Generally, people don’t know what happiness is? People are not happy today despite possessing lot of money and luxuries. However, those who possess less, are relatively more happier. The truth is that happiness is not present anywhere outside, but rather it resides within us all the time. We cannot see it, but we can definitely feel it. According to the scientists, there is a specific formula for happiness – PEH. P stands for Personal Characteristics i.e. the individual traits of a human being, including his/her attitude towards life and the ability to self-balance under different circumstances. E means Existence, which is related to our health, financial situations, friends and relatives. H stands for Higher-Order Needs i.e. self-respect, aspiration to sacrifice own needs for others etc. Thus this formula for happiness is made up of these three letters.
Most people are not really aware of what happiness actually is. They believe that happiness comes from possessing a lot of money or from having a big house. However, despite having all this, in reality, many people are not happy and their faces always remain dull. And, on the other hand, many people are extremely happy even without possessing any of these things. They are ever happy and enjoy all delights of life.
The ones at the forefront of being most unhappy are those who pay more attention to negative things like what is wrong in life or what they have not been able to get yet. On the other hand, those people with few possessions are happy, who are satisfied with whatever they have got. According to the psychologists, negative elements bring unhappiness, dissatisfaction and gloom in our life, while positive elements give us inner happiness, satisfaction and peace.
Happiness is not a commodity to be obtained from the market, to be purchased by paying money. It does not have any shape and it cannot be stolen from anyone. Happiness is neither small or big, nor is maintained by continually achieving big things. It just keeps coming from small trivialities of life. Only! We do not know the way to see or understand them.
We consider some things to be great joys of life, such as buying a new car, getting a good job, or salary increment etc. Even though these things come very seldom in life, we generally accord them high importance, forget our own selves and get away from ourselves in their persuit. The truth is that we continue to sacrifice these multiple trivial joys, in our quest to obtain great achievements and great happiness in life. Thus neither are we happy in the present nor can the future be made happier. Another reason for this is that our natural thoughts start ignoring these known-unknown trivial joys due to our continuous negative thinking and dissatisfaction about everything. We convert our nature to become ever unhappy.
Happiness is a thing to be given; the more it is shared, the more it grows. You can get as much of happiness as you want. Simply, we only need to change the perspective of seeing and understanding it.
One such solution is to always love ourselves. Only when we like and love our own self, will we be able to love others and be able to give them intimacy. Those who are ever dissatisfied with themselves and see only flaws in their personality; destroy their own confidence. They cannot encourage anyone. Their own inner insecurity makes them incapable to protect and safeguard others as well.
A king had been thinking for a long time that he should abdicate his kingdom and use his time in quest of spirituality i.e. God. The king thought a lot about this problem and then narrated this problem to the Guru that – he is not able to find a worthy heir to the kingdom. His son is minor, and is unable to become a king at the moment. The moment he finds a worthy heir having all necessary qualities to handle the affairs of the state, he will abdicate and devote the rest of his life to spirituality.
Guru said – Why don’t you transfer the reins of the state to me. Can you find anyone more capable, more suitable than me?
The king replied – Who else can take better care of my kingdom than you? I hand over the reins of the state to you, at this very moment.
The Guru asked- What will you do now?
The king replied – I will take some money from the state treasury to lead the rest of my life.
Guru said – But now the treasure is mine, I will not let you take a single penny.
The king replied- OK. I will do a small job somewhere. I will live my life with whatever I get from it, and will devote my life to God.
Then Guru said – If you are looking for work, then I have a job vacant. Will you want to take up this job?
The king replied – I am ready to do whatever job you have on offer.
The Guru said- I have a vacancy for king’s job. I want you to take up this job for me and continue to take your salary from the state treasury.
The Guru returned after a year and saw that the king was very happy now. He was able to do both. He was able to devote time to spirituality for which he wanted to abdicate. And he was able to perform well on the job to rule the kingdom. He did not have any worry now. This story will make us understand that in reality nothing changed – the state is the same, the king is the same, and the work is the same. Only the attitude has changed. Similarly we too should change our current perspective of our life, to – I did not come into this world as an owner. I am doing this job for the God. Now it is all unto God. When you leave everything to the God – Guru, then you will be happy in every kind of problem and situation.
God has given a special quality to every human being, which we should recognize, discover and try to refine. Every person is unique and special in himself and God has not made anyone else in the world like him. Therefore, if we use this perspective and try to develop our personality by focusing on these traits , then slowly-surely our personality will be full of countless such characteristics and we will be able to craft our own special identity. Focusing on one’s own characteristics does not mean drawing flaws in the personality of others or comparing yourself to others. It means to adopt a positive attitude towards one’s life and to develop it accordingly.
The way to have a positive attitude is to try to do things in the present which could not be done in the past. The accomplishment of our achievements in this way will increase our self-confidence driving us to take up courage to do even bigger tasks in future with firm determinations. Increased confidence will not only become the basis of our satisfaction, rather it itself will provide us that happiness which we always dream of.
A good method to build self confidence in the mind and to increase our happiness is to remember the successes we have received in the past. Recalling the successes and complex struggles done in the past, automatically instills self-belief in the mind that we can achieve such great heights in future also.
You should endeavor to throw away the wasteful numbers away from your life – like age, weight or length. Let the doctor worry about it. Be friends only with the cheerful folks. The raging-irritable people will always let you down. Enjoy the simple and trivial things. Try your utmost to elevate your inner-being through continuous reading and gaining knowledge. Regular self-study, satsang (spiritual communion), serving the disadvantaged, and thinking-meditating-adapting on the good things heard and read, are all such mediums to increase happiness of a person.
To get rid of our negative thinking, it is necessary to adopt positive thinking. And to adopt it, it is necessary that we not only include the above measures in our thinking but also use them continuously. Only then will it become possible to bring about a permanent change in personality, which will help us to increase our happiness.
With divine blessings,
Kailash Shrimali
