How happiness leaves us?

We are living in a state of comfort and contentment facing various ups and downs of our life with ease and yet are unable to remain in a state of peace and joy permanently.

Our problem is that moment someone comes into our life – person or event – which is not to our liking, we start questioning with a view to find reason behind – those upsetting words or event. We should actually be focusing on how to handle it to stop any further damage to us, our family or our environment. But we lose our focus and get entangled in finding faults in person or event which caused us distress. This cannot be undone because it is past.

Our major questioning is related to finding answers to five Ws – Why, What, When, Where, Who/Which. We do this questioning because we start to feel out of control at the fact that someone/ something has had audacity to disturb our calm world. Thus we spoil our present.

As we start to analyse our mind loses its peace, we go completely out of control. We start feeling depleted and even show our disgust to our loved ones. This inner turmoil surely affects our outer world and our family life. And our Happiness starts to walk away from us. Thus we spoil our future as well.

Who caused this? We are responsible for whatever is happening in our life. Similarly, if something is not working out fine in others’ lives, it is their responsibility. I cannot feel guilty if something went wrong in someone’s life. How I react to it is in my hands. If I can help and the other person permits me to help, then its fine and I can go ahead otherwise I have to move away without feeling guilty. I can pray to God to deal with that person or situation as HE deems fit and bring justice to all involved.

It is our attitude, our response to any bad situation in life which will determine our peace of mind. Instead of wasting my time and energy on 5 Ws, I could spend my time in finding way out of my problem, it would help me retain my peace and happiness with me.

We fail when we try to control the world. We have to remember that God is in control. HE is the wire-puller. We just cannot accept that we have been ineffective. May be that’s the way God wanted it to happen. We have to cultivate faith that whatever is happening in my life – good or bad – is for my ultimate benefit. The believers in God are trained to put their trust in the power of unseen and wait for the the rewards in the afterlife.

This life is just a tip of an iceberg that we see. What we cannot see is that beneath this tip lies huge, hidden secrets of universe which we just cannot fathom with our limited worldly knowledge. There is something vast beyond our imagination. We are part of big play of God. This is true for each and every person around us and also for each natural element. There is a reason for every happening. We just get to see and experience the tip and feel pain. There is a big reason which we are not allowed (by God) to see and we feel miserable.

I have to learn that I cannot change others. I can change my attitude and look at the problem with a view to find something positive in it because negative thought will always pull me down. Every issue has two sides to it. Howsoever hard it may be, I have to find the positive aspect and focus on it to remain happy. Fox was clever. She called unreachable grapes sour and walked off retaining her pride.

Human Being has to be smarter and look for spiritual lessons and leanings from all bad happenings of life. It is up to me whether I want to keep those hurtful words / painful situations in my memory or learn from them and move on with life. I cannot spend rest of my life in remorse or pain. Shake it off and press through this journey of life.

Enjoy your life experiences and company of diverse people you meet in the route. Remember, once we reach the destination, all will be over and done with. Performance of each and every one of us will be assessed. Not even a ‘tiny thought’ will be ignored. God is the ultimate JUDGE. Do not try to play HIS role.

God has given the ‘remote control’ of my life in my hands. I cannot give its control in someone else’s hands and go out of control myself. I have to learn to control my thoughts, emotions and feelings wisely as per my own inner divine guidance that God has filled me up with. I cannot let others influence it. I have to let me be myself and express my inner goodness wherever needed and above all permitted (by the receiver). Sometimes people won’t let you do anything for them just because they have this huge ego about them. Leave them alone. They may accuse you of not helping them. Know that God has earmarked someone else to take care of them and relax.

Do not let any situation, person or relationship become so powerful in your life so as to make you lose your peace of mind. Take charge of your happiness in your hands. If you want to be happy no matter what the circumstances than none can snatch it from you. Just try to feel and behave like God in any given situation. Let the positive forces of Universe surround you always.

Vandana Ritik
New Delhi

Why we feel Unhappy?

We do not understand the reason but we know that we are not feeling good about ourselves. We blame people around us for causing us unhappiness. We blame our relatives, friends, office colleagues, servants, driver or anyone for making us unhappy. We even blame our pets, weather, traffic, TV serials, music, stock prices so many more things in the world just because we are not feeling good about ourselves. We have that feeling of emptiness within us and we do not know the real reason behind this.

Spiritually speaking, this means feeling disconnected with the source of our creation –God. We miss being in our own home – the heaven – with our own father – the God. Our soul has the memory of our origin but when we are on earth this part of memory is removed from our conscious as well as sub-conscious mind. However, when we sit in meditation and try to use our third eye of mind, we are able to access this part of our memory from our Super conscious mind. We go deeper into meditation and we can access collective universal knowledge which is always available in Universe but is accessible to only those who are truly interested and practice meditation regularly and genuinely. At this stage, the Universe reveals all to the meditator provided he is intense and ready enough to receive and assimilate such knowledge. Like a child in fourth grade cannot be given knowledge of eighth grade for simple reason that he will not be able to understand it at all.

