The Cowherd

Anything and everything we do, is ultimately: to be, to know or to be happy. Any human activity is aimed at that single point- Bliss/ Happiness. Am not I right?

We go for work to earn money. Why do we need money? To make our life comfortable! The word ‘comfortable’ means having a luxury apartment, all premium furniture, a car, a beautiful wife and so on.

Now, a question arises. We ourselves have seen the poor people, those who don’t have any of these comforts. They are satisfied with their so called ”mediocre” standard of living and some of them are extremely blissful and peaceful. How is it possible?

We toil for the whole day, serving the corporates, just to fetch to ourselves these comforts. And, we believe it’s the comfort that brings happiness. But at the same time, the poorest of the poor people also experience happiness and peace.

Here we should understand one important fact: Physical comforts don’t fetch happiness at all.

Then what at all does it actually fetch? If you’re rich enough, you can perhaps enjoy the most expensive things in the world! You get to eat multi-cuisine dishes, you get to see the rarest of rarest pictures, you get to visit the Moon, the Mars, and you get to use the most expensive perfumes, and may even get to sleep with the most beautiful woman on the surface of earth. In short, you can amply gratify each of your sense organs!

But this is all it can fetch! Peace and happiness, for which we are actually scrounging these objects, are to be generated from within. One can never lure eternal bliss from any material. Sense gratification of course pretends to give us temporary pleasure. But it also gives you two evil emotions.

For instance, if a man yearns for an ice cream, and he obtains it, it gives him pleasure. After few days, he will feel like having another. One more and more and more… Thus, unknowingly he develops a greed for ice cream. On the other hand, if one yearns for an ice cream but cannot have it, it results in immense sorrow.

So, just think what good did the ice cream actually give? It either gives us greed which finally results in sorrow, or sorrow right away in the beginning, apart from the momentary pleasure.

I would say that even the pleasure is an illusion. See the following case. I hate ice creams. The moment I see an ice cream, I feel like vomiting. But you are a person who simply loves to have ice creams. Even if you can’t have one, it gives you joy to watch others having ice creams.

Now, was it the ice cream which actually gave you happiness? Was it so, then it ought to give happiness to me too, and of course to the rest of the world. Is it the case? So, we should infer that no object gives us any emotion. It’s our mind that generates happiness as well as sorrow.

We also know that there is no absolute happiness or absolute sorrow. We simply call the gap between two successive sorrows as happiness and vice versa. So, in order to be perpetually blissful, it is enough that we avoid the sorrows in our life.

We also understand that sorrow is the result of desire for possession and enjoyment of objects. In fact, the objects themselves give no emotions. But we assume so. If my friend smokes a cigarette, (and if I have a natural tendency to start smoking) I feel that I will be happy only if I too smoke one. Though we know intellectually that it’s harmful for us, we simply attribute the way people admire that person to his smoking, the style in which he holds the cigarette etc. Unknowingly I contemplate my happiness on that cigarette. This results in a desire for that cigarette and hence begins the chain reaction. From desire to greed and from greed to sorrow!

With the intellect, we understand that the desire is a death trap. But the attachment of our mind to various objects is so strong that the intellect is overpowered.

So how do we conclude? The intellect should never be overpowered for it guides our mind. It teaches us what’s right and what not. So, in order that the intellect’s decision is implemented, the mind has to be subdued.

The mind has to be overpowered, rather. Then the desires and attachment with the sense objects will disappear. It results in a sorrow-free life. If there is no sorrow, what remains?  Perpetual Happiness!

But we should also think why we want only happiness? Why don’t we crave for pain and sorrow? It’s because pain and sorrow are not the characteristics of our pure nature. Just like a small lamb separated from its herd would always want to get back to its herd, we the human beings also strive to get back to our true state of being or, the true nature. What then is actually our nature?

Immortality/ Perpetual Existence is our true nature; that’s why we always wish to exist, to live long,

Knowledge/ Consciousness is our true nature; that’s why we always want to know about more and more things, and

Bliss is our true nature; that’s why we always want to be happy. So what are we?? Sat-Chid-Aanandam: the Brahman!