The Pursuit of Happiness in Life

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I had an interesting encounter last week at a bookshop when I went to purchase Sarah Mc Donald's 'Holy Cow,' a humorous account of Australian's mystical adventures in India. The owner of the bookshop opened up a friendly chat with me when he learnt that I am teaching at a university where one of his sons did his undergraduate studies in computer applications. He told me that his elder son is a sober, unassuming person and since childhood he was always contented with life and never sought things that seemed beyond his grasp. The younger one on the other hand was highly ambitious and tried to get the best of life in every possible way, including imported shoes, which cost the family a fortune when it was facing a financial crunch. The elder son is now managing the bookshop along with his father and the younger one is earning a six-digit salary working in the software industry in the US!

Vedanta classifies all human pursuits in these two categories - expansion (pravritti) and withdrawal (nivritti). The first type tries to conquer everything to satisfy his desires and to be happy. The second retreats from this onward rush of material pursuits and tries to find peace by giving it up. However, neither of these approaches leads to the resolution of that fundamental psychological conflict which we will discuss in detail in the next article.

Vedanta says that these tendencies to seek or give up objects in the pursuit of happiness are both born out of an erroneous understanding. It is not the object itself that we are seeking but we try to become different by possessing or getting rid of something. An ice cream that gives you happiness when consumed once can become a painful experience if taken in large quantities. One man may go on expanding his material possessions and yet find no rest or satisfaction. Another may give up all his material wealth in search of peace of mind and become more miserable than what he was earlier!

This desire to be different from what we are right now is what drives us into this endless cycle of expansion and withdrawal. It is like a toothache, which gives a nagging pain till it is cured, or the tooth itself is removed.

However, as long as our notion of the Self is limited, the toothache is likely to persist. Vedanta is that process of enquiry through which all such misconceptions are cleared and the limitless Self is perceived with clarity and conviction. And the corrected perception of the Self puts an end to this merry-go-round of life.