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Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Be Happy! Why Worry?

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Be Happy! Do Your Duty Happily without Attachment to its Results

Happiness is not living in a fool’s paradise. It is not living in oneself oblivious of outside world. Life is not a bed of roses. Here one has to struggle and fight for justice. All our actions are with a view to some results. But often we fail to achieve that result. Sometime we get even opposite results than our expectations. For example, when we do a good turn to somebody and instead of being grateful to use the person accuses us. Failure in achieving our goal often leads us to unhappiness.

What is the solution to it? Gita, the Hindu religious and philosophical text, which is perhaps the only religious book in the world that was delivered amidst battlefield, has a beautiful solution. It says,

‘You have right to action only, never to its results; never be attached to the results of your actions; but don’t take to inaction also.’— Gita (2.47)

How beautiful and unique!

In essence it teaches us that one should do one's duty without being unduly concerned about its results. It does not mean that one should do whatever comes to one's fancy without regard to its consequences. In fact, duty means prescribed duty. Its results cannot be undesirable. But the action may result in success or failure. We should not be unduly concerned with this. The cause of all unhappiness is thwarted desires. This does not teach us to be indifferent to the results of our actions and do them indifferently. It teaches us to do our best. If then the results are not as we had expected, we should have faith in God.

Mind you, all this preaching about detachment from the results of one’s action is being taught at the battle field of Mahabharat when a great war is just to be fought. This war is between cousin brothers, and near relatives are fighting on the opposing sides. Arjun has said that he did not want to fight a war in which he has to kill not only near relatives but elders and teachers. Krishna is trying to tell him that it is his duty to fight. The reward is a great kingdom. Yet Krishna is talking of fighting a war at the cost of dying or killing one’s near and dear, and yet doing so without attachment to its results!

Yet, if you come to think of it, it is the best theory about life. Attachment brings uncertainty, worry, and tension. In fact, this non-attachment to the results is very psychological too. Too much worry about the results of our actions affects the latter negatively.

BE HAPPY!

Be Happy! Happiness is just a Matter of Mind

Though one could be infinitely happy by just enjoying the nature and family and all the human-made things, there are still millions of people who are unhappy. In the developed countries there is very fortunate circumstance of having both God-given and man-made things. Still majority of people there are unhappy. In the developing countries, where for millions there is a real scarcity of even basic needs, people seem to be happy. There are some people who are engaged in difficult tasks and in warfare, and even incarcerated in prisons, and are still happy! We have just discussed the factors of happiness. Millions of people have them, still they are unhappy. There are millions of others who don’t have them, yet they are happy!

You would realize that the mere availability and abundance of God given and human-made things is not enough. There is something else which should be right to be happy. Of course, it is our mind that must have right attitude towards and capacity to be happy.

Milton in Paradise Lost says,

'The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.'

One can give various examples of how mind can influence our body::

• Pavlov’s dog starts salivating at the sound of the bell without any food in sight.
• If we are tense we often get headache, backache, and spondylitis, etc.
• Heart attacks are directly linked to worry and tension.
• Right mental attitude helps in curing many bodily maladies.
• By self-talk, motivation, and positive attitude we can become happy and successful.
• Through hypnosis one can have command over another person’s mind and body.
• Through meditation one can have a healthy body and extra sensory abilities.

Mind has extra-ordinary powers and as far as happiness is concerned it has the ultimate power. We should, therefore, have a positive attitude towards life. Instead of concentrating on bad things in life and people, we should concentrate on redeeming features in them. We should not keep on thinking about past failures and bad experiences but be encouraged by our past success and good experiences. Similarly, we should not be unduly anxious about future as our anxiety is not going to have a positive effect, but we should plan and work hard for the future.

In whatever circumstances you are, you can never have total lack of God-given and man-made happiness. You cannot completely take away nature from somebody; you cannot take away all man-made things from somebody. Even if everything is taken, one’s family and friends are there. One’s precious body is there. And, even if you chain somebody securely in a dungeon, one’s mind is free. One is free to be happy in one’s mind! Mind is difficult to be mastered by oneself, but it is impossible to be vanquished by anybody, any authority, or whatever conditions or situations.

