Desire to be happy…

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Every one of us desires to be happy. Normally, that is what we seek to achieve. Yet, most people are immersed in some kind of suffering. If at times they do get small instalments of happiness in their lives, it is neither unadulterated nor abiding. Even if one does not seek suffering, it comes as an inevitable outcome of the very manner in which one seeks happiness.

Most seek happiness through the fulfillment of desires, but such fulfillment is never an assured thing. Hence, in the pursuit of desires, one is also unavoidably preparing for the suffering from their non-fulfillment.

Man is subject to sudden moods and impulses. Sometimes he is happy and elated, at other times he is very unhappy and downhearted. His moods change as his desires are fulfilled or frustrated. The satisfaction of some desires yields momentary happiness, but this happiness does not last, and it soon leads to the reaction of depression. His moods subject him to ups and downs and to constant change.

Complete detachment is one of the essential conditions of lasting and true happiness, for he who has a complete detachment no longer creates for himself the suffering which is due to the unending thraldom produced by desires. Desirelessness makes a man firm like a rock. He is neither moved by pleasure nor by sorrow.

Mere desirelessness, however, cannot yield positive happiness, though it protects man from self-created suffering and goes a long way towards making true happiness possible.
True happiness begins when a man learns the art of right adjustment to other persons, and right adjustment involves self-forgetfulness and love.

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