Seeking happiness within!
What is happiness? It is a positive and pleasant feeling of contentment and joy. Everyone wants to be happy and most people seek it in wealth, power and pleasure, etc. But even after their apparent attainment, they are still not content. We can say that happiness is like a butterfly, the more you chase it, the more it eludes you. But if you get busy with fulfilling your duty, your mission or responsibilities in life, happiness will come and sit on your shoulder.
Religious scriptures speak about happiness sought after by everybody. Jesus, in his sermon on the mount, spoke about the different ways one can be happy: Being detached from material things, and selflessly working for peace, justice, serving the poor and the suffering, being some of them. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar says, “If you are only a taker of happiness you get misery. If you are a giver of happiness, you get joy and love.” The irony about happiness is that the person who wants nothing will possess everything and vice versa. So the cause of unhappiness in our life lies in the craving in one’s heart for things outside of oneself because happiness is an inside job.
Most people chase happiness just like a puppy trying to catch its own tail, believing that happiness lies in catching it. You do not realize that happiness is not found somewhere up in the sky but it is to be sought and found in your heart. It fills your heart drop by drop when you engage yourself in your duties with a sincere and selfless heart, seeking peace among other people and working for their welfare. People like Mother Teresa, Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi and scores of others have traced for us the way to true happiness which nobody can take away from you unless you banish it from your life with your selfishness, anxieties and worries.
“There is no path to happiness: happiness is the path,” aptly quipped Shri Buddha. The goal of every spirituality is to help you attain such happiness which nobody can take away from you. Therefore, in the quest for happiness, discover it within yourself through self-awareness and meditation. Be happy now whatever the circumstance may be and resolve to remain happy. So every day, make a resolution: “Today, I am just going to be happy, come what may. I will not let anything selfish disturb my inner peace and happiness. I am going to be contented, happy.”
Vincent Carmel is the Chief Editor of The Teenager Today. He brings with him years of experience in working with young people. He was actively involved with the Indore-based Universal Solidarity Movement (USM) for over three years. A great lover of the North East, he was the Director of the North East Social Communications (NESCOM), organising motivational programmes for the youth of the region.
