Do you want to be Happy Continuously? The Mantra is: Ensure that you are working on all three: Right understanding, Relationship and Physical facility, with the Right Understanding being the Top Priority.

 I want to live. What about you? You also have the will to live, right?

Not just live, I want to live happily. Do you also want happiness in your life?

It’s not just living happily, I want to live with continuous happiness! Is it the same for you also? 

Yes, right?

I want to live with happiness in its continuity, you also want to live with continuous happiness. For that matter, every human being wants to live with continuous happiness 👍🏻

Do you accept this? You can check with anyone, ask whether he/she wants to live with continuity of happiness and see if anybody negates this.

Now, tell me, what are all the things that you need to live? You need food, you need a house, you need clothes, a vehicle, a mobile phone, etc.

For living, we need the physical facilities, food, a house, dresses, a vehicle, etc. for basically nurturing our body, protecting our body, and the right utilization of the body. Can you see this?

Now, a question arises. All these are required for our living, but are these things alone enough for our happiness? You can live, but can you get happiness? In other words, is your happiness ensured by just possessing all the required physical facilities?

You please do this experiment: Recall a few instances when you became unhappy in the recent past. Find out the reason for your unhappiness. Sometimes, because of lack of certain facilities(unhappy as I could not get an iPad which I wanted to get or I could not get the desired food)  and sometimes due to lack of fulfillment in the relationship(Unhappy as I had some issues with my spouse or fight with my friend). Check which is more.

Yes, of course, we become unhappy if we lack the physical facilities, but the unhappiness is more due to a lack of fulfillment in the relationship, am I right?

So, what’s the finding of the experiment, we need people and relationships. Over and above the physical facilities like food, house, clothes, etc., we need relationship. Do you accept this?

Ask yourself! Do you want relationship with other human beings, or just the physical facilities are enough for you to live happily?

We, the human beings, every one of us want relationship over and above the physical facilities. 

In spite of knowing this, are we not having the opposition or argument with others? Why are we fighting with our spouse day in and day out? Why do we have issues with our friends, neighbors, colleagues? We see the number of divorce cases increasing alarmingly. I know a boy and his sister who have not talked to each other for more than 10 years. This is not the only case. If you look around you, you will find many such people!

Brothers fighting for a piece of land, children not taking care of their elderly parents… . I recently met a single mother in her late 80’s in a bank who was depositing some amount. She was in tears while saying that her son was not even talking with her. The worst thing is she was saving the money without spending much for herself!

Why do we have such issues in our relationship? Think for a while.

Yes, it is due to a lack of right understanding! 

You might have come across many times,  we would have had some opposition or argument with our dear ones and only later, we come to know that we had not understood the reason for the issue correctly. A lighter example, Aruni asked me to get ready for the wedding reception of his office colleague’s son. I got ready and waited for him but he didn't come home, it was seven and became eight but he didn't come and there was no phone call either. So, I was worried and that created anger in me. After some time, he called and said that unexpectedly a meeting was scheduled with the District Collector and he could not find time to inform me as he needed to prepare some documents for the meeting within that short time. The reason for my opposition or anger was a mere lack of right understanding, agree?

So, we need the Right Understanding of ourselves along with relationship with fellow human beings over and above the physical facilities in nature.

Do you see that all these three are required for you? Can you forgo any of these?

Can we live without any physical facilities, without a fan, without food? No, Not at all, right?

Ok, let us have all those physical facilities whatever we need, whatever we want. Can you forgo relationship? Can you live without relationship? Again a big negation, isn’t it?

Fine,  we have all the physical facilities and relationship, but can you ensure the continuity of happiness if we do not have the right understanding? Definitely not, am I correct?

So, we can’t leave any of these. We need all three: physical facilities, relationship, and the right understanding for our happiness. What do you say?

Yes, it is clear that we need all three to be happy. If that is the case, let us look into the priority. Among the three which is of first priority?

Right understanding gets the priority followed by relationship and then physical facility. Just explore this on your own, you will get the clarity.

Having said all three, Right understanding, Relationship, and Physical facilities are required for our happiness and prosperity, a question arises now. Are you working towards all three or just running behind the accumulation of the physical facilities?

Let me discuss this in my next blog. Till then just explore these things we have discussed now!

(Reference book: a foundation course in human values and professional ethics, by R R Gaur, R. Asthana, G P Bagaria, edition 3)