Is happiness really an attainable state for the human mind? I recently read an article in the NYTimes, titled Enlightenment Therapy, about a professor who gave up a tenured position and decided to devote his life to meditation. He spent years practicing and teaching Zen meditation, yet he was never able to attain that elusive state of infinite happiness the eastern religions promise as the reward for such devotion. When Zen meditation failed, he turned to anti-depressants and psycho-therapy, but nothing seemed to work. And now he finds himself visiting a therapist like a regular white-collar American. He is doomed, it seems, to that familiar state of discontentment, loneliness and depression many of us suffer throughout our lives.
How many of us promise ourselves that we’ll be happy just as soon as we achieve this or that success and get this or that material possession? And for how many years have we been convincing ourselves that the watering hole is just on the other side of that sand dune? The eastern ascetics will tell us that we need only to detach ourselves from these fleeting pleasures in order to attain happiness. Yet I find it hard to believe that these lonely old men who have spent years in silent isolation are truly happy. On the contrary, many of them seem as consumed by the search for wealth and power as the most “attached” among us. The search for happiness through renunciation of everything human seems misguided somehow; happiness is after all a human condition, created by human impulses in a human brain. Everyone is different, but companionship is a pretty basic requirement for most humans to be happy.
But if there is no happiness to be found through participation in society, and none found through asceticism…then where the hell is it? Perhaps happiness does not exist at all, but is simply a mirage we create for ourselves so we can always strive for more. It is obvious why we might have evolved the propensity to seek happiness, as this unending desire incentivizes us to keep working for more money / status / progress, increasing our chances of survival as a species. Yet by that token it would seem maladaptive to ever actually attain a state of constant happiness, at least while one is capable of being a productive member of society. In that case maybe we should abandon the search for happiness altogether, and just resign ourselves to a life fraught with duality.
It might be true, but I just can’t accept it. I have to believe that I am capable of attaining infinite bliss, of sustaining that amazing sensation of ecstasy I glimpse every now and again while wrapped in my lovers arms or surfing a perfect wave in the pacific ocean. I must believe happiness is real, and that I am in fact getting closer to enlightenment every day of my life. If not, then what’s the point of it all? What is there to live if not for eternal sunshine? Or, perhaps, if not for the search of it.
Let the businessman seek it in money, the celebrity in fame and the swami in solitude. But I will not seek it thus. For I have found my happiness in simple pleasures and seek only to sustain my immersion in those. I live for love, food, music and natural sunshine.
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Tags: evolution, hapiness, meditation, Religion
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hi prerna,The concept,eternal sunshine is the STATE BEYOND MIND, as far as THE OTHER,OR SOCIETY is concerned i dnt think you can’t obtain it,as reknown scientist SIGMOND FREUID say; the other is hell,if he is still right, then hell& heaven can;t exist to gether,as dark&light can’t,there is very subtle demarkation line between happiness & ecstacy.happiness still,could be of mind, but eastern philosophy say:ecstacy is SHEER BEING,happiness could be time bound/temporary,but ecstacy is THE ETERNAL SUNSHINE,..prerna as far as YOU are concerned with the concept,its indicating the PROCESS OF TRANSFORMATION is ON..one need to over come of MIND first ,then & only then the STATE of eternal sunshine is occured as result,as if…u need let your body rest in certain posture first,then the sleep is arised outta body,sleep dnt come from space itwas there already, you rest your body & it got the opportunity, SO you need rest your MIND first,then what come out is juz eternal sunshine, in short u can name it NO-MIND existence.& still LIFE is there,& you crossed all the solitude,& NOW,the other is no more the hell,b’cos hell-heaven even are not geographical places they are juz projection of mind.east says..YOGA says TASNIMBHOOT AVASHTHA,(neutral state of mind),first,then the nxt is ADWAIT,(no-other)though other is there ,but its no more an RELATIVITY………