Finding happiness through desire management – 1| Youth | Boston
Detach from oneself detach from oneself what do you mean by detach from oneself? detach from all the variable things all the bodily things, material things so which is highly variable which will change the next day so trying to find something so then that's true detachment from bodily things but how would you say detach from oneself? what do you mean by that? just seeing this body as a material that we are using ok, oneself means you are talking about physical self yes, detach from bodily things is a we have we have a particular phone, we have a particular car we have a particular dress and then the world is always alluring us buy this, wear this enjoy this and then that constant craving for more can often keep us dissatisfied so if you just detach I don't want to bother about this there are many you may know this better than me there are many CEOs of big companies they just wear the same dress everyday so why? because they just don't want their mental energy to be caught in ok, what does time mean? how are people perceiving me? which window covers? that doesn't mean it has to be known for everyone but the point is that, ok, that level of detachment frees us for thinking of other things in life yes, detachment from material and bodily things thank you ok so these are all very good points and thank you for sharing them let's try to see if we can put all this in a framework my name is Sriram my name is Sriram and I am from Northeastern University and what I feel is happiness apart from all this is following certain rules and regulations because we were from a very young age, we were taught to stay in a lifestyle so when we are able to follow a discipline, follow certain rules and regulations that kind of makes us feel happy I don't know how can you give an example of how following rules can make you happy? right suppose we are asked to follow some regulations for example like not eating meat not having, I mean following a lifestyle not eating meat not having any illicit, doing any illicit things, not having intoxication etc. that's something prescribed by successful people so when we are following that we feel happy because we are following a lifestyle I don't know how you can put it a regulated lifestyle it is you know it is in the bible the first sentence in the beginning was the word the word was with God and the word was God that's the first sentence of that there is an atheistic gag to that the gag is like a joke in the beginning was the word and the word was no no means you can't do this, you can't do that you can't do that, you shouldn't do this, you shouldn't do that so in fact many people think of the rules as as happiness deprivers you know and our religion is all filled with kill joys and spoil sports it does not do all the things that we suppose we can enjoy, it will not do this so that is one way of looking at it and that's why the idea of rules as the means to happiness might be radically provocative or negative but at the same time there is some truth to it that when we are regulated then the constant agitation that comes by having almost unlimited options because if I have a regulated lifestyle, this time I sleep, this time I wake up then there is there is some difficulty when you wake up at the time you decide to wake up but overall that frees us for doing other meaningful things, otherwise if you don't have a regulated lifestyle, everyday we wake up you know, we decide to wake up at this time and we wake up a little later and we beat ourselves up I am so lazy, my time is so much time or we wake up early and throughout the day we keep sleeping so in some sense we could say like financial freedom that if money is not a big issue, then we can actually do things which bring us happiness so like that it has a baseline set for our life ok, this is the food I eat this is the time I sleep, this is the way I do my body activities then we can my regular activities then I can pursue happiness ok, thank you so so these are all very good points as I said so I talk about this based on, I talk about happiness broadly based on four verses from the Bhagavad Gita and we talk about certain principles of happiness principles for helping us attain happiness so first of all, happiness the Gita says it is not monolithic monolithic means it is only of one kind happiness can be broadly trilateral trilateral means three kinds of happiness so the point is that how people are defining happiness that itself is important once two friends were going for a party to drink and they were drinking and one friend said to the other person actually, you know you have drunk a lot of emotional stuff he said no, there is no problem drinking is not a good idea, it is a great idea and he kept drinking and then eventually next morning when he woke up this person woke up and he heard his friend, the person will be telling his friend don't drink so much he woke up and he heard his friend muttering to himself I knew it was a terrible idea eventually he went to his friend and said that hey I told you drinking so much was a terrible idea he said no drinking was a great idea just waking up was a terrible idea so broadly the Gita talks about two kinds of happiness I am going to three, but let's focus on two right now the third we will just briefly mention it talks about this in 1837 and 1838 let's look at these verses so let's see what 1837 says you can recite after me I will tell the meaning and then you will recite yathagagre that is in the beginning vishamiva visha is like poison yathagagre vishamiva pariname pariname is the prosaic amrutopam is compared to nectar it feels like nectar pariname amrutopam pariname amrutopam tatsukham that happiness is sattvikam proktam it's in the mood of goodness it is uplifting elevating happiness tatsukham sattvikam proktam tatsukham sattvikam proktam atma buddhi atma buddhi is self intelligence intelligence that is that comes from the self that is aware of the self atma buddhi prasad prasad means it is a result jam means it is born so this happiness also while we are getting that happiness we get more and more self intelligence we become our self understanding increases atma buddhi prasadam atma buddhi prasadam let's recite it together together yathagagre vishamiva pariname amrutopam tatsukham sattvikam proktam atma buddhi prasadam So now, what is Krishna saying over here? That there is some happiness which feels like poison in the egg but it is like nectar in the egg.
