Questioner (Q): Thank you for coming here and enlightening us with all your knowledge. I have two small questions. I have written this so that I can deliver clearly. I have heard from multiple sources that we should not chase our happiness because happiness is already within us. So, is this right?
And another question is: if this is right, then what's the purpose of doing our work? A person wants to become a doctor because after becoming he will be able to serve the society and he will feel better after that. But if I am already happy, if I am already powerful, then what's the motivation behind doing our work?
Acharya Prashant (AP): Good. Both questions are useful. No, it's not that you should not chase happiness; you should chase great happiness, true happiness, high happiness, lasting happiness, happiness free of sadness, happiness free of fear. And this will tell you that usually the happiness that we chase is not high, is not lasting, comes with fear, and comes with sadness. Does it not? And that's the problem with the normal kind of happiness.
So, the knowers have said, “Happiness is not the goal of life, absolute happiness is the goal of life.” They were such super hedonists, you could say. We talk of ambition, think of the ambition of the sages and the great philosophers. They did not even say that you should go for ordinary accomplishment or ordinary happiness, they said absolute happiness, happiness without a second, happiness without an end. That's the purpose of life.
And that's the reason they said that the usual happinesses that you chase are all nonsense. Because those happinesses come on back of fear. Those happinesses are just shadows of sadness, those happinesses won't last. Those happinesses would leave long periods of wanting and longing and shallowness in their wake. So, it's a very misplaced notion that ‘wisdom’ or ‘spirituality' is about dropping happiness or not chasing happiness. No, no, no. Have you heard of the word ‘
