DON’T POSTPONE YOUR HAPPINESS OR ARE YOU POSTPONING YOUR HAPPINESS?

Every living creature wants to be happy. Whether it is money, power or sex, you get into it for the sake of happiness. To be happy, we seek something. But despite getting it, we are not happy. A school-going boy may think that if he goes to college, he will be more independent, free and therefore happy. If you ask a college-going boy whether he is happy, he feels that if he gets a job, he will be happy.

Talk to somebody who is settled in their job or business, and you will see he is waiting to get a perfect soul mate, to be happy. He gets a soul mate, but he now wants to have kids to be happy. Ask those who have children if they are happy. How can they relax until the children have grown up and have had a good education and are on their own? Ask those who are retired, and done with all their responsibilities; are they happy? They long for the days when they were younger.

There are two ways of looking at life. One is thinking that, “I’ll be happy after achieving a certain objective.” The second is saying that “I am happy come what may!” Which one do you want to live? All of one’s life is spent in preparing to be happy someday in the future. It’s like making a bed all night, but having no time to sleep.

How many minutes, hours and days have you spent your life being really happy from within? Those are the only moments you have really lived life. Those were perhaps the days when you were a small kid, completely blissful and happy or a few moments when you were surfing, swimming or sailing or on a mountain top, living in the present and enjoying it.

Happiness is living in the moment with joy, alertness, awareness and compassion. Happiness is being like a child, completely blissful in the state. It is being free from within, feeling at home with everybody, without barriers.

Life is 80 per cent joy and 20 per cent misery. But we hold on to the 20 per cent and make it 200 per cent! It is not a conscious act, it just happens. Don’t judge and don’t worry about what others think of you. Whatever they think, is not permanent. Your own opinion about things and people keeps changing all the time. So why worry about what others think about you. Worrying takes a lot of toll on the body, mind, intellect and alertness. It is like an obstruction that takes us far away from ourselves. This can be handled by relaxing and doing some breathing exercises. Then you will realise that, “You are loved, you are part of everybody and of the whole universe.” This will liberate you and the mind will take a complete shift. You will then find so much harmony around.

To find harmony, it is not as if you have to physically seek it by sitting somewhere for years and practise. At some level, to some degree, everybody is meditating without being aware of it. There are moments when your body, mind and breath are all in harmony. These are moments when you were surfing, swimming or sailing or are on a mountain top, living in the present and enjoying it. When your mind is in the present that’s when you achieve yoga.

The art of living lies in the present moment. Happiness is a factor that we have to consciously pursue. Unconsciously we all are happy, but somewhere in the pursuit of happiness we get stuck and miss the goal. That is what spirituality is all about – knowing that you are joy, you are happy.

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY THE AUTHOR ARE PERSONAL

SRI SRI RAVI SHANKAR The writer is an Indian yoga guru, a spiritual leader, founder of The Art of Living