So, consider if we want to learn a new language. You know, we come to America, most of you know English. That's a new education.
But, say, if you go to a part of the world where where it's a country, if you go to Canada and a part of Canada, French is spoken. Now, everybody speaks French over there. Learning a new language takes effort.
But, after we learn that language, there is so much ease of communication. So, if that language is what everybody communicates with. So, it's so much easier.
Like, if we are physically not very fit, then exercising, it is not very pleasant. But if somebody does that, then they become fit, they have more energy, they have better health, and that makes life so much more fun. So, basically, there are activities which can upgrade vision people, which initially don't feel good, but eventually, they leap to an output.
Like, we could consider education itself an activity like that. As kids, we may not want to study. But then, if we do study, then there is a bright side of learning later.
A good, meaningful career in the future. So, this is one kind of happiness, which is in the Urvishapasana mode of goodness. Let's look at the other kind of happiness now.
So, Vishay Indriya Sanyogar. Vishay is the sense-objects. Indriya is the senses.
Sanyogar. Sanyogar is by the contact of the two of them. Vishay Indriya Sanyogar.
Vishay Indriya Sanyogar. Yathagagre. That is in the beginning.
Amritoham. So, Vishay Indriya Sanyogar is similar to Amrit. But it is that which initially feels like Nithya.
Yathagagre Amritoham. Yathagagre Amritoham. Pariname.
But the result is Vishyam Deva. It feels like… It becomes like poison, literally. Pariname Vishyam Deva Pariname Vishyam Deva Tatsukham Rajasamskrutam That happiness is in Prajugam.
In the world, actually. Let's recite this together once. Sorry, not this time.
Last time you can say. Tatsukham Rajasamskrutam Tatsukham Rajasamskrutam Together. Together the full verse.
Vishay Indriya Sanyogar Yathagre Amritoham Pariname Vishyam Deva Tatsukham Rajasamskrutam Let's look at this. So, what is exactly the opposite? It's like Nithya, literally. But poison in the end.
So, many things fall in this category. Say… Somebody just sits and watches TV. Or just surfs on social media.
It's enjoyable. Okay, I'm watching this, I'm eating this. It's enjoyable, enjoyable.
But after some time, you may spend hours very frustrated, right? It's so miserable. We eat food, it's enjoyable. But if you just keep palpating on food, then eventually, we feel heavy and we feel lethargic.
And then we become we become dysfunctional. Our energy goes down. So, it's not very healthy.
So, there is, there's not a state of happiness. There is basically these two broad kinds of pleasures. So, most of you, when you talked about the sources of happiness, it is clear that most of you didn't talk about if you consider services or expectations, the content of people, many of these things, they would fall in which of these categories? The first or the second? You don't have to say which is the first.
First is the right one. But the point is, I say if you want to pursue our passion, you can expand your passion and your purpose. Do something which will make our loved ones happy.
Now, it's not easy. Here in America, you could just have fun and party over here. But if you want to, if you want to really make our loved ones happy, then we need to study, we need to become responsible.
And then, that requires accepting this idea of poison in the beginning. Poison in the beginning, then create. So, one of the key things with respect to the pursuit for pleasure is that most of the pleasure that the world glamorises falls in the first, in the category of nectar in the beginning, poison in the end.
Most of the pleasure, I say, there is so much. If you just go to a supermarket, you just want to take some snacks, there are hundreds of snacks out there. And, you want a snack, and then you get a snack attack.
You know, you see this, you see this, stuff like that. There are so many beings in the image, often, this is the paradox over here, that the search for happiness is often the cause of unhappiness. The search for happiness itself becomes the cause of unhappiness.
