Hindrance to Happiness

The reason for all the chaos is not the outcome of doings of unintelligent or unemotional people. The real hindrance to happiness is that we have forgotten how to live content with what we have.

Contentment is like a precious pearl. Whoever procures it at the expense of 10,000 desires makes a wise and happy purchase. In the Kathopanishad, Yam tells Nachiketa that both the preferable and the pleasurable approach man. The intelligent one prefers the preferable to the pleasurable, whereas the ignorant selects the pleasurable that chains him to unlimited desires.

In the Bhagwad Gita, Arjun asks Krishn what impels a person to commit sin against his will. Krishn replies that desire and anger, born of passionate quality, are enemies that eat our atman. They obfuscate wisdom like smoke covers fire. By covering our wisdom, they delude the soul, hence one should control them from the beginning. They destroy wisdom.


The Self is greater than intelligence, which, in turn, is greater than mind. The mind is greater than senses, which are greater than material objects. Krishn tells Arjun that by knowing the One beyond intelligence, that is, the Self, desire is killed and, so, anger vanishes.

Desire, when transformed into aspiration, helps life soar into the highest liberation, and supreme salvation does not seem so out of reach, after all.