Happiness

It’s basically we who repel happiness away from us. We don’t allow it to come to us, embrace us, take hold of us. We set it as a goal too far down the line in future. Some house, some grains, some accumulation of pleasure, some relationships, etc., etc. We set up goals as the preconditions for our happiness. And the goals keep on piling up, over the years, and set up a wall between us and happiness. And happiness keeps on getting more and more distant from us. I will set up a home and then be happy. Happiness delayed. And then I work over the years. There is no end. I set a goal to raise a family and then be happy. Again it sets up a wall between happiness and us. Relentlessly we just push on. Happiness stays thus a distant goal. Never to be achieved. We make it conditional on endless goals, which are never met, because it’s the destiny of a goal to merge into another bigger one. They never die, only we die. Huge immortals they are. In pushing for them, we die. Separated from happiness that could have been the greatest gift of life, had we not pushed it away from us.

The remedy lies in taking away happiness from the far end of our endless goals and keep it safe in our house, like we store some grains for the harsh winters, near us, in the safest part of our house. It has to be cut away from the trail of endless goals and ambitions and kept with the self, in the present. It has to be set free from any conditions of meeting some goal. It’s a state as good as being healthy. Just being and living for a day. Separate being from becoming. You can be happy if you set your happiness free from the chains of your lifelong dreams.

You should be pushing towards yours goals as a happy person, rather than somebody who wants to be happy in future after completing the goals. The goals never come to a halt, only we do, at the moment of our death. So we die unhappily, separated from the natural state of happiness which could have pumped our life with unthinkable contentment and satisfaction, only if we had set it free from the chains of goal-setting and placed it unchained from those unreachable spots in the future.

Let happiness be a precondition for our doings, not a poor outcome of our efforts. Do everything as a happy person; instead of doing the deeds to become a happy person. Happiness is a state of being so, not the specific result of some hot pursuit. There is only one way it can be availed. Either we embrace it in the condition we are in, or it just eludes us. Keep it with you while you fly. It will boost your determination to go far and high.

So the only way to remain happy is just to be happy, instead of slogging it out to become happy later. Fellas, kindly decide to keep happiness as a routine, let it take possession of your present, like a monkey eating fruits and the birds flying. All in the present. Now. Just being. Simply being happy.

Watching a movie with a renunciate

 KAKA MAHARAJ 

Kaka Maharaj, who has been staying in a hut by the canal, is comfortable in holding three satsangs with me in a month. That is the time when we share, discuss—and even debate—about our versions of truth. He remains tethered to his hut and avoids contact with people who he thinks carry too much worldly subjects within themselves which disturbs his sadhna. Once a month, he takes a solitary footpath to reach the temple outside the village where an idol of his guru is installed to pay homage on purnima.

He hadn’t visited the nearby town for more than a decade and seemed set to avoid it forever. But then he paid a little worldly price for holding satsang with me. He adores Dada Lakhmi Chand, the legendary folklorist from the area. A little test of his adoration: Suppose he is just about to break your head with a brick and you just happen to say ‘Dada Lakhmi Chand’ and he would stop to listen what you have to say about the Shakespeare of Haryana. I spotted this chink in his armor and enticed him to the town. It was a feat in itself.

There was a biopic movie on Dada Lakhmi Chand shown at the newly constructed swanky, posh mall in the town. Ask him to visit the sansar of town and his weed-lit red eyes would throw daggers at you. He may even throw some object at you. So I suitably rolled the invitation with the name of his hero. As a result, he didn’t jump at the mention of ‘town’ like he would have normally. I could spot my chance and built my orchard around the great folklorist. I built up an imaginary world extolling the virtues of the biopic in highlighting the great Haryanvi poet. The result was that I could convince him to watch a movie—unimaginable—at a big mall. He who doesn’t find the idea of even a television set in a house too becoming for a healthy life and living! He agreeing to watch a movie at a mall! That shows yours truly can fruitfully bargain with hostage takers as a profession.

On the appointed day I drove him to the town. He was dressed in a pair of kurta-pyjama that was lying buried under a sack for almost a decade and was surprisingly safe from rats.

(The rats would cut even his plastic jars and steal his meager supply of grocery that keeps him alive on one frugal meal a day. I have seen big rats scampering across the grassed ceiling of his hut. ‘They even jump at me when I’m sleeping,’ he once told me. ‘Maybe it’s a message from your guru that you aren’t supposed to sleep,’ I remarked. ‘Well, maybe!’ he seemed in agreement with my casual jesting remark. A monitor lizard once stayed near his hut and then there won’t be any rats. Kaka Mahraj considered it a friend. But then one day when he was meditating the lizard crawled onto the head of its sadhak friend. Kaka Maharak wasn’t aware that it was his friendly lizard. He swiped his hand and it panicked and jumped. The lizard must have thought that it was an attempt at its life. ‘It jumped and ran but stopped at a little distance and looked back. We looked at each other for a long pause. Then it went away. I never saw her again. It was my fear that startled her. This littlest ounce of fear has to go from the body of a sadhak. The body shouldn’t move even a little under such circumstances. I knew I had failed in my sadhna. So I cried that day,’ he told me.)

