Thought 111: Worldly happiness (Continued)

Sorrow or sadness cannot be our nature. If sadness were to be our nature, we would not feel bad when we are sad. But when sadness overtakes us, we want to get rid of it as soon as possible. Why? Because sadness is not natural to us. Happiness is natural to us. When we are happy, we do not want the happy feeling to go away at all.

All worldly happiness, however, is accompanied by some anxiety or the other – that is, it is always mixed with some unhappiness also. What you want is a happiness that is not accompanied by any anxiety; you want an unmixed happiness. Worldly happiness, however, is never unmixed; it is never meted out singly. If you want this kind of worldly happiness, you must be prepared to accept some unhappiness or some anxiety also.

There is no one - no one at all - who can honestly say that he always has unmixed happiness. Although every one would very much like to have unmixed happiness all the time, the reality is quite to the contrary. If you want happiness, you have to accept some measure of unhappiness. You cannot have the choice of rejecting the liabilities connected to a set of assets - and take only the assets. If you want the assets, you must be prepared to take on the liabilities attached to those assets too. That is the real world situation for you. If you want some pleasure, you must budget for some pain also. If you want some thing good, then, you must be prepared to take the bad thing also along with the good thing. That is the nature of all life on this planet of ours. These pairs of opposites are called the "dualities" of life in Vedaanta, (Hindu philosophy).

Human nature, however, is such that it is willing to take any amount of happiness, but it is not willing to accept even a small amount of unhappiness. One of Life's inviolable rules says however that if you do not want unhappiness at all, then, you cannot get happiness also. Happiness and unhappiness are dealt in pairs only – not singly. It is a package deal. You can either have both together or none at all. The choice, of course, is yours.

Since you cannot have happiness exclusively – if you want happiness, you end up, accepting a lot of unhappiness also. Who wants unhappiness! True. But if you do not want unhappiness, you will have to give up happiness also! This is not possible; neither is it practicable.


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