Theloopylululog

Sukh mein toh ho sakhi?

This one question encapsulates every misconception we have ever had about happiness.

It can’t be a coincidence that just last night this EXACT question was slowly dissolving into my mind like a slow release tablet you drop into a tumbler and watch it lose it’s identity to water. There is no solute or solvent anymore. Just the solution.

A state.

A presence.

Sukh mein toh ho sakhi?

Years ago I remember watching a mythological series based on the Mahabharata. I also remember liking the guy who played Lord Krishna and these words would tumble out of him with ease, effortlessness and an unusual twinkle in the eye like he knew something I knew too but didn’t yet know I knew? Vous comprenez?

Literally translated from Hindi, Are you in happiness, my friend?

Read that again please. He could just as easily have asked Sukhi ho sakhi?

Translated to Are you happy, my friend? It rhymes and it’s worth it’s weight or so we assume.

YET.

Something feels off kilter.

Are you happy?

Much of our understanding or should I say misunderstanding of what happiness constitutes, comes from the way language has sentenced these words together to form a sentence that is supposed to guide us to our Soul within but barely grazes past our brain. Point to note: I didn’t say Mind. I said brain. Remember this, we will circle back to it later.

A typical reply would tell us if I am happy or not.

That right there is the entire problem.

We answer as if we are unravelling our identity to whoever decides to hurl this dreaded question to us. How dare they?

Ask me who I am. I would say I am Lalitha/Daughter of Krishnan/Spiritual healer/a danda choru( slang in Tamil to mean a freeloader )/a daydreamer/a couch mountaineer/a recovering perfectionist…and the list goes on all the way to Bhurkina Faso.

Now ask me Are you happy, Lulu?

Do you see why I say our language has sentenced the question to be a prisoner of its own meaning?

Because we have learnt to associate our happiness with our identity.

How can I associate something to my identity when I don’t even know what it exactly means? Let’s not even start deciphering what identity is now.

I am guilty of asking everyone I met throughout my life until 4 years ago the same thing.

Most of them weren’t sure what to say. Some went on to elaborate why they cannot be happy. Some simply said they aren’t, what with inflation, pollution, wars and an economy that has rendered them infertile to want happiness, hence unhappy.

One, just one had the gall to ask me what do you mean by happiness Lal?

Before you go on to roll your eyes and knock my head that says, ofcourse you dumbo happiness is subjective…He might have meant the same. But I understood it differently.

Cutting the chase to 6 years ago. A breakup I wasn’t ready for, a suicide attempt, a few episodes of manic depression, all kinds of therapy later…I finally figured the way to decode happiness.

I have been a melancholic person for most part of my life. An almost human.

Almost didn’t make it to being born. Almost made it to a state rank at 15. Almost made it to MPC A section in college. Almost made it to a centum in Maths in graduation. Almost made it to NIFT. Almost made it to a successful businesswoman. Almost got married. Twice. Almost had children with the said men who couldn’t commit. Almost died many, many, many times to suicide.

An almost woman who hated being a woman. Like being a man in a woman’s body wondering why my boobs weren’t err… booby enough. Almost always close to being diagnosed as autistic and bipolar.

Almost bringing the cup to the lip…yet…

Need I say I have been a yo yo, yo yoing between extremes. One second I am in blissful heaven. The next scouring the earth for remnants of grief.

Think of me as a scale. Jumping between the lows of sadness and highs of joy. Always moving in the in betweens. Never still. Never at ease.

Sthriam Sukham.

The yogic principle of Sthiram Sukham literally means Effortless Ease. It’s when you ease yourself into life. When effort flows into ease, unites and becomes one, Yog. Solute unites with solvent, becoming one, a solution. No more separate identity. Losing oneself to the higher self.

You call it God. I call it Source. We all need to call it Happiness.

Something that is. Just IS.

Unfettered. Unwavering.

Stable.

Now think of me, the present me as a scale from 0 to 100. I no more operate in the peripheries. In fact I don’t know the extremes anymore. Somewhere between 40 and 60 is my home. Cruising along.

How? What changed? How did I decode happiness?

Simple. Going beyond everything I have been taught and learnt by rote. Going beyond the senses. Going beyond doing, doing, doing to earn happiness like it’s a paycheque.

Practicing happiness as an eternal state not a feeling with an expiry date. That doesn’t depend on an external presence or absence.