So universe first looks to the willingness and readiness of the receiver. Once the receiver assimilates this knowledge, he is ready to move to the revelation of the next stage of knowledge and it goes on till all the lessons are received, learnt and experienced by the concerned soul. A soul has to take many births to reach the final stage of Salvation i.e., freedom from cycle of birth and death. It is at this stage that one feels completely happy and does not desire anything because he realizes the futility of all worldly objects.

Materially speaking, we feel unhappy when we realize that we have not stepped out and helped others in need. Haven’t you noticed how happy you feel if you could help someone to resolve his problem? It gives us immense joy to know that our action has been cause of happiness to the other person. In actual, we feel happy to make ourselves happy. It gives us a sense of feeling worthwhile. However, sometimes we are not able to do anything for others either because we do not want to, or the party concerned is not interested in taking help from us or God does not wills it.

Yes, sometimes God wants people to handle their problems on their own instead of seeking help from others so that these people can grow in life. So, it is always advisable to help those who desire your help and deserve it. Sometimes, helping others, without them asking for it, ultimately ends in hurting us. Wise people say that we should definitely help those people who have asked for it. The reason being that when a person asks for our help that person is finally keeping his/ her ego aside and admitting that he/she cannot handle the situation on their own. Doing this is the most difficult task. Admitting our helplessness to others is not easy. Sometimes people will prefer suffering to asking for help. This happens because of their ego which will not let them ‘bow’ down or be humble. Most of us prefer to be in this state of feeling ‘powerful’ where we are in the position of a 'giver'. When we agree to receive without having to pay back we feel 'low' and 'insecure'. This belief is totally incorrect and needs to be looked at afresh.

God made his creation in such a way that we are all interdependent on each other. We all have to help each other. We have got relationships and friends in our life with whom we have to learn to first give unconditionally and then receive (not necessarily from them). Our relationships fail because we are giving with the intention of receiving back. 'Give' unconditionally because when you are giving, you are getting 'it' first and then 'it' flows away from you, only to come back to you again. Therefore, firstly 'give' what you want to 'get'. We all are teachers / students simultaneously as we all are teaching/ learning from each others. Give and Take, without any return, should come to us naturally.

However, if we stop ‘giving’ due to our selfishness or stop ‘accepting’ due to our pride coming in way, than we feel miserable. We are unhappy. We have stopped this flow of two way traffic. This happens because deep down inside our soul knows this is not the way God wants us to live. Have you noticed how giving hands are over and above the receiving hands. Sometimes, we have to ‘give’ the blessings and sometimes we have to ‘receive’ the blessings leaving our ego behind. Let the other person receive the blessings by helping you.

Whenever we deviate from the way God wants us to live, we feel unhappy. We anticipate some challenges on that road and to avoid that we choose the easy road instead and make excuse that we could not hear or understand the God’s word. Admitting our weaknesses is the toughest part so we start playing the blame game. It is always someone else responsible for our unhappiness. We have to understand that whatever is happening in our life is our own creation. We are solely responsible for our life situations. We have to go inwards to find out where our weakness is and rectify it. The biggest learning is that to feel happy or unhappy is my own personal choice others have got nothing to do with it.

Therefore, to feel happiness, we have to help all around us without any discrimination in every possible way. We all are unique children of God. We all have many virtues. Our Virtues will multiply and balance our karmic account if we donate them generously. Similary, when we receive services of other humbly, we are acting as instrument of God for blessing others. After all, God is using services of his creation to evolve the society.

How to Help - We can help other by giving a smile, giving a good listening, spending time, speaking words of appreciation, speaking encouraging words and mentally sending thoughts full of positive messages and hopes, removing fear, dropping to their place of work, taking them to their place of worship or even praying for them to God. Even living with good thoughts and maintaining a cheerful outlook affects our environment in a positive way. Looking after our family and meeting its needs keeps our family members secure and strong. United we stand divided we fall. So using our position and keeping the family together is a big help to the society as family is the foundation of society.

Wise people say charity begins at home. First and foremost we have to help our own self and treat ourselves with love and respect. Then we have to love and serve people in our home, neighbourhood, job. Finally we have to serve Society and the World.

Thus, there are so many possible ways to help all around us. Anything we say or do that makes other person feel happy about himself or his situation is called Service of God. But we are exercising discrimination most of the time. Sometimes we excuse ourselves from doing extra work by simply saying that God did not make me do it. Sometimes we prefer helping a beggar on the road and not our own relatives and friends only because they caused us hurt and now we want to hurt them.

When we have not been of any service to society for a long spell of time, our super consciousness sends messages which we are not able to interpret. The result is we feel miserable even when everything is going right for us in the world yet something is lacking. Therefore, it is advisable to be of service to all around us actively throughout the day; week and years for then none will be able to steal our inner peace, joy and happiness forever.

Vandana Ritik
New Delhi