Desires and dregs

Rahul was free! He and his wife travelled incessantly. They criss-crossed time zones, stayed at opulent hotels, ate good food, drank vintage wines, smoked expensive cigars. Ah! The good life! They just could not get enough.

One exciting experience rolled seamlessly into another. Then they landed in Spain, and fell in love with everything Spanish — its colours, its people, its architecture. They decided to recreate a bit of Spain for themselves in India.

They bought a farmhouse in Delhi and commissioned an architect to build a Hacienda. They then spent months scouring Spain for objects for their new home. They worked faster than the architect; by the time he had drawn up plans for their 5,000 sq foot home they had acquired enough to fill 10,000 sq feet. The architect was asked to tear up the plans, and start again.

And they continued to party. Rahul started to put on weight and he was breathless after the slightest exertion. But they disregarded the warning signs. They were having a good time; they wanted more, and more, and more. Till Rahul went into cardiac arrest.

What went wrong?

When the body gets addicted to drugs, it requires larger and larger quantities to generate a high. So too do the senses get addicted to experiences; they are hard taskmasters; they crave more and better fodder. It is an endless spiral.

The Geeta teaches that happiness is a ratio: the number of desires fulfilled, divided by the number of desires we have. There are two ways of improving that ratio. The first is Rahul’s way, an endless effort to fulfil more and more desires. But that almost never works — one desire is barely satisfied before another crops up in its place. Desire is a Hydra-headed monster. “A man is poor till his desires are sated.”

The key to lasting happiness is not to increase the number of desires fulfilled; it is to reduce the number of desires in the first place. The peace, the joy, the radiance you seek — it is all within you. Look, and you shall find. It is not easy. But it’s the only sustainable path.