Analysing Happiness

Analysing HappinessTo be happy is the highest goal of all doctrines and ideologies in any society. The world presents before us millions of objects of enjoyment – lifeless objects such as gadgets, the latest phones, TVs, dream houses, objects designed for all our sense organs, and those lively things like human relationships or achieving social goals. To be happy is to get whatever we want and experience them. This is the general formula for happiness.

Thinkers go to the root of all our actions. If the fulfillment of desires is the source of happiness, it means that desire is the motivating factor. What is the root of desire? The Mahabharata (Shanti parva) has several chapters on the psychology of spirituality. Bhishma identifies the root of desire and says, ‘O desire! I know your roots. It is samkalpa. I will control it and conquer you’.

This word samkalpa may be familiar to most people. The word kalpa is visualizing, and when the prefix sam is added, it means visualizing the happiness or fullness we would have after achieving or attaining the object in question. Sometimes the samkalpa may be ethical, it may be for individual or social good and sometimes it may be driven by some desires.

When we ask the priest in a temple to perform a puja, he presents our name and desires to the deity. Usually, the desires are happiness on earth and happiness hereafter. This statement of desires, the mission statement, is called samkalpa. The priests add some more wishes which we may have not thought of, and we happily agree.

Just like the priests recite our samkalpa, the ad business pervading the media enhances our samkalpa in numerous ways in daily life. Celebrities and icons of the sports world, or our dream stars of the movies, glorify the object and make us feel that our life is unfulfilled unless we attain them. It leads to frustration, disappointment, agony and misery to many who are unable to have them or unable to keep up with the Jones’, as the saying goes. When I buy the latest TV or car, I visualize the happiness I get when my wife and kids appreciate me, and if I cannot buy it, I feel guilty and miserable.

There appears to be no equivalent word for samkalpa in English, but we can describe it as an attribution of greatness to an object or objective. Vedanta asks us to think about this attribution of greatness. This is the first step which is needed either in social life or in the spiritual path. In spiritual life, it is the primary step without which the mind is unfit for the path. If the mind is bogged down with several objects of enjoyment, it has no time for contemplation on higher thoughts. Thinkers ask us to evaluate the ephemeral nature of material objects which may please the ego. The car which is the hottest now is damp after a couple of years and it is the cause of our grief. So are all our objects and achievements. Vedanta asks us to discriminate between what is eternal and what is ephemeral.

Such discrimination makes sense even in social life. In fact, the attribution of glory is itself a great business. What is held as the latest research gets discarded as bogus after a couple of years, but millions of people are cheated by the initial glorification.

Good literature, or works of art provide great role models for centuries. They are intended to purge our emotions, which Aristotle called catharsis. Today the most accessible work of art for the common man is from the film world. In western society too, a good number of kids died trying to imitate Superman or the spider man. The Indian adults are no better. They do not discriminate between the possible and the impossible. All the superhuman feats of the lead actors are taken as real even by adults. The dream merchants make big bucks while the poor pay for it just to live in a dream for a couple of hours. Sometimes they pay with their lives as happened in a crowded theatre recently. Will such incidents awaken us and make us question our hysteria?

(The writer is a former

DGP, Andhra Pradesh)