The state of flow. The state of Upekkha in pali. Where the extremes dissolve unto each other becoming equanimous to all there is. Where everything temporary ceases to exist. The state of Anicca, impermenace loses it’s identity and begins to operate on the principle of the eternal, Sassata.

Where effort itself becomes ease.

Some of the most difficult asanas in Yoga are what in first glance looks simple, even laughable. But that is where everyone gets stuck trying…

Standing as a mountain, calm as the storms rage. As a corpse, releasing the need to hold onto feelings. As a tree, grounding as deeply into the ground as grounding deeply into the unknown up above. Suspended in air, yet finding an effortless ease that flows into the body when the body releases the desperate need to control and customize everything external to the codes of the internal. When all else ceases to be.

Call it static if you so please. But in the static lies the dynamic.

It is when we practice the art of finding the middle that we realise how much of our lives is lost in struggling to find meaning in the periphery. It is when we practrice the art of living in the middle that we finally understand that we have never been living per se. Just groveling in the dark trying to make meaning of existing as a pendulum clock with a perpetual battery running…tick tock tick tock.

Happiness is not a thing that can be conquered. It is not a temporary moment or a transient phase. It is not pleasure, joy or bliss. It is most definitely not a dream or a goal that can be pushed and prodded and exercised into existence. And then work our asses off to retain it.

It is a state that is beyond the confines of time. Beyond all things material. It is the sublime you seek in the great unknown outside. The sublime that is in you all along. The moment when you forget the pain of striving and just drive knowing you are taken care of. The moment all movements cease, effort relaxes, takes a breath and let’s go. Where ease flows and the moment becomes the only one that has ever existed.

Be Present in the present, as Ekhart Tolle would have you believe. The middle ground as the Buddha would have you work upon. Hush child! Let the swing come to a stop now.

I sound like a philosopher to you now? Enlightened?

Bah! Far from it. I am just practicing mes amies.

Practicing to release the compulsive need to name and understand everything my big heart feels. Letting go of the obsessive streak in me to solve the great mysteries of life. Believing and embodying the comfort that ignorance is bliss…I don’t need to know everything there is, not even about my own self.

Going beyond the brain releasing chemicals. Going beyond the Mind that jumps from one tree err thought to the next. Going beyond…without fear.

Aware of everything within me and without me. Being here. Now. In the Now.

That is happiness.

The permanent beyond the impermenance.

Does that mean I don’t feel sad or angry?

You must be joking. I still get angry. Atleast twice a day. Like clockwork.

Just a few hours ago, I saw a photo of a black couple with a baby and wept like a child. Missing the Kenyan man, I still love. Grieving a future that was mine. Almost…

Does that mean I wasn’t happy then? Or am I still sad?

No. I was in happiness then. I am in happiness now. It’s where I live. I just hopped onto the train and went to Judahville; allowed myself to cry over him, reliving a few moments of togetherness that didn’t last long in reality but is always alive in memory. Completely letting myself enjoy the sadness. Revel in the gut wrenching pain. Is there a word for I wish I were 5 years younger and you were 5 years older? We could have been that couple in that photo then. Wonder what our child would have looked like?

I didn’t mope around. Didn’t wallow. Just felt it deeply in my uterus; the pain of a loss. Of companionship, motherhood, a boring family life, sleep that eased my nerves.

Now I am here. With you. In happiness. Remember, it is where I live. It is permanent. It goes wherever I go. A permanent address.

Everything else that comes; be that any emotion… I let it pass through the vessel my body is. Afterall we are humans for a particular reason. To experience the full spectrum of life.

You know where we went wrong?

All of us believed that the rainbow in the sky after a thundershower is happiness. Oblivious to the fact that was staring us in our faces all this time. Look at the sky baby. Look closely. No such thing as the sky exists. Just an illusion as science will have you believe. But go beyond what you think you know. What language has taught you to balance your faith on.

What do you perceive beyond all that you claim to know?

That…That my love is happiness.

Next time, you ask someone if they are happy, Change the wording. They will be confused. Let them.

They will rant and rave. Allow them. Honour them with your presence. Listen to them till they tire themselves out, stop groping for words and let silence take over. Don’t you dare ask them about the weather now to fill in the space between you.

This space is what you have been waiting for. This is where happiness resides. Your’s, his, hers, mine, ours.

Just BE. Enjoy this beingness.

And lo and behold! You are in the land of happiness.

Happinessville welcomes you!

Enjoy the stay. You will never run the risk of overstaying this welcome.