Abraham Lincoln has beautifully expressed it: “Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

BE HAPPY!

Be Happy! Home is the Happiest Place to Live in

“The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.”—Thomas Jefferson.

The world may be a dreary, dreadful, and dangerous place to venture into. There may be cut-throat competition in which survival of the mean, cunning, and bully only is possible. It may not be a place for gentle, honest, and kind person like you. It is full of murderers, criminals, rapists, and swindlers. They are ready to snatch away the loaf of bread from your hand. You need a sanctuary from them. You need a place where there is love and care, understanding and compassion, give and take. You need somebody who could guide and protect you. You need somebody who could be equal partner in your joys and sorrows. You need somebody upon whom you could shower your love and care. You need a home and a family.

Parents sacrifice a lot and endure great hardships in up-bringing their children. They are selfless in their love and can even lay their lives for the protection of their children. A spouse is a life time partner in your days of sunshine and rain. Brothers and sisters are your friends and supporters. Your children are your life time fans who love you unconditionally. The love, care, and support of family is a great happiness. Blessed is the person who has got a family. And who amongst us has not got one? But we take family for granted. We don’t recognize it as a great source of happiness. The more happiness you give to your family the more you extract out of it.

You are born into a family and grow up within a family. A family not only provides comfort, enjoyment, and security, but it also gives emotional and spiritual bliss. In fact, one may find so much happiness within family that he or she may not need to search it outside it. The love and care of mother and father, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters, wife or husband sustain us. Though love is one and the same yet the love of each is so different too. A family may extend beyond these immediate relations and may include grand parents, grand children, in-laws, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, and other relatives.

Can all the money of the world buy the love and affection of one’s parents? Can one be happy without them? How much enjoyment and happiness they add to our life? Similar is the case with brothers and sisters. At a later stage of life husband or wife becomes practically the sole arbiter of our happiness. Man or woman’s happiness nearly entirely depends on his or her spouse. At a still later stage sons and daughters become a great source of happiness. Bertrand Russell said, ‘I have found the happiness of parenthood greater than any other that I have experienced.’ Family relations give happiness, but at the same time to be a relation also gives happiness. It is happiness unlimited to be a son, a brother, a sister, a father, a mother, a husband, and a wife.

When you kiss your child, don’t you get a kiss in return?

When you hug your sister, don’t you get a hug in return?

When you love your spouse, don’t you get love in return?

Be Happy! You have your family which loves you!

BE HAPPY!

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Be Happy! One of the Greatest Sources of Happiness—Nature

Nature is one of the greatest sources of happiness. In fact, humans had lived in the lap of nature for millions of years and their stay in modern cities is comparably very very short. Still now majority of them lives in close proximity to nature. In fact, human race is dependent upon nature for its very survival (plants recycle carbon dioxide into oxygen; our food is a product of nature; and we can survive under a very limited range of variables of nature like temperature, etc.)

Nature is all free! It is there for everybody to stand and stare and derive happiness and solace from. It does not distinguish between rich and poor, strong and weak, man and woman. Silvery sun is free, golden moon is free, cool breeze, warm seashore, imposing mountains, smooth flowing rivers, dark and inviting forests, all are free.

It is free, not because it is cheap, but it is rather priceless.

How much would it cost to make only an artificial island with rivers, forests, mountains, and surrounding ocean?

Billion dollars, zillion dollars?

Can one make it? And if one can and afford, will he give it to humanity free to enjoy? Will he not charge some entrance fees? How much?

When we see the moon, we see it in its entirety, no matter how many millions of people are seeing it at the same time. Has God made a separate moon for each of us, or is it only one moon which each of us somehow sees as his own individual moon? And similarly, the sky, the sun, the ocean, rain and sunshine, all are there for us to possess fully. Each can stare at the sky and claim all of it for his or her happiness. It is all his or her.

Nature understands your moods. If you are sad, it is also sad with you. But it does not make you sadder. It does not lead you to further despair. It applies gentle balm to your wounds. It sits besides you like a mother, spouse, brother or sister, or a friend and embraces you, talks to you, listens to you patiently, empathizes with you. Slowly it lifts your spirits, makes you to see your little woes, worries, and wounds in the right perspective of infinite time and space. You smile; you laugh; and you are happy again!

