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Writer's pictureDr. Sanjeev Chopra

The time to be happy is now, the place to be happy is here


‘What is this life if, full of care,We have no time to stand and stare.No time to stand beneath the boughsAnd stare as long as sheep or cows.No time to see, when woods we pass,Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.No time to see, in broad daylight,Streams full of stars, like skies at night.No time to turn at Beauty's glance,And watch her feet, how they can dance.No time to wait till her mouth canEnrich that smile her eyes began.A poor life this if, full of care,We have no time to stand and stare’.

 

In penning these lines , William Henry Davies   was suggesting  that  real joy and happiness  is not a milestone to be achieved at the end of the road , an accolade won at  the end of a long struggle , or  the adornment of a laurel after vanquishing someone. This poem was in  my  school syllabi –  but it has stayed with me – in memory , if not in practise - but reading this lovely offering  rekindled  thoughts of a time  when one could just be , and ‘just that being’ was a moment of sheer joy , or Ananada , as Pawan describes it in his eminently readable novella of 119 pages which can be read in one sitting . At the end     of which , it   makes one  reflect on the  rat race we indulge in, most unconsciously , without realising that  only  a rat can win  this  race !


Why race , when you can step back and discover that happiness – the pursuit of which has been endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly  – can be discovered through a process of introspection , by asking the right questions , and looking into one’s own inner space. In January this year, when  Pawan gave me this manuscript to read , and write a blurb for, I thought that this is  yet another powerful discourse on the lines of Living Hanuman , a brilliant book , but with an academic orientation , full of cross references and bibliographic details .  So it was with some trepidation that I took a printout – but once I started reading it, the conversations drew me in. He talks about the ordinary, the here and now , the arrangement of furniture , the perfect cup of coffee, the walk in the woods – and all this gives us a deep insight into Sukha ( happiness )


Let me share the background and the story .

Happytual  starts with the teenaged  Priel, who is visiting India from the US   attempting to write a  a paper for her psychology major – the pursuit of happiness. Confused as she was , with so many different ‘technical definitions’ of happiness – from  academics Martin Seligman to Dr Christpher Peterson to Lynda Field and  savants like Dalai  and mahatma Gandhi , she asks  her Pawan  phoopha(uncle)  ( the narrator)   rather casually ‘ so , what is happiness’ to which he asks her ‘when was the last time you felt happy’. And thus began a chain of conversations that continued over the Covid lockdown  when Priel, Pawan, his better half Sadhna , and a visiting health professional from Germany, the Turkish origin twenty-nine-year-old  Bilge were  confined to a flat in the picturesque campus of the Swami Rama Himalayan Hospital at Jolly Grant , next  to the Dehradun airport about half an hour’s drive from the spiritual city of Rishikesh.


Pawan starts by telling her that ‘happiness is not inherent in an external object , a person or a situation. It is not something out there. It is within each of us , even if it is triggered by an external factor’. Second , happiness follows the law of diminishing returns -much like the fizz in a soda bottle . Ironically, it was  contentment – the opposite of pursuit – which held the key to happiness . And finally , while happiness was directly proportional to possession , one cannot desire to possess  everything , because desire is inversely proportional to happiness ! When  this leaves Priel ‘confused, frustrated and unhappy’, Pawan tried to explain the etymology of Sukha : Su – which stands for good, beneficial, harmonious , fragrant and beautiful – and Kham – which refers to the bridge that connects the outer and the inner space. He then  narrates to her the story of King Janaka’s  conversation with Ashtavakra – the sage with eight deformities -who explains the four stages of Being – in the waking, dreaming, deep sleep and that of eternal consciousness – the fourth stage of Being.

But the question is : how does one get there ? Pawan now  explains   the inner space  through  the fivefold  elaboration of   Square, Circle, Lotus, Triangles and    and Point .  The Square is  the body with four gates of entry :hunger , the basic urge of survival, sleep  which encompasses all activities that provide rest and leisure , sex which propels procreation and fear which is propelled by the instinct for survival. Then there  are the three concentric Circles –  the Ida, Pingala and Sushumna Nadis – which represent the flow of breath through the right and left nostril  and the subtle middle stream of energy that cannot be felt physically. The twenty-four Lotus petals include : Ahimsa, Satya ,Asteya ,Brahmcharya ,Aparigraha,Shaucha,Santosha, Tapas,Svadhyaya, Ishvara- pranidhana, Asana , Pranayama , Pratyahara,Dharana, Dhyana , Chitta -prasadana, Maitri, Karuna, Mudita, Upeksa , Kshanti , Kshama, Seva and Shreyas.  He then describes the Triangles – the first layer of effort and grace, the second of knowledge and wisdom, followed by womb and nurture , the penultimate one of emptiness and fulness and  the final triangle of pure grace  which also has the Point , or the Bindu in which shraddha(trust) and vishvasa (faith) are subtly fused.

But Kshama is easier said than done , for  we are all self-righteous. Pawan now explains this in greater depth to help clear the cobwebs in  the mind of Bilge, whose frosty relationship with her  highly judgemental father causes her deep distress . This is where Pawan gently suggests  that while we cannot change the person in question , the only option one  can exercise  is that of forgiveness !


And finally, there is Death , the only reality  which became even more pronounced in the times of Covid. How does one cope with it. He tells the distraught Sadhna, Priel and Bilge  that while ‘death is the only reality, this is an unpleasant topic which we tend to avoid’ : much like the ostrich burying its hand in the sand so to not see the inevitable. ‘ We presume that we will grow old and die . But death can engulf us any moment .Hence we have to make a choice : either we live in the denial of death , or we accept the reality of death and prepare  for it so that it becomes a conscious transition’.


We are almost at the end of the discourse , but it ends not with death , but  ‘zently’ the nasal tone ,with which their young Yoga teacher asks them to ‘breathe zently, inhale  zently  and exhale zently’ thereby taking  the concept of Dhyana to the Japanese mediation technique of zen. Priel breaks out into a song :

The time to be happy is now,

the place to be happy is here,

the way to be happy is

to make others happy,

and make a little heaven

right here!

  

 

 


 

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