Happiness is an emotional state characterized by feelings of joy, satisfaction, contentment, and fulfillment. While happiness has many different definitions, it is often described as involving positive emotions and life satisfaction.

When most people talk about happiness, they might be talking about how they feel in the present moment, or they might be referring to a more general sense of how they feel about life overall.

Because happiness tends to be such a broadly defined term, psychologists and other social scientists typically use the term 'subjective well-being' when they talk about this emotional state. Just as it sounds, subjective well-being tends to focus on an individual's overall personal feelings about their life in the present.

Man’s struggle to be happy is eternal as unhappiness itself. He works all his life to earn a good health, a good wife, great wealth and great social standing. Alas, the richest man with great social standing and most beautiful wife on the planet may or may not be happy. Nothing is ensured

This piece is a small effort to present how to be happy as per the Hindu philosopher’s point of view.

Let me narrate a small story below:

A poor man once had a dream. In his dream, he was very rich. He had a beautiful wife and obedient sons. Everything was as he wished. He was extremely happy. However, after a while in the dream, strange things begin to happen. His beloved wife passed away. As he grew old, his sons turned disobedient, took away his property and abandoned him in a forest. Our man was filled with sorrow. He did not know where things went south although he left no stone unturned to make his life perfect. Forces unbeknown to him would not let him to live his life perfectly.

Any sane person can understand that there cannot be a perfect dream and it is the nature of dream to be imperfect and unpredictable. How can anyone have a dream tailored made to meet his desires? It’s impossible. However, our poor man who was living in the dream did not know this. He kept pleading, and wailing. Though it was a dream, his emotions were not untrue. The sorrow he felt was completely real as all sorrows of his waking life. Drowned in the sorrow, he woke up to see tears in his eyes as his dream ended.

“What a nightmare!” he exclaimed as got up and had a cup of coffee.

In a few minutes, he declared the events of his dream to be unreal and moved on with his life. How many dreams had he had in his life? If he were to consider all those dream to be real, he would probably go insane. Yet, when he was in the dream, his dream world was as real as the waking world.

The Hindu Saints have declared that real happiness starts with finding the person who had the dream. To rephrase the question, find the person upon whom the waking and the dream state had been projected? Who is that person who gives reality, to both the waking state and the dream state?

“Who am I?”

“I am that!! “

“I am that I am “

The above phrases are all pointers in the direction of finding the person. Trying to uncover that person is one of the most amazing journeys any one can have in this life. The journey has more practical classes than the theory and is more of “know more as you travel further “ type.

To know him and be with him always is summary of all the Vedas, Upanishads and other Puranic stories. Once you know him, there are no sorrows left in your life. This is the secret to eternal happiness.

May happiness be with you!!

May your journey be successful!!

Sarve jana, sukhino bhavantu!!(May all beings be happy!!)