Happiness!!!

It often makes me wonder as to what exactly makes us "Happy". Is it with what we are living at the present? Is it what is about to happen to us in the coming future or Is it what has happened to us in the recent past? I'm sure Happiness cannot be categorised as such in any of these ways. It depends from person to person and Ofcourse a lot on the situation at hand.

But coming to think of its counterpart viz. Sadness, which more so often tends to fill the lives of individuals who quite interestingly are the ones who desperately look out for in search of Happiness throughout their lives, If we ask ouselves the same question once again as to what is it that makes us sad, we most often than not realize that it is mostly because of things which are either going to happen in the future or that which has already happened in the past that makes us feel remorsed.

Now things that have already gone by in the past cannot be undone and just by feeling bad about it will not change the situation. So why ever worry and spoil your Present?
While that which is about to take place in the future has not yet occurred at all. Who knows, by the time it is bound to happen your stars might show some pity on you and relieve you of your tensions and just in case they are in the right place (as the astrologers say, no pun intended ;) ) they might also turn in your favour. And then when its time for you to be happy you'd instead regret of having worried about it at all. So you see, its not that Sadness is haunting you as if you are some hot chick. Its simply that you aren't letting Happiness seep into your life just for the sake of your concern for either your Past or your Future.

We all must have heard our parents say umpteen number of times to concentrate on our education and study real hard so that our future is bright and we do not have to face any sort of problems whatsoever later in our lives. Parents are quite well known in saying that all the hard work is just upto 10th and once we Graduate our life would be easy and all that crap (donno how everyone's parents manage to make up the same ol' stuff) . So we study with all our might just to make sure that we have a better and bright future. Then when we complete our Graduation we ourselves realize, though sometimes quite late, that we have to study well to land up with a decent enough job so that we are able to spend a Happy life "ever after". Finally when it comes to the moment of your life when you earn the fat bucks for which you got your ass roasted like anything and also have a family of your own, you would definitely want to save up to the utmost either for your own or your child's future. You do not remind yourself of the days when you took such a lot of pain to be in the position that you are in right now so that you could enjoy the luxuries of life. All that you see is your Future ahead of you. It is not "Now" that matters to you, it is the Future that counts.

So basically throughout our lives all that we do is to take life the hard way and face all its attrocities in full fury just to see a better Future. The sort of Future which you unfortunately never happen to have only because at every juncture in your life you always have a Future ahead of you. The only moment when you don't see one is when you are in your death-bed. This is when you lie down reminiscing your past and regret of the times when you stepped back from following your sheer instincts just for the sake of what you thought would be your Future. You never had a period in your life which you could regard as happy only because all you cared about was the life ahead of you. You were ready to face as many hardships as possible to see a "Golden Future".

It is like standing at the sea shore and watching the horizon miles ahead of you. You set out to reach it without giving the oncoming waves a second thought. You keep drowning yourself as you go but you still keep going in the hope of reaching the horizon that lies in front of your eyes. Ultimately the waves engulf you and you no more see your destination ahead of you. All that you see is Death, right in front of your eyes taking you in its grasp and snatching away from you the horizon that you set to reach out for. But hardly do you realise the fact that as you were moving ahead even your destination was moving away from you. That is why you call it a "Horizon". This is what happens if we wish to build that "Golden Future" for ourselves. The Future that we never succeed to get our hands on. The Future will always remain a Future untill we try to accept that it is the Present that was once a Future long back. It is the Present that we should try to be Happy in.

Once we begin to accept this fact life becomes beautiful to live in. Everything around you seems perfect. No matter what comes your way, you either regard it as your Past or attribute it to your Future and stay Happy in the Present. This is true Happiness. You no more run after it as you used to. It is with you for ever and ever and ever...


This reminds me of one of Kabir's famous Doha:

Dukh mein sumiran sub kare,
sukh mein kare na koi.
Jo sukh mein sumiran kare,
use dukh kahe ko hoy.