Wellbeing Is More Than Happiness And Life Satisfaction
Wellbeing is beyond happiness and satisfaction. It is beyond fulfilment of desires. It is beyond achievements, a sense of accomplishment and material success. It is beyond physical wellbeing and mental wellbeing, that is, wellness of the body and mind. It is more about faith, about living with acceptance and surrender, it is about self-realisation, God-realisation. It is about living with meaning and purpose; love, peace and bliss. It is about being connected with the Supreme Immortal Power we call God.
Most people confuse happiness with pleasure. We think we are happy when in reality what we are experiencing are fleeting moments of pleasure or joy. We think that happiness comes from the fulfilment of desires of the senses and the body and the wishes of the mind; from success, name, fame and wealth. But the truth is that true happiness can never come from people, possessions and places; from wealth, success and achievements.
If wealth and success were happiness, then all rich and successful people would be happy, but they aren’t. They are stressed, even depressed. The problem is also that we don’t stop at our need. The moment we achieve one goal, we create a new goal. Even as we fulfil one desire, we have another desire. We are never content. While we may have brief moments of joy when a desire is met, we are restless and miserable again and again because we want something more and not all wishes are fulfilled. Therefore, we feel disappointed. It is as if we are on a merry-go-round of pleasure and pain, loss and gain, sun and rain, again and again. We must realise that happiness is a state of being. We cannot ‘become’ happy, we have to ‘be’ happy, moment by moment.
Even contentment cannot be categorised as well-being. Why? Because regardless of how satisfied we are with life, we still suffer — we continue to experience the triple suffering that everyone in this world experiences - the physical pain of the body; the misery of the mind — fear, worry, stress; and even the agony of the ego — anger, hate, vengefulness.
Wellbeing, true and complete well-being can only be experienced if we are enlightened with the truth — the realisation that we are not the body, mind and ego - we are the Atman, the Soul - a Spark Of Unique Life; that God is a power, the Supreme Immortal Power and we are a part of this power, just like a wave is a part of the ocean. We have to realise that the Supreme Immortal Power is everywhere, in everything. This is Enlightenment, and it is the ultimate peak of happiness.
True wellbeing, thus, is about realising the truth and living with the realisation of the truth, the truth about who we are. It is living as who we really are — the Spirit, Soul. It comes with enlightenment. All people who are enlightened are truly happy because they feel connected with the Divine, with this world, nature and people. They know that we have a purpose, that life is not meaningless or without purpose.
We must contemplate— are we this body? The body dies. When the body dies, people say that we passed away, that we have departed. The body is burnt or buried. Who has passed away? Who has gone? Who has departed?Would our loved ones burn us if we were the body? No, of course not. Clearly, we are not the body. If we are not the body, are we the mind? Unlike the popular belief that the mind is king, the mind is actually our enemy. It constantly bombards us with thoughts, creating fear, stress, anxiety. We have to make the mind still by observing it. We have to watch it, catch it and latch it.
We must tame the ‘MONKEY MIND’. From a monkey, we must make it a monk. We must bring down the number of thoughts it produces by bringing down the MTR, the Mental Thought Rate, from 50 thoughts a minute to 1 thought a minute. If we look at the word MONKEY, it has a tail, the EY. We have to cut the EY. The EY is Ever-Yelling and Ever-Yearning. When we tame the monkey mind, when we cut its tail, it becomes a MONK. Then, we achieve peace of mind. Otherwise, the mind itself robs us of our peace. Peace is within. We only have to still the mind and peace is the foundation of true happiness. If we contemplate, we will realise that the mind doesn’t even exist!
Where is the mind? Can you find it? Of course not, because the mind is an illusion. The mind is nothing but a bundle of thoughts. We are, therefore, certainly not the mind. It is in this state, when the mind ceases to exist, when we are without thoughts, that we reach the state of consciousness.
In the state of consciousness, our intellect shines, and it is in this state of consciousness that we can realise the truth about who we are and consequently, experience true peace and bliss, true wellness, the state of Satchitananda - the state of Divine Bliss attained when we live with the consciousness of the truth. This is true wellbeing.
