For Eternal Happiness, Look Within And Not Outside

1. For Eternal Happiness, Look Within And Not Outside Everyone craves for eternal happiness and wishes for contentment in life. Well  it may turn out to be a futile exercise of searching for happiness or bliss  outside of ourselves in the material world. We are talking of unconditional and  long lasting happiness unlike the one that comes from money which is  ephemeral or short lived. All efforts at trying to fathom happiness in the  outside world will reach dead end. No amount of indulgence in outward  search can give oneself even the smallest of clues to long lasting and durable  happiness that one is actually searching for. Often we make grave mistake of  assuming that happiness can be bought by buying expensive gifts and  splurging money.  Owning a new smart phone, a new home or a trip to an exotic location, no  doubt, gives us immense happiness but only for a certain period of time and  not forever. These are short lived or ephemeral as I have talked about earlier.  Such and every other material possessions will keep us happy and satisfied  only for a finite length of time but not forever. Therefore we conclude that  such things have an expiry date and cease to excite us thereafter. A person 

2. owning 2 or a 3 bedroom apartment wishes for an even bigger apartment, a  person may want to own a big car after having driven a small one.    I do not disagree or distance myself from the prospects of possessing or  acquiring better objects for convenience and comfort for oneself or the family  but don’t you agree that this mad race for material objects should end  somewhere? With the acquisition of a bigger apartment, a bigger loan amount  increases the monthly repayment which adds to increased financial burden  and mental stress on the person concerned. The smaller apartment and the  smaller car had stopped enthusing the person hence he made a choice of  seeking bigger things. The moot question is where will this hunger or should I  say greed to possess ever bigger and expensive objects end? From what I 

3. observe, the answer is never. The flaw lies in the way the society views  success.  An upwardly mobile person is considered to be successful by the society if he  has larger pool of assets of the kind mentioned above. A good number of  years go by and still there may be no realization of what one has lost on the  way, may have lost close friends, relatives, parents or chance to spend  glorious moments with them. The larger loss, in running this ‘one way’ race, is  that one would not have cared or bothered about the development of one’s  spirit and the inner self. There are absolutely different ways of developing the  spirit which have to be consciously practiced to internalize them so that the  benefits could accrue.  A whole new dimension of things open up that lead to internal happiness and  contentment in life. To be able to find eternal happiness one has to give up  most of the scrap collected in all the years of lurch and unmindful wandering.  This underdeveloped ‘self’ may not prick one for years and years together but  for a single defining moment in the journey of life when one is confronted with  a deep and profound loss that no amount of repentance or efforts at this  particular stage can make up for the current loss. 

4. Consequently with an underdeveloped spirit, feelings and thoughts around  morality, probity and righteousness have also remained underdeveloped. In  the absence of a moral compass or self conscience, we cannot measure, rate  or value all the varied experiences in life. Hence we do not realize what went  wrong and in this state of unawareness or oblivion, we keep treading ‘one way’  path of material acquisition. The day the inner self is awakened there will be  all together new set of considerations and new rules to live life throwing open  doors to eternal bliss and long lasting happiness.  You will realize joy not by acquiring but by giving away, not in possessing but  in renunciation, not by hoarding but by sharing and gifting. Permanent solution  lies in taking small and regular but firm steps in developing your inner self and  the spirit along the way while you are on the so called ‘one way’ path thus  leading you to a higher path in self development and finding eternal  happiness. Once this equilibrium is achieved, nothing can unsettle you. You 

5. will find yourself in a completely different world, at peace and harmony with  not just nature and God but mostly importantly, with yourself.