Happiness
Question:-
Most people appear to think that money and
the things it can buy brings happiness or that the pursuit of pleasure should
be the aim of life. Religions deny this. How can you convince people that they are
wrong? What is the aim of life?
Answer:-
It is true that one must know what the goal
of life is in order to live a rational, intelligent or conscious life. Most
people, however, live an automatic or mechanical life, a sub-conscious one
based on impulse, conditioned reflexes and habit.
The Quran assumes that inherently people seek
happiness, self-fulfilment and peace, defined as Paradise:-
"But O, you soul in peace and
fulfilment! Return unto your Lord, well pleased and well pleasing unto Him!
Enter you amongst My servants, Enter you My Garden (Paradise)!"
89:27-30
The whole of the Quran is concerned with how
to achieve this goal and avoid and avoid self-contradiction and suffering,
Hell.
These instructions are necessary because
human beings tend to live in a world of illusion:-
"Every soul must taste of death; and
you shall only be paid what you have earned on the Day of Resurrection. But he
who is forced away from the Fire and brought into Paradise
is indeed triumphant; but the life of this world is but a possession of
illusion." 3:185
"Leave alone (forsake, abandon) those
who have taken their religion for a play and a sport (jest, amusement), whom
the life of the world has deceived, and remind them hereby lest a soul be
destroyed by what it has earned. It has, beside Allah, no patron or
intercessor; and though it should offer every compensation (or ransom) it will
not be accepted. Those are they who perish by their own deserts. For them is
(the similitude of) a drink of boiling water, and grievous woe because they
persisted in their disbelief." 6:70
"This life of the world is nothing
but a pastime and game (or a sport and a play); but, verily, the abode of the
Hereafter, that is life, if they did but knew! " 29:64
"Know that the life of this world is
only sport and play and idle talk and boasting among yourselves, and a rivalry
in the multiplication of wealth and children; like the vegetation after rain,
whereof the growth pleases the husbandmen; but then it withers away so that you
will see it become yellow, then it becomes dried up and crumbles away; but in
the Hereafter is a severe chastisement and also forgiveness from Allah and His
good pleasure; and the life of this world is naught but means of
deception." 57:20
Most people are not aware that there is a
recently created Science of Happiness. But this is likely to come increasingly
into the public awareness and interest owing to the fact that the illusions and
greed of materialism is not in fact producing happiness but frustration and
discontent. It is also the cause of global environmental problems - pressure on
resources, climate change, pollution, ecological disruption.
In fact, it also reveals that there has been
a serious failure in the global educational system. Seeing that the goal of life
is happiness, there has been nothing in modern secular schools and colleges to
teach people how to achieve this, how to live their lives. Seeing that most
people spend much of their life in marriages and families, there is nothing to
educate people as to how to conduct themselves in these states and gain maximum
benefits for themselves, the society and humanity as a whole. The assumption in
the educational, cultural, political and economic systems still remains that
the most important goal is to increase material wealth and to acquire skills
that will enable people to fit into the industrial machine and increase their
earnings.
Scientific research shows that happiness is
reciprocally connected with wellbeing, each facilitates the other. This can be
tested by the presence of certain chemicals in the blood and the scarcity of
others that are connected with stress.
Extreme poverty certainly causes suffering,
owing to the deprivation of the physical essentials of life, but social and
emotional deprivation and psychological feelings of inadequacy and
worthlessness are also causes. These three can also interact or be
inter-dependent. In such cases the increase in wealth does increase happiness
to a certain level after which the proportional increase in happiness drops
off, and then even tends to become inversely proportional to the increase in
wealth. This is specially so if the pursuit or maintenance of it entails
sacrifices of other things. It was found that many poorer people were much
happier than richer ones. Though the wealth of people in the USA and Europe
increased by a factor of 4, during a certain period of time, the amount of
happiness remained about the same. It was also found that though the income and
productivity of different sets of people was the same, the amount of happiness
varied, owing to differences in the way of life, value systems, family and
social relationships, self-image and stresses connected attitudes such as
dominance and competition.