Now, the easiest example of this very broad example, almost universal, alarmingly, widely prevalent example here, the very things we seek for happiness, they end up giving us unhappiness. Can you think of what it is? Food. Food? Excess food.
Excess food. Excess food, yeah, that's true. But, if we go further, what is a, one of the big, one of the very widely prevailing problems in today's world, especially among youth.
Drugs. Drugs, yeah. So, what is the exact example? Cocaine.
Yes. is it not? What is it? I'm perfectly fine. There's nothing wrong here.
It's like, you can have smaller, like, if you smoke from, you know, some people laugh with us, some people laugh at us, and some people just laugh. But, I was talking about, say, if you talk about, what is it? Drugs. Now, drugs, a subcategory of drugs would be cocaine.
Now, drugs could be an example of intoxication. And, that intoxication itself leads to a behavioural pattern, which is disruptive. What do you call a behavioural pattern? Anger.
Anger. Okay, yes, somebody started from here only. No, no, some, okay, generally somebody takes drugs, somebody takes alcohol, what is the likely danger they'll go into? Addiction.
Addiction, yes. The addiction is a, you could say, it's a classic and tragic example. Classic in the sense that it is, it illustrates that class in a very vivid way.
And it's that nobody needs to take alcohol, nobody needs to smoke, nobody needs to take drugs. Unless, of course, they have some particular predispositive diseases and some particular kind of drugs are supposed to help them do that. Nobody needs to take drugs.
So, this is an example of an activity that we do for seeking happiness. So, the very thing that we do for happiness, the search for happiness itself becomes the cause of happiness, unhappiness. This is a tragic, this is a, it's almost like the reverse effect principle.
What we seek is what we, is the opposite of what we get. And the path of happiness, at this point, is talked about that many times, now if you do analyse, there are different kinds of things we perceive. And there are times when we realise that the thing that I sought, no, I thought it will give me happiness.
Normally, it did not give me happiness. It has actually got me into trouble. When somebody's got into some kind of addiction, then this is very easily understandable.
But even if they're not got into addiction, we see that. I'll give you an example, food, not so much food, but excessive food. Why do we eat excessive food? It's primarily because we want to be happy.
So, but then that itself can lead to some health consequences which we cannot handle. So this is the, this is the great puzzle, trap, mystery, whatever word you want to use for it, that the very things we seek for happiness, they end up making us unhappy. When this happens, there are different responses that people may have.
And this will bring us to another verse of the Bhagavad Gita. But generally, when we seek something, so let's take two different categories. Like we could say, what we seek for happiness.
So we could put these in different categories. Those which are unnecessary. So for example, drugs or alcohol.
That's completely unnecessary. We seek for happiness and that leads us to unhappiness. That's one category.
Now another major source of unhappiness, especially in youth, even traumatic unhappiness. Heartbreaking unhappiness. What is that? Relationships.
So now, if we consider at one level, relationships. Now are relationships unnecessary? Well, well, we could say that in principle, we do need relationships. Isn't it? Let's take another example, food.
Now food is necessary. Isn't it? Without food, we can't live. So sometimes the things we seek for happiness, we, even if we don't need them at all, and we crave for them and they make us happy, or we seek the things that are necessary, but we seek them excessively.
So excessively is eating too much food. Or we may seek them inappropriately. Inappropriate is a big word.
Many ways it can be inappropriate. So for example, we eat food which is, we may not eat excessively, but we eat at a place where something is, things are not cooked properly. Or we eat food itself, which is, somebody may eat meat, and they may not eat it excessively, but they just eat meat, and that leads to some problems.
So even the necessary, when it is sought excessively, and necessary, when it is sought inappropriately. So people get into relationships and sometimes the other person may be, may be exploitative, the other person may be deceptive, the other person might be, it's too disturbing, whatever it is. Then the other person might get unreliable, whatever it is.
It leads to problems. But the principle is, the search for happiness itself can very well lead us to unhappiness. Is this principle intelligible to all of you what I am saying, the search for happiness leading us to unhappiness? Anyone has any objections to this point? Now, but there is objection.
