HAPPINESS - CAUSES

These days I am confronted with the inevitable question “Are you happy?” And on hearing my emphatic answer, “Yes”, most of them are a little skeptical and disappointed. They expect me to confide in them about my current state of affairs or shall I say “no affairs” and how I am bored, how no one bothers about me, how I have lost all the power and position I used to enjoy etc. I hate to disappoint them, but the truth is I am really happy.

Have you ever pondered over this question – “What is happiness?” While I was about to retire, a colleague of mine bought a fancy car – a trifle expensive one for his position in my humble opinion. So I asked him as to why he went in for such a fancy car and could have reduced his EMI by going in for a smaller car. He was quick to respond “I want to enjoy, sir!” Somewhere in the deep recesses of our mind, we all believe that external “things” – be it comforts, relationships, objects etc give us happiness. Since almost all of us believe this, there must be something in it, I guess.

Belonging to a generation that believes it is rational and of a scientific temper, I thought we should investigate this further. In scientific research they always postulate a hypothesis, collect data, analyze it and prove or disprove the hypothesis. Therefore it is only fair that we investigate this matter following the same methodology. I can think of the following hypotheses.

Hypothesis # 1 – Happiness may be an inherent nature of the “thing” (like a car or a situation etc.)

Hypothesis # 2 – The external “things” are the real cause for the happiness – that is external “things” are the cause and happiness is the effect.

Let us examine these two one by one. If, as per hypothesis # 1, a quality (like happiness) is inherent nature of an object, then it follows that the object should really give happiness all the time – at all times, at all places, for all people, in the past, present and future. For example the inherent nature of fire is to give heat. It has been hot, will continue to be hot, it burns you, me, an innocent child, during summer or winter and we can go on and on. If you subject any of the objects that we feel has an inherent quality of happiness to this test, it will surely fail. For example a thing which gives you happiness at one time does not give you happiness at other times (like a sweet for a diabetic) - forget about giving you happiness at all times. We need not even bother about the rest of the conditions. You can test this against anything that you feel gives happiness and it is bound to fail. Hence we can safely assume that happiness is not an inherent quality of a “thing”.

Now coming to the second hypothesis, say if A is the cause and B is the effect, logically it has to satisfy two conditions. The first one is whenever A is present, B should also be present. This is called the positive condition (Anvaya in Sanskrit). The second one is, whenever B is present, A should not be absent. This is called the negative condition (Vyatireka in Sanskrit). So let us apply this test. For example if wealth is the cause of happiness, then whosoever has wealth has to be happy. But that is not true. In fact most of the wealthy chaps are miserable. Similarly wherever there is happiness, wealth should not be absent. In today’s HINDU, I was reading an article about a person who cleans the fridge and Air conditioners (in the weekly column on men and women who make Chennai what it is). His parting words in the interview were “Right now, I have no debts; I am old, a little poor but am happy”. So our second hypothesis has also failed the test on both counts.

Lord Byron said “It is true but strange for truth is stranger than fiction!” Could it be that happiness is not in any of these external "things"? Is that a possibility?