I am sure, you are keeping your money in the bank and this bank balance gives pleasure and happiness. Even when this money is lying idle or tied down in investments. Sometimes it is money just on paper, as, for example, the value of shares and bonds. When you need something, you withdraw the money and exchange it for some pleasure and happiness. Well, all this is good.

Yet do you realize that infinite beauty and happiness is lying around you in the form of nature?

Do you appreciate this fact and draw happiness out of it?

BE HAPPY!

Be Happy! There is Great Happiness in Human-Made Things

God created the world. Humans in their own insignificant way are also creating things. The urge to create is inborn in human beings. God created the world for the happiness of humankind. Humans are creating things for their happiness, enjoyment, comfort, and survival. The common thread in all human made things is happiness.

There is a vast field of music and art and literature. One can devote one's entire life to any of them and be supremely happy. Humans have made some things expressly for happiness—games and sports, food and drinks, TV and motorcars, ships, and planes. And, of course, there is money and all the things and services one could buy with it.

A single genre of literature, a single instrument of music, a single school of dancing, is enough to fill us with happiness. We know of persons who have made a single aspect of the world their passion and devoted their entire life to it and derived success and happiness out of it. It may be bird watching, white water rafting, tennis, football, poetry, or films. In fact life is too short to enjoy all the happiness it offers to us through all its aspects. The problem is not that there is not enough of happiness in the world. But it is the opposite. There is too much of it.

Fine arts, whether it is poetry or prose, fiction or non-fiction, painting, music, or dance, has the power to engross us and make us infinitely happy. In fact, one may live in the world of fine arts and be ever happy. I am perfectly happy sitting under a quiet bower beside a calm river under the serene sky with a book in hand, or lying in the bed under a cozy quilt on a rainy day listening to great classics.

Take for example, literature. It gives mental pleasure that is superior to the worldly pleasure. It does not require external favourable conditions, except a book. There are many books in the world that I consider everybody must read. It is not necessary that one reads only the best or the most serious books only. One can take occasional bad book with good books. As a starter, I would recommend that you go to your neighborhood library, and get a good book according to your taste. It need not necessarily be serious literature. Get a detective novel or romance book or even comics. In the evening cozily settle down in the bed or sofa and read. May be next week read another book. Once the habit is formed try to read serious literature. Make reading a life long habit.

I find sports a great source of happiness. You derive great happiness and peace of mind playing any game. You also get exercise which is good for your body. But there is another benefit. While you are playing your mind is far away from worldly problems. You don’t think of them while you play. I believe that playing is a sort of meditation.

“The secret of happiness is this: let your interest be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile”—Bertrand Russell.

BE HAPPY!

Be Happy! Why Worry?


Worry is a silent killer. It is like a slow poison. It is a chronic illness. In fact, it is an illness which is many fold dreadful than the physical illnesses. Worry not only affects our body but our mind too.

If you think seriously, you would find that it is really no use worrying about anything. It is really foolish to worry about past or future. Nobody can change the past. Whatever has happened has happened. Why worry? How can something that has yet not come to pass affect us? How are we so certain that the future is so bleak? Things may turn out well. Why worry then? Worrying just tires us and diminishes our capacity of clear thinking and planning. It promotes negative thinking. Instead of worrying we should use positive affirmations and resolutions.

If worry could solve the problem, everybody would worry as much as possible. Problem solving requires clear thinking and planning. But worry makes us incapable of clear thinking and planning. Many things, if they are going to happen, will happen regardless of our worry. If it is going to rain, it will.

We worry for small things. The worst-case scenario may not even be bad enough to worry. You have made your boss angry. You worry that he may fire you. What of it? That is not the end of the world. You are still alive. Perhaps you would get a better job. You dread to go to the office next day. You think of sending in your resignation letter. Worrying you reach office. The boss calls you. He apologizes. It was his mistake!