Isn't it? There is always objection because we are, what is the obvious objection to this? If we are seeking for happiness then why are we getting unhappiness? Yes. So, it's a good question. So, if the search for happiness leads us to unhappiness, then why is it happening? And what are we meant to do? Are we going to stop looking for happiness? That is not philosophical at all.
How can we stop searching for happiness? That is not, we cannot live with. So, let's look at this principle now. In the session, we will, I will go on for 25-30 minutes and then you can ask a question, answer a question.
With all, we will keep having interactions. But, here, this principle of, when we look, the search for happiness leads to unhappiness. Let's try to unpack this principle a little bit.
Why might this happen? For this, let's go to another verse from the Bhagavad Gita. This is 5.22. Anyone know what 5.22 is? So, I know the verse. Yehi samsparshja bhoga So, Krishna says, Yehi, is certainly samsparshja, samsparshja is contact, born from, samsparshja bhoga, the pleasure.
Yehi samsparshja bhoga Yehi samsparshja bhoga Dukha yonaya evate. Dukha is, distress. Yonaya, yonaya is, the womb.
Evate, certainly it is. It is the womb of distress. Dukha yonaya evate.
Dukha yonaya evate. Aadhya antavandaha Aadhya is, beginning and end. Kaunteya, oh Arjuna, it has a beginning and end.
Aadhya antavandaha kaunteya Aadhya antavandaha kaunteya No, Teshu, not in that. Ramati, delight. Dukha, the wise people.
So, Krishna said the wise people do not delight in such things. Na teshu ramate budha Na teshu ramate budha So, let's try to do it together once. Yehi samsparshja bhoga Yehi samsparshja bhoga Yehi Dukha yonaya evate Aadhya antavandaha kaunteya Na teshu ramate budha So here, let's try to depict this, what Krishna is saying.
There are the senses and then there are the sense objects. And, Krishna is saying there is a contact between them. So now, the contact between the senses and the sense objects, this, gives pleasure.
So, we eat some food, that food is the object, the tongue is the sense, and then when that food comes on our tongue, then it gives you some pleasure. But Krishna is saying that this whole process leads to pain. That, this whole process leads to pain.
Now let's see how that might happen. At the first level, there are multiple possibilities. First level is, that the sense object might itself be unattainable.
Isn't it? Say, we want to eat some food, but, we come to a, we go to a particular hotel to eat that food, and somehow that is not on their menu. Or, we come to a event and get to this particular efficacy of Gulab Jamun, we don't drink the Gulab Jamun. And then, that is not on their menu.
That is not on their menu. And we feel dissatisfied. I was in a college, and there was a boy, he had a T-shirt.
The T-shirt was quote, I am amazed at how unconscious people are of what is written on their T-shirts. If we have the T-shirts, it is, maybe they are textually unconscious, not because of the text. So this college student, there is, his T-shirt is written, 90% of the world's women are beautiful.
The remaining 10% are in my college. Laughter So, now, what this means is that, the, the most attractive objects, often, they are unaware people. And, this gets aggravated by the media nowadays.
We have, when we see people, attractive people, they are basically, first of all, they are physically, there is physical makeup, and then there is digital Photoshop makeup. Laughter And then, so, quite often those people in real life don't look anywhere as attractive as they are in their pictures. But even if they were attractive, so, the attractive objects, they are available, not so much.
So, somebody may want a very elegant, very expensive car, as a statement of how to the media, but it's not so easy if somebody don't want a mansion to live in. So we all want sense objects. The first problem is that they might be just unattractive.
And that's just that, not having those keeps us unhappy. Constantly craving and not getting it, it keeps us unhappy. And, this is in one sense, the desire, when we have it, and then we don't have the object.
Then naturally it's unhappy, truthfully our goals make us happy. So, if we have a particular desire and we don't have it, then naturally the happiness is destroyed. So, the second problem is that we don't get the object.
Now, the second is that we get it, but lose it afterwards. We get it, but it doesn't stay with us. Somebody gets a great amount of wealth, but then they lose it.
And that fear is always there. So, if it's unattainable, there is dissatisfaction, there is frustration because of that. Now, if it is unattainable, that I get it, but I can't keep it, then there is anxiety.
When may I lose it? When may I lose it? And this is a big big concern for anybody who has something enjoyed. What if I lose it? The more money somebody has, then if I lose it, it's a nightmare for me. Now, the third is so basically we get the object, it doesn't stay with us.
