Can you ever be happy?


To what end do you toil? Ask anyone and the answer is most likely to be "I want to be happy ". Even the saints and good Samaritans do what they do to be happy. Meditators meditate, new age people read tarot cards, do reiki, take deeksha, go to satsang, and do yoga; all intended to make them happy. Is that true for you too?

Here is my problem. Unless you know what you are and unless you can define happiness, can "you" really be "happy" ? 

Oh yes, you could get that exciting feeling in your spine or that blissful state with tears of love running down your cheeks. Is that it? You are looking for some euphoria  like in an orgasm? So it is a body thing, is it? Try this, go to a scary movie. Curious you will get a similar wave of excitement in your body as you would in a feel good movie. The body doesn't know where you get it the chemical fix, as long as you get it.

Or, may be you are a mind person, looking for cerebral happiness like the one you get when you win a lottery, a game, a fight or discover the cure for cancer. Or is it? How would your million dollar win feel if every one else won $2 million? And what if the day they gave you Nobel  prize for curing cancer, someone found an African plant that proved be 100% effective in wiping out cancer? Yes, if a process could guarantee no more suffering like meditation, mind will be truly happy. No need for a million bucks or the recognition you seem to seek.

That is still only partial solution to my dilemma. This happiness you seek seems to apply only to the body and mind. But are you the body and mind? If you are not the body and mind but something beyond, or worse still nonexistent, how could you ever be happy?

May be that's why Krishna said in the geeta, karmanyeva adhikarashte ma faleshu kadachina... " you only have the rights to act none for the results". He knew it won't make you happy anyway, so why bother. Actions on the other hand may make your body sing and mind suffer less. That's about the best you can hope for if happiness is what you seek.

So, can you ever be happy? Unfortunately, no!  The body and mind could feel  bliss and euphoria but you my dear just don't exist. 

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