All of us are seeking Happiness

Happiness is quite an elusive thing. People seek it simply because they feel an absence of happiness. We often confuse happiness with pleasures, and pursue those in the illusion that pleasures will provide happiness. Eventually, we realize that those pleasures were not only transient, but they also ushered in several side effects. It's almost like bringing home a piece of extremely beautiful wood filled with termites. While the outer beauty attracts, the termite slowly eats into not just the beauty but also the quality of the wood.?

Pleasures are of 3 types:

1. Sensory Pleasures

2. Intellectual Pleasures

3. Pleasures of the energy

We live with the perception that we will experience happiness through acquiring these pleasures. But those who acquire these pleasures know the truth behind it.?

With sensory pleasures we become an addict and keep seeking a high through having more and more of it. Senses may be of touch, visual, taste, smell, or hearing. The more we like something, the more we dislike and abandon things? we find unpleasant. The more pleasant we feel, the greater our desire gets, while the impact of these pleasures on us keeps reducing. Take the example of sexuality, smoking, alcohol, drugs, money, home, or even food. You crave for all of these once you get to experience them. Your mind remains fixated on having them again and again.?

Those addicted to sugar become totally helpless in front of desserts. Those addicted to spicy food keep salivating at the very thought of it. Alcohol craving starts as soon as the Sun begins to set on the horizon. Those addicted to money keep coming up with new schemes and scams to earn more even when they already have enough. Once addicted to sex, your craving for it grows and so does your imagination.?

Intellectual pleasures boost our ego and stroke our sense of identity. The more we have it, the more we want it, and the more we feel insecure about being challenged about it. You derive a sense of Power through these and once you experience Power, it is difficult to let go.?

We could draw Intellectual Pleasures through a variety of acts and circumstances. We draw a sense of superiority and power in such possible situations:

a. Becoming recognized Industry leaders,?

b. Being treated as mentors and / or coaches,?

c. Getting recognized as social influencers,?

d. Being treated as celebrities,?

e. Becoming rich, famous and powerful,?

f. Becoming a bureaucrat?

g. Becoming a doctor or professionals like lawyers, CAs, architects, engineers, etc.?

h. Considering ourselves amongst experienced people who have seen life and now feel that we know a lot about it,

i. Educated or well-read people,?

j. By belonging to a certain state, caste, culture or section of the social order,?

k. By holding our morals and values as our convictions, and more.???

These pleasures can make narcissists out of us. Our egotistical approaches cause disengagement leading to varying states of depression and loneliness. In pursuit of exclusivity, we exclude everyone from our lives. We stop being authentic to lead an inclusive joyful life.

Pleasures of the Energy are those spiritual pleasures that make us delusional at a certain point. Meditation, yoga, pranayama, and the like get pursued as life fixes and we end up boosting our own sense of identity that is now so unique, wise and intelligent that other people are beneath us! Those ordinary mortals… huh!! ??

This does not result in happiness. On the contrary, these pleasures end up making us suffer more.

Is pleasure to blame? Shall we stop seeking pleasures? Shall we become monks or ascetics? Are desires bad? Such thoughts are normal and when we do not find suitable answers to these questions, we go back to the same old grind.

The blame does not lie with pleasures or us seeking those. It lies with the narrative and perception that obtaining those pleasures leads to a state of happiness.?

As we wish you all a Happy 2023, we wish upon you the insight to realize your true source of Happiness. We urge you to pursue knowledge and practices that bring you in touch with that source. Once there, you will experience everlasting happiness without losing yourself in these pleasures. Your mindless race to acquire possessions to merely trigger your energy, senses or intellect will cease.?

Yes it is possible to be Happy. It is possible to be Joyful. It is possible to live in a perpetual pleasant state without any kind of intoxicants, lust or power.?

Seek the source of Happiness that lies within you.?

Wishing you and your loved ones a Happy 2023. ??

#HappyNewYear #NewYear2023