It goes away. Now, the third is that it is unfulfilling. Unfulfilling means even when I get it and even when it is with me, but still it does not live up to my expectations.
And those thwarted expectations that itself leads to unhappiness. That itself leads to distress. as they say, love is blind, but marriage is an eye-opener.
So, what happens is that we create a fantasy power in which we place a person who we love. But then, when we actually interact in a relationship with that person, then we see the various other sides of the person. It's not as great as you want it to be.
Now, this is not to say that this whole thing is to be condemned, but if it is unfulfilling, then it leads to disappointment. And we have to live with constant disappointment. And many of us may have experience of this.
Say, when you came to America, to study over here, you are among the brightest students from India. Millions and millions of students. And for all of them, there's a dream that you come to America.
You go to America and study over there. And you get an American degree. And it's certainly a lot of work hard you came here.
But then, after coming to America, what happens? Okay. Maybe when you go back to India, we are welcomed and we are treated and become special. Actually, we were treated 20 years ago.
Now, Indians in America have become quite common. 20 years ago, actually, when I was young, my uncle was among the He was among the first, say, 5,000-10,000 people came to America in the 1970s. At that time, not many people were there.
So, basically, American immigration opened in 1965. In 1965, the rules were quite strict. And then, after that, there was a flow of people coming in.
So, anyway, when he came here, when he would come back from America to India, at that time, I saw an entire family treated him like he was like a cosmonaut returning from outer space. You were treated like a super celebrity. Does this happen to you when you go to India? Even if you are a celebrity, you go back to India.
So, yes, there is something special about it. But while you are here in America, well, okay, life goes on. We still have our daily challenges.
There might be more comfort in some places over here. Life is more convenient. But then I can also be more lonely when we get away from our family and our loved ones.
There are complications. We all have things which we crave for, we long for, we get them. But after getting them, we say, this didn't really make me happy.
Or it didn't make me as happy as I thought it would. For me, my childhood dream was to be to be an academy achiever. So, in India, we use the word topper.
In America, if you use the word topper, you'll be a topper. I like topping, but I hate topping. The word topper is not really familiar in American academy.
So, I spoke about this incident. I want to be an academy topper. Somebody asked me, you know, what is a topper? I thought it would be some special kind of cake.
So, it didn't really make sense to me. There's a whole genre of English called Indian English, which is quite different from the way people speak in America and elsewhere. In India, we use for the event of marrying.
The event is wedding. We often use wedding and marriage interchangeably. My marriage is in Mumbai.
My marriage is in India. So, will you come for my marriage? You said that you're an American person. You want to come and stay with you in your married life? Come for the wedding, not for the marriage.
There are differences in vocabulary. My dream in life was to be a topper. I was always good in my studies.
And I was always among the top students, but somehow I was never the first. I was second, third, sometimes joined first. One time I had come first, but somehow the teacher had done some wrong assessment.
And that's why I came second. I pointed out to the teacher, because she was a new teacher. I said, you know, what I've done is right.
And she said to me, this is the first exam that I've graded. And if the first and second student had changed, it would be very embarrassing for me. So, I was… It was very difficult for me to write it down, but I said, okay.
So then I gave my GRE when I was studying engineering. And since my childhood, one of my hobbies was just memorising words. I was quite good in English.
And that's often the challenge for Indians when they study GRE. We still have all the three subjects in GRE. Math, logic, aptitude, and English.
Quant and quant. Quant. Quantitative aptitude and English.
Verbal. So, quite often for Indians, the verbal is a little difficult. Others were quite good.
But anyways, I did quite well in GRE. And I was first, not just in my college, but in my entire university. The history of my college, I was first.
And when I got the marks here, I was elated. I saw the marks. Yahoo! But then, after some time, I realised that, hey, just looking at this marks doesn't make me happy.
It doesn't make me happy all very long. What is there in this after some time? So, basically, that I realised, okay, it's only when some people congratulate me that I'm happy. And then, for some time, in my college, I was celebrated.
Everybody over my junior year was congratulating me. But somehow, it happened that three of my friends, one after another, forgot to congratulate me. And when the first friend forgot to congratulate me, I was unhappy.
