Causes of Unhappiness in Life
Human beings are comprised of three fundamental factors, namely, will, feeling and cognition and three kind of temperament – the active, the emotional and rational. All this must be harmoniously blended in order to attain “perfection”. This can be achieved only by doing one’s prescribed duty of life, without worldly attachment. This is the only way to reach the Supreme.
On close examination of human lives we see that all the activities which people do are either for gaining happiness or reducing pain. Life can be compared to a coin. Pleasure and pain are the two sides of the same coin. People have to face both the sides as per their karma.
Most of us try to achieve happiness by engaging our five senses, mind and intellect. Accordingly, we set a number of worldly goals in our life in search of this elusive happiness but we forget that contentment and recitation of God’s name is the key to everlasting happiness and peace of mind. In Sai Satcharita, chapter III, Sai Baba said to Madhavrao Deshpande:
“Those devotees, who are attached to Me, heart and soul, will naturally feel happiness, when they hear these stories. Believe Me that if anybody sings My Leelas, I will give him infinite joy and everlasting contentment.”
Whatever our worldly efforts are and even if we achieve them, lasting and supreme happiness remains as elusive as ever. We are so much involved in materialistic world called “Maya” that we are unable to get out of it. The veil of Maya makes us believe that whatever we perceive by five senses is the only truth. However, the fact is that we can get true happiness only when we practice spirituality as it provides the following advantages:
a) It lets us know the basic purpose of life.
b) We acquire true knowledge which vanish our pride and egoism.
c) We are able to overcome problems in our life caused due to bad karma and ancestral problems.
d) We can access the Universal mind and intellect.
e) Find infinite joy and everlasting happiness.
The root cause of unhappiness is the problem of “nescience” which means absence of knowledge. The word nescience stems from the fact that we identify ourselves with our physical body, mind and intellect. We fail to identify ourselves with the Soul or the Supreme God (Sai) within us. Human being gets attached to this materialistic world. Greater the attachment to an individual or object, greater is the likelihood of unhappiness. Hence, one must get detached from the greater illusion (Maya) to gain true happiness.
Once we understand the basic purpose of our life by reducing our pride and egoism. We overcome unhappiness from life. This brings happiness and contentment by which we can experience the ultimate truth in life.
Written by: Jyoti Mishra