The causes for unhappiness or the failure of
happiness to increase with striving appear to be the following inter-dependent
factors:-
(1) Familiarity - People get used to
anything. When people acquire wealth through legitimate efforts, or
illegitimate means, or through "windfalls" such as gambling or
inheritance, they transfer from a modest home to a luxurious mansion and their
life style changes, then after an initial excitement they get used to it. The
change in life-style often brings new conditions to which they have difficulty
in adapting and new stresses. In general, there is greater satisfaction to be
had from earned wealth than unearned, and even less from illegitimately
acquired wealth.
(2) Comparison, envy and rivalry - We do not
think in absolute but in relative terms, by comparing and contrasting. One has
to know things to want them and seek them. These three are often connected.
People living in poorer communities are content with less than people living in
richer communities. The same people when transferred from poorer to richer
surroundings become much more discontent. They feel inferior to those who are
richer and the richer feel superior. This tends cause the arising of barriers
between people for which they are forced to compensate often in bizarre manner.
(3) Ingratitude and dissatisfaction - As new
things and improved models are continually produced, people become dissatisfied
with what they have. Conversely, dissatisfaction with present conditions
stimulate the efforts to make improvements. All things when looked at closely
have advantages as well as disadvantages, but different minds concentrate
attention on one at the expense of the other.
(4) Lack of meaning - Human beings are aware
of the greater world with which they interact and on which they are dependent. They
see themselves as part of something greater with respect to which they have a
function. They like to have a purpose in life which gives their activities
significance and themselves value. It is interest, love for something, that
also gives hope and faith and maintains vitality.
(5) Illusions - (a)
In Games and Sports, apart from the benefits of exercise and cultivation of
skills, there is great excitement connected with such things as scoring goals,
but this make no real difference to anything, and the excitement soon vanes
often being replaced with its opposite. It becomes necessary to constantly seek
further sources of illusory satisfaction and to maintain the illusion by
rationalisation. (b) The price of the original works of art by famous Masters is
very high though the aesthetic value may be no different from other pieces of
art or reproductions. This is because more wealthy people want it and they want
it because it is expensive and can be used as investment or to impress their
friends. We have a self-maintaining vicious circle. The price of gold appears
to be high for the same reason. (c) Labour saving technologies are sough,
invented and purchased on the grounds that this will release time for the
pursuit of more valuable interests and for the enjoyment of life. But to
purchase these products more time must be spent earning the necessary money.
This is done by doing the research and development, gathering the raw
materials, transporting them to the factories, creating the factory and the
machines, manufacturing the products, distributing them, transporting the
workers from and to the factory that also makes the means of transport
necessary, organising all this, and repairing the equipment. The amount of work
tends to increase rather than decrease. To a large extent, therefore, (d) To
this must be added the cost of dealing with the side-effects, the
psychological, social and environmental consequences. The waste products and
pollutants have to be dealt with. A regimented self-centred society tends to be
created that suffers from various kinds of neurosis, sociopathy, criminality
and vandalism, escapism in alcohol, drugs, perversions and extreme forms of
excitement and hysterical behaviour, psychosomatic and organic diseases,
breakdown of families, violence and abuse of women and children. The cost of
these malfunctions is never reflected in the cost of the goods. (e) There are
several conventions and institutions that run human affairs which are mainly
concerned with self-maintenance rather than creating any benefits to man. The
Economic, Political and Cultural system are to a large machines of this type
over which human beings have little control, but which control human beings.
(6) The formation of habits, addictions,
obsessions, attachments, and greed - Whereas we need foods of certain kinds in
certain quantities and proportions to live a healthy life, we tend to eat when
it is time to eat or because of the smell or taste and in quantities and
proportions that are not related to needs. We can also form habits or
addictions to objects, actions, modes of behaviour, inner states such as
emotions or ideas, self-produced chemicals such as adrenalin. There are three
kinds of motives:- (a) True needs (b) True Values and (c) Desire for things
beyond need or value.
(7) Perversions of natural tastes - e.g.