What's going on? I seem to forget. Am I not expressing my congratulations? When the second friend forgot to congratulate me, I was irritated. Just like, seemingly.
And then, by the time the third person didn't congratulate me, I was enraged. But, I didn't notice how pathetic it was. I asked him, why are you not congratulating me? So, at that time, it has left almost as if I had a out-of-body experience.
My consciousness was going down, it was getting more and more dissatisfied. It was almost as if, I look at myself from above. I said, wait a minute.
You thought that becoming a topper will make you happy? And yet, here you've done this. And instead of becoming happy, you have only become more dependent for your happiness on others. And, you, now, need other people to congratulate you.
If they don't, then, rather than being happy, you're actually being unhappy. That's when I started thinking, seriously, as I was looking ahead in my life, is it whatever I wanted to achieve, I could come to America, I could do various things, and, you know, I might get into Ivy League University, I might publish some papers in big journals, I might get some awards. Does that really make me happy? Or will it make me still dependent on my happiness on others? And that's what made me start thinking, what should I do for my happiness? So, this external when we seek some objects for our happiness, even if we don't get them, if we get them, we can't keep them.
If we keep them, still, they're not as great as we thought they would be. And that's how the happiness from there, the search for happiness, ends up in unhappiness. Now, of course, here we're not even talking about how getting an academic degree does not lead us to unhappiness.
Getting some academic accolades doesn't itself lead to unhappiness. Taking drugs itself causes unhappiness. So, that's why we talk about these two different activities of things.
The things which are unnecessary, those activities themselves can cause unhappiness. We already, in one sense, ruled this out. But even among the things that are necessary, things that are still desirable, when we keep them, we can really bring happiness to us.
They become the sources of unhappiness. So, what do we do? What is the solution? This whole thing, this discussion about unattainable, unattainable, unfulfilling. So, this principle of this verse from the Bhagavad Gita, that can be summarised in one acronym.
And that acronym is time. So, I'll centre this class on two acronyms. The first one, that time is the pleasure that we get.
It is ever. Even if we get it, it doesn't last forever. Then, it is insubstantial.
That even if we get it, and while we have it, still it is not as good as we thought it would be. And it is invisible. That it is invisible.
Invisible means that this thing could be intrinsic. Intrinsic means that the activity leads to invisibility. Or it could be extrinsic.
Extrinsic means that we the fallout of it is that it doesn't give us satisfaction as we thought. And when we use it, eventually it is invisible. So, temporary, illusory, invisible.
And then, the last part is it becomes exhaustive. Exhaustive means some of you may have heard of this being on the treadmill. A treadmill, as exercise, it is good.
But suppose you are on a treadmill, you may never get out of the treadmill. Then, the head, the treadmill will become exhaustive. So, when life starts giving you this treadmill, they have done this, now I have to do that, I have to do that, and I have to do that.
And our whole life seems to be a treadmill from which we cannot get out. And, okay, now I have to change this job, now I have to win this race, now I have to do that to this person, I have to do this, I have to do that, and people sometimes just switch off. It is so chaotic that it just becomes exhausting.
Heavens always seems to be out there somewhere. So, these are four distinct characteristics that exhausting means, okay, I got this, but did I get that? You know, okay, I got a house this big, when I get that big a house, then I will be happy. Sometimes what happens is, if somebody is in, somebody who we know is in distress, say some friend we have, they don't have a job, and they are in distress, then it is very easy to feel empathy for them.
When somebody is in distress, you can feel empathy. You know, if somebody is in a relationship and their relationship breaks apart, they use the word break up, but mostly it is a break down. There is no pop up.
So, it actually is a breakdown. But, when that happens, say another person is unhappy, and then it is very easy to be empathic. But the situation is changed.
They get a job, and they get a job better than us. Then, it is like, I want you to be happy, but not happier than me. So, why not? I will get something better than you.
So, it just becomes an exhausting thing. So, many of the things that we seek for happiness, they end up leading to our unhappiness. So, this each of us needs to take inventory of what are the things that I am pursuing, and are those things themselves becoming the causes of unhappiness for me.
The search for happiness, the search for happiness becomes the cause of unhappiness. Can you repeat this with me? The search for happiness becomes the cause of unhappiness. Now, of course, this does not mean.