FEATURE

Happiness is to make others happy.

Prof. B. M. Hegde,
hegdebm@gmail.com

“Happiness is ecstatic as a scientist who had just discovered the key to immortality.”

Susan Fromberg Schaeffer

I needed a house keeper and it was so difficult to get one. In the bargain I ended up telling many of my friends to help me to get one. I have such wonderful neighbours that they keep feeding me when I do not have any caretaker in the house. I was in a Catch 22 situation three days ago. Three of my friends got me servants on the same day. All of them were assured of my job by my friends. I could not afford three servants with my non-pensionable retired life. But I could not have denied any of them a job as they were very much looking forward to a job. If I put myself in their position I could imagine how each one of them was hoping to build his/ her career based on my job.

I chose one of them for my job and assured the other two a job within a couple of days and had all of them with me to eat etc. I have many good friends who are in good positions. One of them, whose late father was a patient of mine, is a big man today. I had helped this boy for some small favour many, many years ago. He is today a big business man in the area of automobiles. One of the boys that I got for my work incidentally had an ITI diploma in automobile engineering but with just pass marks; so he was not getting any job for the last one year. Therefore he had decided to even work as a house keeper. I therefore requested my friend, the auto man, to help this boy with a job. Rarely people remember what you did to them in this materialistic world but this friend of mine was an exception. So today that boy has been appointed on a decent salary in their service station where they service new vehicles. The boy is happy and so am I.

The next pathetic person had to be fixed. He is a very pious and innocent young man wanting a job badly. Another friend of mine is a large hearted IT honcho in Mangalore. When I called him to help this boy he was more than willing and fixed him up in a suitable security job in no time. My boy had no qualification for any other job. Seeing the joy in his face when he got the news of his employment was enough to make my day. Now that I have been able to solve the riddle that I had created for myself unknowingly, I am relieved of all my obligations to the three who were sent to me for employment. God has been kind enough that I could get them jobs so easily was an added bonus, thanks to many of my friends in need. What IS happiness?

Victor Frenkle, an American psychiatrist, who survived the Jewish concentration camp in Germany, in his book, In Search of Happiness, argues that happiness is to have some meaning for life. While I agree with him, I think if that meaning is to be of some use to society that happiness gets an added sheen. Today in the monetary world happiness is getting. Unfortunately that kind of happiness is short lived as it is followed by greed soon after to get more and more, a never ending search for more. In fact, it is a sordid boon. But in giving one gets. The more you give, the more you get happiness. The happiness of getting is described by Victor Hugo as dry happiness: “Dry happiness is like dry bread. We eat, but we do not dine “—Victor Hugo.

In this interdependent world one does not have to search for happiness outside of us. Happiness is there inside each of us and that will be expressed only when we go out of our way to be of some use to society as the latter is the collection of people who, like us, are a part of us as all living beings are but the same universal energy (universal consciousness). Scientifically, therefore, happiness has to be searched for inside us. Jaggy Vasudev, a New Age guru, calls it as inner engineering. I think it is simply understanding ourselves and socialising with ourselves. Materialistic world does not believe in any of these. People socialise with others for their own benefit. It is taking advantage of others for our benefit. True happiness is giving ourselves for others benefit.

My experiments this week have more than convinced me that happiness is giving and not getting. Thena Tyakthena Bhoonjithaha says the Ishopanishad, translated to simpleEnglish it simply means “rejoice in giving.” All religions, across the board, preach the same in different words. How I wish religionists practiced what their religions preach? The world then would be heaven on earth.

“Looking for happiness is like clutching the shadow or chasing the wind”

Japanese proverb