Not only we should not worry about little things, but we should also not worry about seemingly big things. The things that seem today very big and important will seem trifle tomorrow. In your student life you must have worried for days about the wrong answer you gave, even though you knew the right answer, to an objective type of question carrying just half mark. How much you worried about a dress on a special occasion, meeting a boy or girl whom you fancied, or the change of residence of a friend’s family? Do these matter a bit today? Why worry about spilled milk, or a broken glass, or a missed bus?

Of course, no body worries for the sake of worrying. Worry just comes into mind and then never leaves. But many people never worry. It seems that worrying is a sort of bad habit. As all bad habits the habit of worrying is also difficult to get rid of. So, in the first instance, never make worrying a habit. Secondly, try to divert your mind. Think of positive things. Get busy with some physical activity. Keep yourself away from people who are habitually worrying type and who always see the negative side of a thing.

Instead of useless worrying, one should take positive action—

BE HAPPY!


Be Happy!--For Happiness Universe and Life were Created Against Impossible Odds

Let us start our search for happiness from the very beginning. That is from the beginning of the universe.

The most plausible and widely accepted theory of the creation of the universe is the “Big Bang” theory of creation. According to it, the universe is created from an explosion in the super condensed material and consequent expansion of material. However, even if all the conditions for the creation of the universe were right at the beginning, many factors had to be right for the consequent formation of the universe. For example:

• Our universe is expanding like a polka dotted balloon which is being blown out. Each dot (representing a star or a galaxy) on it is distancing itself from each other. Now, if the rate of expansion of the newly created universe had differed even very minutely from what it were actually, there would have been no universe. A little slower and the cosmos would have collapsed back, a little faster and the cosmic material would have long ago completely dispersed.

• If the density of the universe were a little more, the universe would not be expanding but, due to the force of attraction of atomic particles, contracting, ultimately collapsing. If the initial density were a little bit less, then the universe would be expanding far rapidly than now and no stars and no galaxies would ever have formed.

• Both the mass and the volume of a proton are incomparably larger than those of an electron; but strangely enough, these two particles have equal (though opposite) electrical charges. Because of this fact atoms are electrically neutral. If the atom was not neutral electrically, each atom would repel the other and the entire universe would explode.

• The four fundamental forces in the nature, in decreasing order of intensity, are—Strong nuclear force, Weak nuclear force, Electromagnetic force, and Gravitational force. The difference between the strongest and the weakest is about 25 followed by 38 zeroes. Still within that great range the individual and the comparative magnitudes of the forces are delicately balanced otherwise the universe would not have existed.

If the creation of the sustained universe was a miracle, the evolution of life on it was also the same:

• Had our sun been 30% larger it would have been burnt out in four billion years, too short a time for intelligent life to evolve. Had it been smaller—95% of stars are smaller than the sun—other difficulties would have followed. Similarly, had the sun not been a source of steady energy for billions of years, had the orbit of earth around sun been a bit narrower or wider, had planet Jupiter been too close or too far to save earth from the rain of steroids, had moon not been so improbably large to stabilize the tilt of the Earth’s axis to around 23 degrees, had the solar system’s position in the galaxy been too near the edge or too close to the middle, advanced form of life would have been impossible.

• Carbon based molecules can only survive between the limits of 120° and -20° C and earth is the only [planet whose average temperatures fall within those limits. When one considers the universe as a whole, coming across a range of temperatures as narrow as this is quite a difficult task because temperatures in the universe vary from the millions of degrees of the hottest stars to absolute zero (-273° C).

• Nearly all of the radiation emitted by the sun falls into a single band that is 10-25 of the whole spectrum. Radiations which are necessary and conducive for life fall in this narrow band. This is also the only radiation under which photosynthesis works and our eye is able to see.

• Water also has extraordinary properties conducive for life—below 4° C it expands (so that even if ponds etc. are frozen at surface underneath water is not), highest latent heat, high thermal capacity, high thermal conductivity while that of ice and snow is low, high surface tension, and viscosity, etc.

The first step to happiness is to realize this happy but impossible odd of creation and life. We are extremely lucky to have a universe even more so to have a universe full of life. Since life is so improbable earth may be the only planet on which there is life. In living beings to be born as human being is the happiest thing which could ever happen to anybody!


BE HAPPY!

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