Now, coming back to the movie-watching trip. He found the town changed beyond recognition since his last trip. ‘I cannot find the old town anywhere!’ he exclaimed. It was understandable. The world around his hut has remained the same. It’s the same canal with the same flow of water. The only change he can make out is that the little saplings he had planted are big trees now. That’s the parameter of change for him. He looked startled and intimidated by the booming urbanization. Imagine a person who stays in a grass hut being taken straightaway to a showy mall! He was tentative and unsure on the slippery floors. The elevators, lifts, showy shop-fronts, food aroma from the food court, the humming of humanity, the glitz and glamor and among all this an old saintly man. He seemed lost among all this. He towed me like a little child follows an elder in a crowd. The scent of modernity in the mall hit him hard. It was completely opposite to the free natural fragrance around his little hut.

Inside the theatre, he sat like an alien trapped in a hostile environment. But when the movie started and a few folksongs from his hero blared and bombarded the eardrums he looked a bit amused. Then the folk-hero’s life history began with his birth. It was too much for him. ‘All this is a big lie! How do they know all this happened like this? It was more than a hundred years ago. This is fake! A funny drama!’ he shouted in my ear. I was thinking of making a respectful exit from the darkness. But he understood. ‘I know you like it. So watch it. I’m going to sleep,’ he assured me. Then Kaka Maharaj folded himself like a baby in the womb and slept off. His guru his mother. His faith the safe womb. He could actually sleep in a cinema hall where the music would rattle your bones. After the movie—sorry, after a sound sleep—he looked fresh and totally detoxified of the urbanized exposure I had brought upon his system. The modernist clatter and noise seemed to have no effect on him now. His smile and poise was back as he walked out of the mall. ‘Kaka Maharaj you could actually sleep so soundly in that noise!’ I exclaimed as we drove back. ‘Yes Tagore—he calls me Tagore for my love of books—I don’t know whether you believe it or not. I saw my Guru only on the screen. Then it was so easy to sleep,’ he said. Maybe his guru had sent him for a little test and I’m sure he passed the test by coming out unaffected from a totally alien environment. That’s the sign of a good meditator. He/she retains the inherent balance even after coming across conflicting situations.

On the way back, he asked me to buy cumin seeds for him. I got two 250 grams packets, one for him and one for our own kitchen. ‘How much is this?’ he asked, gently weighing the little packet on his palm. ‘It’s 250 grams,’ I replied. He gently corrected me with a slight sway of head, ‘No Tagore, it’s only 200 grams. The shopkeepers would always cheat like in the old days,’ he said. Then I expressed my doubts about the difference in weight telling him that this is the town’s very reputed grocer and I don’t think they would cheat people like this. ‘Look at the packaging and all the stats given regarding weight, packaging date, expiry date, nutrition table, nice logo, nice material,’ I enlisted the indicators of quality. Later that day, I weighed my packet on the tiny kitchen scale and the weight came to be exactly 200 grams. I am humbled.

A few satsangs after this incident didn’t go well. He debated and cut my opinions as if with premeditated intentions. Maybe he was giving it back for taking him to a place that stood the polar opposite of his world.

A few months back, I found him visiting my room crammed with books. Possibly he got curious to know a bit more about me. He is into bhakti yoga and I could feel his discomfort while standing near the little hill of gyan marga. As we know one’s company of friends and people leaves a big impact on the person’s life. Maybe Kaka Maharaj got interested in books. Some days later he asked me for a book. I chose a book by a local saint, the combined works of Narayan Maharaj, thinking he would be able to relate to the writing because it was written by someone from the same area keeping in mind the socio-cultural factors prevailing in the area. Judging the psychology of reading among non-readers—they lose interest very easily—I suggested him to read the book randomly, not page by page. ‘Just open any page at random and read, maybe that particular page has a message for you,’ I gave my expert advice as I handed over the thick volume. He was sitting under a mango tree and took the thick volume with discomfort, almost suspicion. He opened a page at random as I had suggested. He is all seriousness as he reads the first line on the page. He throws the book into my lap as if he has received an electric shock. ‘It’s a sheer lie!’ he mutters. Well, the first line on that page happened to be the local saint's prohibition against weed, ganja and charas. Kaka Maharaj has been smoking weed as an aid in his sadhna for decades, so obviously he found it insulting. ‘See, I respect him. But that doesn’t mean he is correct about everything!’ he looks stern.

Imagine out of 500 pages, this page had to open and the first line—perhaps the only line in the entire book—happened to be the one that would offend the reader. So the book was returned just one-line read. ‘You yourself wanted to read books,’ I muttered under my breath. ‘No, no … books are suitable for you. Take it away,’ he instructed. So I returned with my thick book.

