MAN'S REAL QUEST

Eternal Happiness

     Before a devotee takes to strenuous Spiritual Sadhana, he must first have a clear idea as to what his Real Quest is.

     There is a tremendous movement and never ending activity all the world over. From the lowest to the highest, every one is engrossed in incessant activity. The question naturally arises, what is it that is at the back of all this activity? What is the real motive behind all action?

     The real motive force behind all action is the innate longing for happiness imbedded in human nature. Everyone wants to be happy. Man, in his ignorance, associating this happiness with a certain external condition, state or object, incessantly goes on planning and working to get at that condition, state or object,but in vain.His conception of happiness is limited and is dependent upon the possession of external objects. It is because of this, one goes after wealth, another takes to intoxicating drinks, wrongly thinking that thereby he would be deriving happiness; still another after increasing the borders of his dominion and so on. Every one,in his own way, goes after the object of his heart with a view of experiencing happiness only to get pain in return at every turn.

     We thus see that the one underlying essential motive behind all action is "THE INNATE DESIRE FOR HAPPINESS" imbedded in human nature. This is the ruling passion in life.Man ignorantly imagines, that by getting a particular object or position he would be extremely happy. But when once he comes into possession of the same,he finds to his bitter mortification that after all he had been pursuing a shadow and all the glamour for the same disappears. But he is not to be beaten in his game. Goaded on by the irrepressible inner urge after happiness, he will eagerly clutch at some other object expecting to get at the cherished objective; but alas! only to meet with the same fate as before. He never gives up. The incessant mad rush goes on.

      This desire for happiness is therefore insatiable in its very nature. The more you try to satisfy it, the more it increases. The dissatisfaction is always there. Secondly, this desire for happiness is universal in its nature; for from time immemorial it has been in the heart of each and every living being and it continues to be so hereafter also.

     Hence, we see that this desire for happiness is infinite, insatiable and universal in its essential nature. To quench this basic desire, man in his ignorance , is going after limited, perishable objects of the external world. But the object that is capable of adequately satisfying this infinite, insatiable and universal desire must itself be Infinite and Universal. We know that all the objects in the external physical world are fleeting ,perishable and finite in their very nature.Hence, the dissatisfaction that man experiences whenever he tries to quench his inner thirst with these finite objects.

     Day after day, life after life man searches in vain, in the external world for objects to satisfy his inner thirst for happiness.He is disappointed at every turn. Frustration is written on his face. Gradually he comes to a state of total despair. He even comes to the conclusion that real happiness is not possible in this world. To such a soul the Illumined Ones point out the truth. They give him hope and courage.They assure him that real and lasting happiness is possible for man on earth but not through the finite external objects.

     Man has all along searched for real and lasting happiness outside among perishable objects.The desire to experience a particular type of happiness will not arise unless one had tasted it before, either in this life or in any previous life. Man therefore, must have been once in the possession and enjoyment of infinite and eternal happiness which he is now missing and to regain which, he is vainly searching in the external world. Throughout, his search was confined only to the fleeting and perishable objects of the external world.But in his ignorance he failed to search in the only real seat of happiness that is within,the source from which the desire for happiness has arisen. Without the object, the desire to enjoy that object would not arise.He has seen to his bitter dismay that the object of his happiness cannot be found in the external world.Hence, it must necessarily be within, otherwise,the desire would not have arisen. So, he must direct his attention to the right place, to the source within, to quench his eternal thirst.

     In order, therefore,to satisfy the inner craving for lasting happiness, man has to turn his attention from the externals to the source of all feeling i.e. the Heart, the seat of God's presence within. God is an infinite ocean of Ananda (Bliss). His presence can be directly felt at the core of our being, the Heart. To have communion with this eternal source of lasting happiness , we have to direct all our sense energies within, in an act of self-fulfillment. All the various religious sadhanas are intended to help man in achieving his sole purpose in life, that of coming into possession of Infinite and Eternal Happiness, which is his very birth right. The touch of the Infinite, grants total satisfaction to the Eternal craving in man.

JAI SRI RAM

 

 

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