Happiness is what is happening inside

Happiness is my personal space when I am alone with my-self. I sought happiness from objects and they gave me a sort of heady kick only the day I bought them and later slowly as they became old, happiness died away. I had to seek new objects to keep the light of my happiness glowing. Whatever I possessed, failed to give me permanent happiness.

When I bought my first second hand car as Fiat and I loved it. I was cleaning and polishing it daily. I admired its shine. Then on the third day, somebody had hit it, made a big dent, and silently left the place when I had parked it in the busy street. I cannot express the agony that I underwent. It was as though I was personally bruised. Now, it is old and it no longer gives me happiness but serves me like a donkey! It does not evince curiosity of the passersby and I feel that it lets me down whenever I use it.

Where is happiness? If it were to be in the objects, the happiness would have continued to be there as long as object exists, but it is not so. If I smoke one cigarette, I become happy and if I smoke ten cigarettes non-stop, it has to give me ten times happiness, but it does not give. If I eat one Jalebi (Indian Sweet), I am happy but if I eat 20 Jalebi’s, I throw it out. Does it prove any connection existing between the happiness and the objects? Though we know all this, why do we still pursue with objects for happiness? (Ref. Dr.R.N. Sreenathan, Vedantin, Neuro Scientist) 

It is for the kick that we get because of the release of a few picograms of dopamine in the Nucleus Accumbens. These words appear queer and crazy. The happiness lies in these crazy words according to Neuroscience. There is a small nucleus ( a collection of neurons called Nucleus Accumbens) where dopamine is released. As soon as this neurotransmitter is released, we feel a sense of being happy. The funny part is that if a friend comes to our house the same dopamine is released and if an enemy takes leave of us, then also the same dopamine is released. They sometimes call this as hedonistic center. Hedonism word is derived from Greek where it means ‘pleasure’. There was a hedonistic society in Italy where clubs used to have a separate area for vomiting so that they could eat again! Let me give you a brief shock of Neuroscience.

The emotion, pleasure, memory, and discrimination are interconnected to give a subjective inner feeling of “feel-good” factor. The hippocampus is a sea-horse shaped structure that memorizes everything that has caught your emotion, and attention. It immediately recalls an incident, maybe, fifty years old, and relays to the appropriate centers which get excited at the past memory. The amygdaloid body is an almond-shaped structure that deals with the emotion. The dopamine neurons stimulate this emotional tinderbox.

Nucleus accumbens that decides to physically do everything possible to repeat the enjoyment that was experienced once. One may be shamelessly amorous of a girl who just smiled once casually. All our love for objects is indeed the dependency on the release of dopamine in the nucleus Accumbens. We are not actually loving the objects but we want the release of dopamine in the Nucleus Accumbens. It is like a statement in Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, “A wife loves husband not for the sake of the husband but for her self, a husband loves wife not for the sake of the wife but for him self.”

Is there any mechanism in the brain that has intrinsic capacity to be happy without the possession of the external objects? Yes, there is a mechanism for this. The prefrontal cortex is specialized in the discriminatory power and it has veto power over the hippocampus, amygdala, and Nucleus Accumbens. It exercises its power through the discrimination. It analyses and suggests that how permanent is the happiness that we are seeking from the external objects.

However, we constantly put these ideas on the back burner and finally make the sagacious ideas of prefrontal cortex defunct. Prefrontal cortex becomes silent over the years and we continue to get addicted to the vagaries of this triad of structures and the limbic lobe where emotion rules. Should we use the suggestions of the prefrontal cortex, it inhibits the functions of Nucleus Accumbens and the process of getting addicted to TV serials, films, external objects steadily decrease as we understand the fleeting nature of the objects.

Are we serious of permanent happiness? Then heed to the advice of the prefrontal cortex, discriminate between the permanent and impermanent and steadily get disconnected with the impermanent things, our inherent nature of happiness becomes apparent. We need not have to do anything. All we have to do is to stop our foolish exploration of chasing happiness through the possession of objects, or pseudo security. I am the sole creator and the owner of my happiness. Cheers!