We live in a world that oversells happiness to us, with unending promises and unendingly glamorized products. And we have minds that are programmed with rigid beliefs about what will provide us happiness. Impelled by both the world and the mind, we keep running, almost unthinkingly, towards much-touted sources of happiness.
Yet the pursuit of happiness frequently ends up being an anti-climax. Most of us can recollect the deflation, even emptiness, felt after making a big purchase or at the end of a much-touted party. Fixating over happiness leaves us impoverished, both when we pursue it and when we attain it: in pursuit, because we are filled with emptiness due to craving for something we don’t have; and in attainment, because what we sought for so long didn’t turn out to be anywhere near as good as we thought it would be.
A more enriching emotion to experience than happiness is the emotion of wonder, or more precisely meaning and purpose through a sense of wonder. Wonder is the sublime and rapturous feeling that arises in the presence of something far more majestic than ourselves. Such a wonder-inducing encounter evokes a range of diverse emotions that harmonize far better with the messy complexity of our lived reality. In fact, contemplation on the message of the Bhagavad-gita fosters such a sense of divine wonder (18.76).
How does Gita wisdom nurture this sense of wonder? By encouraging us to contemplate three things: the endurance of the divine plan for the world, no matter how chaotic the world might seem; the inviolable reality that we are always parts of the divine, no matter how flawed we may be; and the empowering realization that we all have the opportunity to play a part in that higher plan, no matter how tiny we seem to be. When we thus pursue meaning and purpose, by bringing ourselves in the presence of a reality bigger than ourselves and by opening ourselves to experiencing the resulting wonder, we relish the richness of life in a way that the monochromatic pursuit of happiness can never provide.
One-sentence summary:
Don’t get so busy pursuing happiness that we don’t ask whether happiness is worth pursuing — the pursuit of meaning and purpose, imbued with a sense of wonder, make for a much richer life.
Audio explanation of the article is here:
https://gitadaily.substack.com/p/might-life-be-better-if-we-pursued
Think it over:
- How does the pursuit of happiness end up impoverishing us?
- How can the pursuit of meaning and purpose through a sense of wonder be more enriching?
- Recollect one incident when a sense of wonder has enriched your life.
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18.76: O King, as I repeatedly recall this wondrous and holy dialogue between Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna, I take pleasure, being thrilled at every moment.
To know more about this verse, please click on the image
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