Recently he crossed a big milestone in his sadhna. I call it a milestone because I have heard and read about it that most of the sadhaks have to cross it sometimes on the path. At one night he faced the soul-rattling experience of weirdest apparitions, ghouls, djins, naked witches, ferocious demons, the strangest human-animal hybrids. ‘I was sitting in dhyan post-midnight. They just arrived in big numbers. You cannot imagine such strange and fearsome bodies and faces. Some of them came so close that I could smell their breath. The naked horrid witches stayed a couple of feet away, but they danced in a repugnant manner. My heart would have burst out with fear if not for my guru. I survived just because I kept focused on my guru and saw his image in my mind,’ he told. I have read many books of sadhaks meeting such experience. He is a simple man of faith, so it may not sound too much to him. But I know with my bookish knowledge that mother existence has tested him for fear. That day I felt very glad for him and left with a smile on my face—for him, for his sadhna, for his guru who saved him from a fall in the face of the devil. 

A fulfilling life

 He was nicknamed Pahadi by the villagers. Nicknames hardly followed any rhyme or reason during those days. Had there been any logic in naming another boy as Bodda (roughly translated as kamzor or weak), he ought to have been named thada (majboot, strong) because he was rotund and full-bodied like a double-door big refrigerator in girth. So Pahadi (hill) was no mountain but maybe being a big boy with somewhat mountain man features must have aroused someone’s creativity to name him as such.

Pahadi was my classmate from class one to matriculation at the village school. A robust, rosy-jowled boy who had, and still has, a propensity to unleash distinguished rolling notes of laughter at the littlest provocation. It must have given him loads of—almost a little pahadi—positive hormones. He has retained the laughing spirit that I witnessed in him as a small boy. And now as a grown up man he is the same one as far as laughter is concerned. He is a big man with a loud, booming laughter and that sums up his name-de-plume. His ever-green laughter seems to have given him a kind of timeless vitality.

Pahadi loved movies. Those were the VCR and cassette days. If someone brought a VCR player on rent for a night, it would turn into an epoch-making news in the countryside. Pahadi would walk for kilometers to watch movies at neighboring villages.

I met him recently at a new mall in the city. He looked happier and healthier than ever. His laughter also had taken bigger, longer notes. He has a new job—bouncer at the multiplex cinema in the mall. There are some guys who cannot help hurling bad words during the screening, targeting the female audience, especially the love-birds seeking dark corners to carry out their pleasant conspiracies. So in Haryanvi multiplexes you need to have bouncers as well, just like there are muscular order-keepers in bars and discotheques. It still is a stubbornly conservative society. The shadowy, chilled out corners of a multiplex sound like flower-banked altar to lovebirds.

Love always has had its enemies. So there are plenty of evil’s foot soldiers, the rowdy ones without girlfriends, itching to force their transient transgressions into the little love-tales blooming in the shade. With his impressive bulk Pahadi is a kind savior. Let there be a lewd comment or abusive phrase and there you see Pahadi the bouncer moving across the rows to catch the throat sourcing the nuisance. There are even guys—so thoroughly drenched in discourtesies—that sometimes he has to drag them by the collar and dump them outside. He is a kind of all goody-goody hero beating the villains. The lovebirds look up to him with a lot of gratitude in their eyes.

Nurtured by daily doses of movies at the glittering new multiplex, life seems a bed of roses. Compare it with the days of watching movies in a street on a small television set having a bleary and grainy screen, with a water drain gurgling nearby and sleepy street dogs yawning with boredom. And now all this! Do we still need proofs that life gives blessings?

The jolts of life are to 'make' you not 'break'

 On April 18, 1906 San Francisco was jolted by a big earthquake. Buildings collapsed and fires spread around. Many bedridden invalids suddenly got up and helped in saving others. It beats many a logical, well-chiseled paradigm. A paradigm-busting kick almost: meek shuffles and soft, helpless floundering in beds getting transformed into savior legs and arms; a burst of life, new shoots and saplings instead of steady degeneration, almost fossilization while still alive, in the practically lifeless museum; a rapturous run of blood cutting the individual super-failure with its saber-sharp counter-offensive to regain the lost ground. A kind of shock therapy, I suppose. It’s better to get jolted from time to time. It keeps you on the toes and engaged in the game of life.

The chip-chip sound of love

Researches have shown the mother turkey’s maternal strings get tugged by the chip-chip sound made by her chicks. It’s not about the smell, look or any other element. Mother turkeys have even agreed to hatch and lovingly adore the rouged and rolled dummies of antagonistic species just because they played the familiar chip-chip sound. The same may be the case about likes and dislikes among we humans. So cool down thou amazing, meticulously passionate enchanter! If you are feeling super-confident of your starry looks and mind-blowing glory because a gorgeous gal has fallen in love with you just for everything perfect in you. Maybe you make a chip-chip sound for her (your resplendent raylet) to accept you and possibly a funny jowled but quietly competent fellow gentlemanly making the same sound and emanating subtle innuendoes stands exactly the same chance as you.