When Am I Happy?

Hey everyone, Happy Monday and of course as I write this I am sure that none of us are suffering from Monday Blues, perhaps because Diwali is just around the corner. Even though in my neighbourhood I could hear crackers bursting from two weeks back, Diwali is still a good three days away. And, with the bursting of crackers, you can’t blame people because it’s Diwali!

Just like always after my daily ritual of meditation and workouts, I tuned into this beautiful video on the Mandukya Upanishad, which is the smallest of all the Upanishads by Swami Sarvapriyananda on YouTube and he was explaining the bit about our real selves, which is called the “Turiya” in Sanskrit. 

To talk about it in detail, of course, there are minute pieces of information about the Turiya - we’ll get to that one slowly and after I have understood the concepts myself. Even though the whole of the video was quite convincing and inspiring, this was the part I was the most excited about. 

This was where Swamiji quoted an enlightened person where he was asked about happiness and when does a person get to be happy? He answered every time, everywhere and with everyone. Now, I’ll be honest that it rang a bell and for quite a   long time I couldn’t think of anything else but happiness as defined by this enlightened being. 

When I do think about that to myself I do realise that I am nowhere close to even thinking about it. Just the other day I heard my mom grumbling over some relative that had perhaps said some unkind words to her - even though I was calm but then again couldn’t help myself but tell my mom that she has to learn better ways of ignoring such kind of people. 

Initially, I thought that I was doing mom the greatest favour by giving her a piece of advice but after I heard this I realised what a horrible piece of advice it was. I am beginning to think whether or not it is at all feasible in this material world to be happy 24*7 under any given circumstances. 

In my personal space, I have the privilege of working remotely and in that case, I must derive the maximum amount of happiness with my colleagues on my work days and with my mom and cat on the hours that I am not working and on weekends. He even said that whatever may be the situation - pleasing or not pleasing, we shouldn’t be bogged down by any of it and operate from a space of serenity and calmness. 

Now, to answer to my question and the headline, when should I be happy? I must be able to say - ALWAYS.

Image by Kal Visuals on Unsplash