PEACE AND HAPPINESS

FROM SAMPATH'S DESK: 

PEACE AND HAPPINESS

 

Just like a coin that has two sides, everything is at least bi-faceted. Both happiness and sorrow are part of the mundane life and invariably, they come in a cyclical order. Just as a candle gives light to anyone who can study well in it and even become a genius, it can also be used to torch a book or house and destroy it. Again, while a knife can be used for cutting a fruit into pieces to enjoy it, the same can also be used to injure or kill a person. Further, whereas minimally enriched uranium can help produce the much-needed electricity for constructive purposes, highly-enriched uranium can be utilized to produce nuclear arsenal, a possible source of mass destruction. There is thus a chain of two self-contrasting realities in a single thing.

 

Wealth can help bring comfort and/or luxury, but can’t guarantee happiness, as it is a state of mind, squarely dependent on an individual’s psyche. Ironically, the most worried/depressed people are from the opulent and affluent upper strata of society whereas the poor generally go about their life jolly well.

 

Those who have insomnia and under-sleep problems are mostly the over-rich people because their desire to earn more and more money and wealth never gets satiated at all. People - rich or with a white-collared lucrative job - are always mentally engaged and don’t find time for physical exercises, relaxation and entertainment (which are necessary to make one remain fit - physically and mentally - and get adequate sleep), because, they are always on their toes in pursuit of their never-quenchable hunt for money/wealth. They are always like busy bees on their wings at the cost of their own salubrious health. And, by virtue of their high status in society, they keep their faces stiff and concrete, don’t mingle with people easily, and don’t even spare a social smile, perhaps due to ego-related false prestige. Consequently, they don’t keep good health because of sedentary way of life. They don’t have time even to take food at right times and are forced to skip meals. Of course, not all are so nowadays with health awareness making them maintain salubrious health. Yes, there are many people who regulate their timings and lifestyles in such ways not to get themselves trapped inside the air-tight, iron web-net of hurly-burly life. It is a robust trend. 

Lord Buddha’s parents wanted to bring Him up in the midst of the best of all material comfort and luxury. He was never even allowed to peep or peek into the  outside world  beyond the walls of His palatial palace. He never had an opportunity to have a glimpse of what aging, ailment and death were all about! Albeit the palace confinement how He abandoned the mundane life leaving the lavishly ornate residence, took to austere saintly life and became venerable ‘Lord Buddha’ campaigning for non-violence, love for everyone and everything, preaching and practicing simplistic life, etc. are part of history. The tenets He enunciated, preached and stood for became a religion called ‘Buddhism’, as opposed to Orthodoxism. Buddhism is now flourishing in countries like China, Japan, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Laos, Tibet, Bhutan, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnam. 

Swami Vivekananda found and preached a new meaning to religion, character, education and happiness, inspiring lakhs of people as to what freedom meant and stirred the soul of the youth of pre-independence era. He also envisioned communion of world communities transcending natural and man-made barriers.

Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela are shining examples who fought against discrimination based on race and colour. Mahatma Gandhi and Tamil Revolutionary National bard Subramania Bharathi staged a struggle for freedom for all in India – political, social and economic. They found peace and happiness in the service of humanity and human equality. 

 

Ashoka the Great, after waging a war against Kalinga, was taken aback by the trail of mass destruction a war was fraught with. Thereafter, a thought got deeply entrenched in his mind that one gets peace and happiness not at the cost of others by perpetrating violence on them and/or snatching away their money, land, property, and other  kinds of wealth by conquering them in a battle/war. Contrarily, one can win lakhs of hearts by showing love, affection, compassion, sympathy and empathy towards fellow-beings. So, he shunned, abandoned and abdicated war and embraced Buddhism preaching ‘non-violence’ and thus found inner peace and happiness.

 

Coming to present-day realities, the U.S. is issuing diktats to whichever country in its opinion is inconvenient to them and/or opposed to their ideologies. It has taken unto itself the ‘onerous task’ of waging ‘International War’ against terrorism forgetting the fact that water can’t be displaced by water and violence begets more violence in an endless spiral, and no present-day war can be won in view of the current global status of nuclear proliferation coupled with the fact that use of such lethal weapons would only cause colossal destruction of people and property - no matter who wins or loses. Their misadventures in Vietnam and Afghanistan are  glaring pointers. For peace, tranquility and happiness to prevail we should persuade people to celebrate natural and man-made differences instead of merely tolerating them. Silencing the guns and stopping the war-rhetoric is the best way to bring peace in human life and sustain it.

 

Can that day come - earlier the better - in the best interests of peace and happiness of individua(s), society and region(s) in general and the world at large in particular? 

 

                                                                                                           

R.SAMPATH

28/12/2021