Happiness

What is happiness? It is a sense of well-being, a feeling of being at home with ourselves. Ceaselessly and vigorously, we look for it in persons and things. But we are not able to get permanent happiness from anything. Still we hope against hope that we shall get it and keep pursuing it.

Sri Bhagavan says that happiness does not depend on our possessions or achievements. “If a man thinks that his happiness is due to external causes and his possessions, it is reasonable to conclude that his happiness must increase with the increase of possessions and diminish in proportion to their diminution. Therefore, if he is devoid of possessions, his happiness should be nil. What is the real experience of man? Does it conform to this view? In deep sleep man is devoid of possessions, including his own body. Instead of being unhappy he is quite happy. Every one desires to sleep soundly. The conclusion is that happiness is inherent in man and is not due to external causes. One must realise one’s Self in order to open the store of unalloyed happiness.”

When we are unhappy, we pray. When we pray, we submit ourselves to a Higher Power (for a short period though!). We don’t assert our individuality, we become humble. To be humble is to be egoless. When there is no ego, no sense of individuality, there is peace of mind, happiness. The peace we get from prayer is the result of the mind being merged in the Self, though for a short period. Max Handel says: “Prayer is like the turning on of an electric switch. It doesn’t produce the current; it provides a channel on which the electric current may flow.” Sri Bhagavan says that surrender is a mighty prayer. In that prayer, individua- lity is completely extinguished and there is perpetual joy. What blocks the current of happiness is our ego, our sense of individuality.

Sri Bhagavan says that happiness is our real state. When we are happy, we don’t seek unhappiness. When we are healthy, we don’t seek ill-health. But when we are ill, we want to be healthy, whole, as ‘wholeness’. Happiness is our real nature. Happiness or bliss comes into being when individuality is completely lost. In that state, there is only unalloyed happiness. The desire for happiness is the result of a sense of incompleteness. When the fragmented mind merges in the Self, there is only fullness, completeness and that is the state of bliss, says Sri Bhagavan. Again he says: “Bliss is not something to be got. On the other hand, you are always bliss. Desire is born of the sense of incom- pleteness. To whom is this sense of incompleteness, enquire. In deep sleep you were blissful. Now you are not so. What has interposed between that bliss and this non-bliss? It is the ego. Seek its source and find you are bliss....”

“There is nothing new to be got. You have, on the other hand, to get rid of your ignorance which makes you think that you are other than bliss. For whom is this ignorance? It is to the ego. Trace the source of the ego. Then the ego is lost and bliss remains. It is eternal. You are that, here and now....That is the master-key for solving doubts. The doubts arise in the mind. The mind is born of the ego. The ego rises from the Self. Search the source of the ego and the Self is revealed. That alone remains. The universe is only expanded Self. It is not different from the Self.”

Happiness or bliss is realised when our ego disappears. It is not a state where we are aware of something; it is a state of pure Self-awareness. In that state, there is no becoming, but only being. Pleasures can be sought but not happiness. Happiness comes into being when the seeker merges in the Self, when all seeking ceases.