Bitter things usually repel but people have acquired tastes for them. People
generally avoid pain and have sympathy for others because they can identify
with other people or even living things, but they can develop masochism and
sadism, and even become addicted to pain and suffering. This can happen owing
to inner contradictions or guilt feelings that need to be paid for or because a
feeling of worth and self-importance is connected with the idea of martyrdom.
(8) Pursuit of means rather than ends. The
means become the ends and the original goals or reasons are forgotten. Pleasure
and pain are indicators of what is right or wrong, but not the goal. They
attract to one goal and repel from the opposite. But when they become goals
then they into their opposites and harm the person. Eating too many sweets, for
instance, can rot teeth or cause diseases. Striving for and achieving something
often requires overcoming difficulties, discomfort and pain. This would be prevented
by the strong desire to avoid pain. The point of interest is that things that
lead to pleasure or pain.
(9) Irrational thinking:- (a) One often hears
the argument: "I would rather be miserable and rich than poor and
happy." As the purpose of all pursuits, including wealth, is to achieve
happiness, this assertion makes no sense. (b) People have unfulfilled
expectations and ideas about their rights that are unconnected with duties and
what is deserved. (c) There are desire for things irrespective of whether they
are required or fulfil a need or function. Striving for these wastes effort and
energy that could be more usefully employed.
(10) Mass advertisement, propaganda, cultural
conditioning, Government policies, industrial interests, desires and interests
created by the media, all these conspire to cultivate a network of illusion
which traps the general population, including those who propagate these,
thereby creating a vicious circle.
It follows that in order to achieve happiness
one must avoid and counteract these sources of malfunction and misery. It is
not difficult to find these factors mentioned in the literature of all genuine
religions.
In general
happiness is achieved when people have the following often interdependent
factors:-
(1) The basic
necessities of life, not too little or too much because there are always
advantages and disadvantages associated with all things and the relationship
between these changes with increase or decrease in quantity.
(2) Greater
autonomy and control over their own affairs rather than being controlled by
others or circumstances, but this needs to be balanced with cooperation.
(3) Freedom from
diseases, disabilities, obsessions, addictions, and inner or outer compulsions,
but guidelines and standards are also needed.
(4) Absence of
inner self-contradictions balanced with self-discipline.
(5) They are part
of a close-knit family where security, love and mutual respect prevail and a
degree of independence exists.
(6) They belong to
a harmonious community of mutually co-operative and friendly people that is
well structured with known rules of interaction and where authority is balanced
with respect for person; communalism is balanced with privacy and conformity
with individualism.
(7) They are in
harmony with their environment but exert responsible control.
(8) They have a
function, purpose and goal in life and adequate ability to achieve some successes.
(9) They have a
satisfactory idea of self or self-image which gives them significance without
making unrealistic demands.
(10) They have a
set of values, attitudes, world-view, outlook on life, a philosophy and an
appropriate set of practices, in other words, a religion that promotes
adaptation to Reality, to change and the ability to cope with adversity and
misfortune as well as prosperity and good-fortune.
One could describe people as being
enlightened, civilised or conscious in proportion to the degree to which they
have achieved awakening, the religious or spiritual goal. This judgement is, of
course, made from the spiritual not the secular point of view.
Critic:-
This identifies the fundamental problematic
in all "societies" in the sense that the "spiritual"
presupposition demands that material (i.e. concerned with worldly rather than
spiritual interests) politics be taken out of equation. Which raises the
question, is it pragmatically feasible to take the politics out of Islam?
Comment:-
It has been explained again and again,
several times that Islam does not make a distinction between the Spiritual and
the Material or Physical, but does make a distinction between the spiritual and
the worldly, between the real and the illusionary.
Islam deals with life in a unified manner so
that it also has political, economic, cultural, ethical, scientific,
philosophic and psychological aspects.
The Islamic System is to be distinguished
from the Worldly System. There is a Straight
Way from the Worldly System (WS) to the Islamic
System (IS).
Those of us who pray ask several times a
day:-
"...Lead us to the Straight Path, the
path of those whom Thou hast favoured, not the path of those who earn Thy wrath
or those who go astray."
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