Within Us

 Is happiness perceived or felt? This is a question that has been daunting me for a while. The question becomes does one need to perform actions in order to perceive happiness in life? Is inaction the answer to perceive happiness as opposed to performing actions in life?

Everyone agrees that it is impossible for anyone not to perform actions as one is born to do actions in life. There is no purpose in resisting actions as it is equivalent of opposing dualism when the entire premises of creation is based on dualism. Without dualism, the world ceases to exist. We have to dance to the play of the Creator by performing actions and only thing we can do better is to perform actions that would help us to overcome the dualism. Similarly, everyone agrees that there is nothing wrong in seeking happiness as it is the purpose of life. When doing actions becomes a must and seeking happiness becomes essential, one is confused that performing actions is to perceive happiness. They are not interconnected.

When one is loved by the family, one gets emotional satisfaction, one obtains a job that meets the expectations, one gets intellectual satisfaction, one gets a social status, one gets psychological satisfaction and one begins to understand the strengths of the Self inside, one gets spiritual satisfaction. They all appear to be different according to several Western writers but in real terms, they all arise out of emotions of human beings. It is one’s own emotion that makes a person seek all these satisfaction. They still stem out of self-gratification aspect of one’s mind and one misconstrues them as the purpose of life.

The real Self-satisfaction comes only when one enjoys giving everything one possesses. It is difficult to get rid of emotions but it can be converted into Self-satisfying from self-gratifying. For that one should experience the emotions of giving. When one rules the country or a state, one should have the mind set of giving services to the humanity and even one who is interested in helping the people in need such as elders, children and poor, one should develop a mindset of giving selflessly. When someone demonstrates unconditional love to the fellow beings, the Self-satisfaction one derives is infinite.

 When one attempts to give love and possessions with pure heart, automatically the attitude of possessiveness and attachment disappears slowly from the mind. The difference is when one does self-gratifying action, the happiness is perceived from outside and when one perform selfless actions for the benefit of others, the Self-satisfaction is felt inside and it stays permanently.

It is important to feed the senses to the extent needed as it is difficult to starve the senses completely. The survival of the senses is essential for someone to perform actions.  One has to realize that happiness perceived by the senses are unreal whereas what is felt by the Self is real.

There is a subtle difference between appreciation of the art as opposed to creating one. Deriving self-gratification or seeking happiness from outside is like appreciation of the art that stays with us only for a while whereas Self-satisfaction is like creating it ourselves and it stays with us forever. The one who approaches the life with an attitude of gratitude such as appreciating the nature, seeing the good in everyone and doing actions for the common good, feels it inside. Most importantly, this attitude helps one to get rid of desires and develop detachment.

Recognizing the oneness of all is true happiness and it can be felt only inside of us.

Nandini Mithun