Be Intoxicating – In Gita Verse 18.39 And that happiness which is blind to self-realisation, which is delusion from beginning to end and which arises from sleep, laziness and illusion is said to be of the nature of ignorance.
Krishna says ordinary acts can be transformed – a morning walk can be intoxicating. And if a morning walk cannot be intoxicating then something is wrong with you. Just watching a rose flower can be intoxicating. And if it cannot intoxicate you, then nothing can intoxicate you. Just looking in the eyes of a child can be intoxicating.
Why from ordinary acts we cannot transform ourselves?
Because we always feel the need for little reward at the end of the day. Many times things which were giving happiness and satisfaction may not be satisfied. Yet the desire for something, some gratification, continues.
At that time the question will come up – What is this longing and what will satisfy it?
Nothing will satisfy it. There is a subtle mechanism of desire to be understood. Desire functions in this way, desire places a condition on your happiness. “I will be happy if I can get this car, this woman, this house.”
Fulfilment of the desire removes that condition on your happiness. In your relief you feel good. Actually all you have done is remove a quite unnecessary obstruction to your happiness, but it is not long before you find yourself thinking, “If I can create that obstruction again, then remove it all over again, the relief I felt in removing it the last time will feel as good as it did then.” And so it is that desires, even when we fulfil them, lead again and again to the creation of new desires.
Do you follow it? First you make a condition. You say, “Unless I get this woman I am not going to be happy. I can be happy only with this woman.” Now you start striving to get this woman. The more difficult it is, the more you become enthusiastic, feverish.
The more difficult it is the more you are challenged. The more difficult it is the more you put all your being at stake; you are ready to gamble. And of course more hope arises and more desire to possess the woman. It is so hard, it is so difficult. It must be something great, that’s why it is so hard, that’s why it is so difficult. You chase and chase and chase and one day you get the woman.
The day you get the woman the condition is removed: “If I get the woman then I will be happy.” You had put that condition in the first place. Now you get the woman, you feel relief. Now there is no more chasing, you have arrived, the result is in your hands, you feel good – good because of the relief.
Now this woman is useless because you have got her. You cannot make a condition again. You can never say again, “If I get this woman I will be happy,” because she is already with you. Now you start looking around at somebody else’s woman, “If I get that woman…”
Now you know one trick – that first you have to put a condition on your happiness, then you have to follow the condition desperately, then one day relief comes. Now this is futile. This is what Krishna calls ignorance.
A man of understanding will see that there is no need to put any condition, you can be unconditionally happy. Why go on walking in small shoes and suffer just to get relief in the end? Why not have relief all the time? But then you will not feel it, that is the problem. To feel it you need contrast. You will be happy but you will not feel it.
And that is the definition of a really happy man: a really happy man is one who does not know anything about happiness, who has never heard about it, who is so happy, so unconditionally happy, that how can he know that he is happy? Only unhappy people say, “I am happy, things are going great.” These are unhappy people.
A happy person knows nothing about happiness. It is simply there, it is always there. It is like breathing.
Happiness is herenow, it needs no condition. Happiness is natural. Just see the point of it. Don’t put conditions on your happiness. Remain happy for no reason at all. There is no reason to find some cause to be happy. Just be happy.
Krishna says learn how to live the moment joyously. Don’t look for results, there are none. Life is not going anywhere, it has no end. Life is not a means to any end, life is just herenow. Live it. Live it totally, live it consciously, live it joyously – and you will be fulfilled.
Fulfilment should not be postponed, otherwise you will never be fulfilled. Fulfilment has to be now – now or never.
Tags: Be Intoxicating
