Modern man’s concept of happiness has not changed much since primitive times, ie. happiness is when I acquire more material things from others, and unhappiness is when others take my property from me.
Even if we leave aside the morality of this concept, it is still flawed in its essence because no matter how much property, power, public recognition, and pleasures we amass, it will not bring us happiness. Material objects cannot bring true happiness, only taedium vitae, after which a person is overcome by depression even more than before.
If you have lost something near and dear to you, you'd know how very true those words are.
Every material thing that we desire for brings only pain to us in the end.
Still, why do we continue to do it? We tell ourselves that it is all part of it. We think that without desiring for things, we'll not be enjoying life, that we'd be like robots.
And these saints and people like them seem to give support to it - they give up desires and live like paupers. This is not to blame them, to them there's no need for money or comforts, so they live without them. But for us, outside observers, it appears as though they're living a dull life that you and me surely won't want.
And this is why most of us stay away from religion... It feels like giving up our happiness willingly, which no fool would do.
But... shall we think for a moment? How many sages have you seen who think and write very clearly, who have great minds and brains? You might have heard of Vivekananda who was a very lucid speaker and writer, who understood a lot in science and even memorized whole encyclopedias without effort.
Don't you think it's a bit of contradiction if we say they do something not even a fool would do? Isn't it strange if they all were to be senseless in this one thing alone? Why would such intelligent people give up everything for nothing?
If you sincerely think about that question, you might get a suspicion they might actually have had some reason for what they did. Now, let's think about what they taught and followed.
They taught to take everything that comes as the Will of God. They didn't say don't enjoy things, they just said don't get lost in enjoying, then you'd suffer later when the thing is not there. Keep yourself a little detached from things always, that way you can remain sane always.
How about that for a philosophy of life? Enjoy things when they come, but no worries when they aren't there either. It's a Win-Win situation. Won't you love it?
When they said give up your material belongings, they didn't actually mean throw them all out into the Ganges and become penniless. Some real physical giving up might be needed in some cases to break mind's addiction, but that's not the real goal here. It's like this: if you feel you're getting addicted to the Internet, and want to break the addicitoin, you can probably do it better if you remain off the computer for some days rather than if you continue to be on the net every second, right? The same way, though the actual objective is getting the mind not to depend on some thing, physically taking it away is sometimes necessary to enforce that. If you get very stable in being unattached, those things might be returned to you, because your mind will no longer get affected by them.
And from time to time, life itself gives you big shocks to remind you that you aren't supposed to get too attached to things. Now, I don't honestly get why life (or God or whatever) does this, why it wants us to get detached (there are theories like Advaita that, if true, might explain this), but if this is the state of affairs, it's wise to make the best of it right?
And you know what, life treats you like you'd treat a little child if you're a teacher - life gives you blows only when it wants you to learn something and you refuse. If you learn the lesson yourself and show to life, it pats you on the back and gives chocolates. And believe me, life's chocolates can be very sweet. :)
Now, don't get attached to even that sweetness, just enjoy it, and move on. After all, that's all life's about. :)
