Happiness Is Success : Excerpt

AiR (Atman in Ravi) experienced happiness in abundance and discovered the three peaks of
happiness—achievement, fulfilment and self-awakening—very early in life. He lives with eternal peace, divine love and everlasting joy. In this book, he shares how every person can do the same and gives you a simple and easy-to-implement road map for conquering the three peaks.

This book will help you accept a simple truth—that happiness is just a state of mind, and the moment you are blissful and peaceful, you will be successful too.

WHAT DO PEOPLE ASSUME HAPPINESS TO BE?

Happiness is just being blissful, not achieving success.
For success brings us pleasure, but also a lot of stress.
Miserable are those who zoom from womb to tomb,
gold and diamonds all around, but no peace in the room.
—AiR

We assume that the source of happiness is pleasure, wealth, money and success, when, in reality, happiness is something else. Every one of us wants to be happy, but somehow we don’t seek true happiness. We just believe that success is happiness and from the time we take control of life till it’s over, we seem to be in the pursuit of material success.
While it is perfectly acceptable that we must educate ourselves and try to be good at what we do, it is wrong for us to assume that all this will lead to happiness.
While money has a lot of positive uses and provides us with
basic necessities, just as it promises us security and support for health, it is unable to buy true love. Love is a fountain of happiness.
Haven’t we heard hundreds of love stories where dozens of hearts
were broken when a lover chose poverty rather than money as a
choice from the heart? These are people who have chosen happiness
over money and wealth.
Edward VIII, king of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland and dominions of the British empire from 20 January 1936 to 10 December 1936, abdicated the throne to marry the love of his life—Wallis Simpson, who was twice divorced, and an ordinary American
woman. He made this decision after the British government, the public and the Church of England condemned his decision to marry the American divorcee. He married Simpson and lived in exile till his death. The king obviously realized that happiness is not directly proportionate to wealth and power and thus sacrificed his royal life for a happy one.

The importance of money can never be misunderstood or underestimated, but to believe that money can buy happiness is a pity. The world has seen several examples of people who have committed suicide even though they were amongst the richest in the world. As the suicides of Kate Spade—an award-winning fashion designer—and Anthony Bourdain—a renowned American celebrity chef—clearly show, being successful doesn’t make one immune to depression and suicide. If money could create happiness, why would the rich and famous end their life? Obviously, they were living a life of anxiety and misery and this led them to take such a drastic step. Real happiness is a state of being happy. When we program our mind to believe that we will be happy when we go to New York, we miss the opportunity of being happy now. All these desires postpone our happiness to a tomorrow that doesn’t exist. Dreams and wishes that are based on monetary pleasures are, in reality,
joy stealers. Although they may fulfil the desires of our senses, they are self-gratifying and they will not create eternal peace and everlasting joy.

I know a lady who is crazy about handbags. Some years back, she bought a limited edition handbag of her favourite brand and it cost her a bomb. One day, her daughter was doing a craft project and she needed a patch to complete the project. Innocently, she cut a piece of the bag and pasted it on her craft work. When the woman saw her bag cut open, she was so upset that she hit her child—who had clearly not realized the value of the bag. This
created so much stress for weeks!

Happiness is an art and we must develop this art of living in bliss. We cannot assume that things, people and places will give us happiness. When will we realize the importance of peace? When will we find true love? These are the real pillars of true happiness.
If you look around, everyone is trying to be rich and famous. They assume that this is the only way to happiness. People believe that once their desires are fulfilled they will be truly blissful. Kids are trying to get into the best universities and then be at a top position in a Fortune 500 company. Some are trying to start their own enterprises that can make them millionaires or billionaires.
There are others who are trying to brand themselves in a particular way. Everybody is trying to be the best because there is no place for the ordinary. The world respects and salutes only the winners. But, stop and think for a moment—why should all this matter so much? Should we spend our entire life pursuing success when, in reality, we are seeking happiness out of that success? If there was a way to be happy without going through the ordeal of spending our entire life collecting achievements, should we not rather choose
that? If in the final analysis all we want is happiness, then why should all this control our life, our actions, our priorities and our philosophy? I have spoken to many rich and so-called successful people, and I have mostly observed regret deep in their hearts.

Manyof them are regretful because they were so busy chasing success that it robbed them of their precious time and life. While the chase and the achievements are good for a short period of time, they cannot become our life itself; in the end, we have a lot of wealth
created by success but no life left to be happy. And it’s too late!

In this journey of life, there can be no freedom from action. We all have to do something with the aim to excel in our work. However, living a life being obsessed with making money, thinkingthat wealth is happiness, is foolish. True happiness is very different from monetary pleasures.

I, too, have lived with the constant expectation of success, which used to give me sleepless nights. In hindsight, my success was creating more stress than happiness. It was buying pleasures but not inner peace. It was getting me fame but silently stealing my bliss. It was no easy task to say goodbye to success, fame, power and position, but it would have been foolish not to do so.
This does not mean that money is the primary cause of unhappiness. But for those who think that only money can create happiness, this should be a wake-up call. There is no doubt that money can buy a lot of things, but it cannot buy happiness.

In the beginning, there was no wealth, although there was health and there was time. Then, we made wealth through success and there was health too, but there was no time. After a while, when we have created time to use our wealth to be happy, chances are that
there will be no health to enjoy life. Now, it is time to wake up.

TAKEAWAYS

• Happiness belongs to the now, but our wealth imprisons us
  and promises us happiness in the future that doesn’t exist.
• We assume that money can buy us things that make us
  happy, take us to places that give us bliss, but this is
  momentary.
• Money is important, but it is not everything. It is not a
  currency that can be exchanged to receive happiness.
• Money gives pleasure but doesn’t give peace, the very
  foundation of our happiness.
• Finally, when we manage to make the time to use our
  wealth to be happy, we have no health because it’s too late.