Special people always travel in our hearts

Dear Viji
There is something so sweet and endearing about this post of yours, I cannot quite put my finger to it. Though it has faint echoes of wistfulness and a subtle shadow of sadness .
Sometimes one gets the feeling of being smothered by a nothingness that threatens to drown one, as in murky waters. And one gasps and claws to clutch at a passing reed or a hesitant root to raise one’s head out of the water and draw a lungful of rejuvenating air. When life bogs us down, we clutch at philosophies about the “meaning” and “purpose” of life to steady ourselves. All that is but momentary balm. Can we really ever claim to have understood the Reason, Meaning and Purpose of Life ? All we have are thoughts and theories of sages and thinkers to guide us by, but most of the time we end up with more questions than clarifications…………
Emerson’s verse, which you have quoted, is a virtuous, politically-correct, aphoristic hand-me-down piece of wisdom that will sound nice in a Sunday school. I doubt if he himself believed in it implicitly. It only preaches What Life Ought To Be. Not what life, usually, is. And , being of a more oriental bent of mind, I certainly cannot agree with him that the purpose of Life is not to be happy. Pursuit of Happiness is the ultimate goal of all created beings. Thomas Aquinas said “ All men agree in desiring the last end, which is happiness.” In fact, Emerson’s recommendation of living a Virtuous and useful life , is neatly tied up with the Aristotlean belief that happiness is "the virtuous activity of the soul in accordance with reason : happiness is the practice of virtue. “ With all that kindness, charity , philanthropy, civility and helpfulness which Emerson prescribes, we are still only aiming to attain Happiness.
Of course what constitutes Happiness is an eternally challenging query that cannot be answered with any clear cut hypothesis. Your post opens with your submission that writing snippets and blogs gives you Happiness . Reading your posts give Happiness to others . Right now, typing this out for you is giving me a fulfilment I can choose to label as “Happines”. Yet, in a day or two, maybe a month or year hence , this may fade to inconsequence. For me and for you. Applying the Vedantist’s litmus test will only yield the disappointing answer “ Neti, Neti…..not this , not this….” And so we meander through life, from one “event” of happiness to the other, outliving, forgetting, retaining just a memory , like an ossified flower of the past, but nevertheless totally removed from that Happiness……Would memory, as false and chimeral as a dream, still qualify as Happiness ?
Indian philosophical thought has always claimed that the core of any living being is Ananda , the eternal, indestructible , non-dependent Joy and Happiness, and that it is merely covered over by the delusional dirt and cobwebs of Maya, Ahamkara and Moha. We are required to peel off layers of those cobwebs to arrive at the very essense of our selves. And that is the Purpose of taking birth here and living this life. In short, the purpose of this Life is to find THAT happiness, after balancing accounts in Chitragupta’s ledger.
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(…..contd.)
“Life is like making tea! Boil your ego, Evaporate your worries, Dilute your sorrows, Filter your mistakes & Get Taste of Happiness “
Great analogy. This Tea Making process of Life is easy to read on the carton, but extremely difficult to put to practise. So the Tea of Happiness keeps evading our lips …..
That reminds me of another Tea-metaphor which says, just as the strength of Tea is proved only when it is plunged in hot water, so also a Human Being’s character / personality is unveiled only when he is in the hot water of a crisis. Tea Bags yield refreshment, humans often come out bruised and battered , if somewhat wiser too ! Happiness ? I doubt it. All of life’s experiences have educative value no doubt. But have we ever seen an experienced old person as happy as an inexperienced child ?
“The truth is, the most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, forgetting that you are special too. “
How I LOVE this thought of yours,Viji ! I could hug you right now. Tears are welling up in my eyes as I type this. Years of painful submission to other’s idea of who I ought to be made me blind to myself, killing me daily by instalments, making me forget that I was created by God with the same love and care as He did others, and that He saw me as a WHOLE , not as a deficient , damaged product….and then when there was no more life left in me to shrivel, I suddenly found myself within the mangled shell. ……I had to fight to extricate myself out of it , it hurt bad, but now I can stand tall and see God in the eye and say : “ Thank you. I am happy….. I think”.

“When we are off colour we need special people to add the right shades. In life you need people who truly love you, motivate you, encourage you, inspire you, enhance you and make you happy. In old age you need people who appreciate you for exactly WHO you are…”
No Viji, here I beg to disagree. My experience is that the sooner we stop depending on others to make us feel good the better. Expecting endorsement from others is the biggest magnet to attract disappointment and the resultant loss of self esteem and other insecurities. Everyday I keep psyching myself : I am Whole in myself. Emotionally Self sufficient . I don’t need anchors . Happiness or Misery is my choice”…….. I am not fully there yet, but trying, trying.

Just as you have expressed so beautifully “They have the arms to give them a hug, ears to listen to whatever they want to talk about and have a heart thats aching to see them smile” I too often feel ABUNDANT and ready to give of myself. Sometimes I know how, sometimes I am at a loss to demonstrate . But there is the comfort in just knowing I HAVE and I CAN.

Most of your posts are filled with gentleness and universal affection. I hope to achieve your state of bliss some day.

 

Hi Viji aunty,
nice post again ....touching.....
keep writing..love to read more from you.

 

Dear Priya,

By nominating your response, Viji Akka brought your wonderful response to this post and I have gained so much out of it. You have produced a master piece of wisdom in your response. Of course, the purpose of life is to learn how to achieve Brahmananda, an eternal bliss that is equivalent of 1 zillion times of our happiness in our day to day life in mathematical terms. I found this out from Anandavalli, part of our scriptures and converted it into math. It is a state in which we become totally aware with no sense of body consciousness nor feel pleasure and pain in our day to day life. We lose the concept of time and space and can perceive past, present and future. We become Sthithaprajna. In fact, the only purpose of our life is to pursue that eternal bliss and learn to break the cycle of birth and death.

I know you disagreed with the above quote and I presume you are talking from the angle of keeping our expectations lower. I looked at it as a seeker getting a Guru as long as the intentions are good to seek knowledge. My own thought about life is to keep improving our character to shine with added luster and reducing our expectations to the lowest level. But when we seek knowledge, there will be someone sent to us to teach that valuable knowledge, if we aspire for it as a person seeking oxygen when he is drowned in water.

I have enjoyed reading many of your responses to Cheeniya Sir. I look forward to reading more of it.

Viji Akka, Kindly forgive me for this cross talk.

Viswa