Mad people seem happy in their own world – are they really happy?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you.
So we need to control our senses to be happy because we have so many desires. But if somebody is mentally unstable, is lost in one’s own mental world, they don’t seem to have any desires. And they seem to be happy in their own world.
So are they actually happy? Quite often, we equate happiness with a present or a temporary state of being. But the temporary state of being alone doesn’t comprise happiness. It’s like a person may drink.
And after drinking, they may be enjoying life. But how long? They think they are enjoying, but afterwards, the hangover is going to come. When the hangover hits, it’s going to be consequent, there’s going to be misery.
So we can’t just isolate the present from the past or the future. And we think based on the present state itself, we define who is happy or who is not happy. So a state of drunken intoxication is not pleasure, although it may appear temporary.
Similarly, a person who has lost control over one’s mental faculties, and a person living in an imaginary world. So they may seem to not have cravings, they are lost in their mental world. But that itself is not pleasure.
Why? Because that also is a temporary state. They are also souls. And they are living in physical bodies right now.
But this life is temporary. And they’re not going to live in this way forever. There is a future life.
And wherever based on the way they are living, that future destination is going to be accordingly determined. That’s the first point that the present state is not necessarily the permanent state of happiness, and it’s not authentic happiness at all, even if it appears to be happiness. Second thing is that even people who are mentally unstable, it is not that all of them are all the time lost happily in their own world.
There are just I’m coming from Melbourne. So one of our programs is Australian nurse, she had been coming from a program, she’s been asked for 20-25 years. She read one of my articles and then she came to Melbourne temple.
She came to me and said that she has been especially the mental health. She’s a nurse for mental health. And she says that these people who are mentally unstable, they go through wild mood swings.
And they just appear to be so happy that you may feel that they’re happier than me. But the next day, they just become violent. And it’s one thing if they become violent against others, then you know, maybe a number of people are required to control.
But it’s quite another, they may become violent against themselves. So often, just they become suicidal, they become maniac, and they need to be affected. So it’s not even if somebody who’s mentally unstable, or mentally lost right now seems to be happy, that’s not necessarily the state always.
Even within that state also, there are various moods in which a person goes through. So the third thing is that for us as souls, the primary goal is not to control our senses, or to control our desires. The primary goal is to direct our desires, is to direct our senses.
In 2.61, he says that how do we control the senses? By fixing the consciousness on them. The point is not just to control the senses. The point is to direct our heart towards Krishna.
The senses, they drag us in various directions, wherein they promise pleasure, but in the end, they give us pain. So that’s why we say control the senses, because then unnecessarily, if a person thinks, I’ll eat and be happy, but then they eat a lot, and then they get all kinds of diseases. So control your eating.
So excessive indulgence in the senses, that causes miseries, even at a material, or to speak of a spiritual perspective. But if we make our goal itself controlling the senses, that is not a very stimulating or satisfying goal, because that is primarily based on negation. Don’t do this, don’t do this, don’t do this.
We may, even if we succeed, it’s difficult to succeed, but even if we succeed, there is no satisfaction in not doing something. So the point of the Bhagavad Gita is that our dissatisfaction is not caused by our attachment to worldly things, our sufferings, our bondage, it is not caused by our attachment to worldly things. Our suffering is caused by our attachment from Krishna.
So to the extent we become attached to Krishna, to that extent, we become happy. In 5.20 in the Gita, Krishna says that one with intelligence is steady. The person knows spiritual reality and the person is actually situated in spiritual reality.
And the next verse says, By contact with Brahma, by contact with the spiritual reality, which is Krishna, that is the ultimate happiness. And for gaining that ultimate happiness, one is detached from external pleasures. So we need both.
We need to control senses, but if we again, as I said, one extreme is to think that I need material things to become happy. The other extreme is the same material mentality, I need to give up material things to be happy. That is also not the solution.
There are three broad margas, paths given in the Vedic literature. One is the Karma Marga, the other is the Gyan Marga, and the third is the Bhakti Marga. On the Karma Marga, people romanticize the world.
If I get this, if I get that, if I get that, oh my life will be so wonderful. So in Karma, people romanticize the world. In Jnana, people demonize the world.
This is a place of entanglement, this is a place of misery, this is a place of danger. Painted in the darkest, dreariest, most negative colors. But in Bhakti, we utilize the world.
We don’t romanticize it, we don’t demonize it, we utilize it. So our senses, if we think that they are sources of pleasure, that will cause us misery. But if we think that they are the sources of misery, and therefore I have to absolutely control, dominate them, that is also not sustainable, that is not going to give us any satisfaction.
But we utilize our senses. The senses and the ability that we have, and the physically, they are all meant to be used in a mode of service. And to the extent we use them in a mode of service, to that extent, we gain satisfaction.
So the mentally unstable people cannot do this. And that is why although they may appear temporarily to be happy, it is basically an illusion. Just as a person who is intoxicated may think that they are happy.
But that is not going to last for long. So rather than just looking at surface appearance and thinking that are they better or are they better, we need to understand that happiness is essentially inner harmonization with our essential nature. And that happens when we practice bhakti.
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