Equations for life from 'The Gita': Misery and Attachment

The Bhagvad Gita and Mathematics make a great combination. Combine the lessons from the book and some simple maths, and you get equations that can change your entire perspective towards life. In the first post of the series - Equations for life from 'The Gita', we looked at the formula for happiness. Here is presenting the second post in the series, which is about the relationship between 'Misery' and 'Attachment'.

 

 

What does everyone dread meeting the most in their pursuit of happiness – sorrow, sadness, misery? The Bhagvad Gita not only gives us lessons on how to lead a happy life, but it also teaches us ways to avoid misery in life. Just as the formula for happiness is simple, the formula for misery is also simple. Well, none of us want to be miserable in life, do we? Then, look no further than the below formula for leading a life without misery.

 

 

If one does a Root Cause Analysis of all things that makes life miserable, one will find that at the root of all that misery and sorrow will be "attachment". When one is attached to things, their absence disturbs them and that in turn leads to frustration and eventually sorrow and misery.

 

In our lives, we often tend to get closely attached to certain things. Let's take an example, work for instance. On the one end of the spectrum, we have self-proclaimed “workaholics” who are obsessed with work, and at the other end of the spectrum we have those who totally detest working, often because they are attached to lethargy or laziness. If we look at the lives of people from both ends of the spectrum, we can find that the lives of both are equally miserable.  Too much attachment to work often wears people out, they miss out on other things in life like following their passion, making time for themselves or their families, in a nutshell, the life of "workaholics" is quite miserable. Those who don’t like working, always complain about having to work, crib often about their work, office, colleagues, bosses, so on and so forth, and derive no happiness in work, the end result - a miserable life! Whereas if you look at those in the middle of the spectrum, those people who neither detest working nor obsess about it, they will mostly be the happiest lot of all. The 'funda' is actually quite simple, wherever there is attachment, there is fear and expectations - fear of losing out on something, and expectations of a reward or benefit, so when we lose that something or when our expectations fail, we just cannot take it.

 

Take anything materialistic, say, food, smoking, alcohol, drugs, money, power, success, pretty much anything under the sun, when one is attached to them, one’s life becomes miserable. It’s just not restricted to materialistic things, too much attachment to habits, people, places – all of it leads to misery. The key is to find a right balance, the right amount of attachment and detachment.

 

The perfect state that one can aspire for, is similar to that of a water drop on a lotus leaf; the drop is very much there, yet it is totally unattached. That’s the best approach to lead life. The less attached we are to things, the less is our misery. Detachment is the key, and anyone who has learnt to master the art of total detachment, is never miserable in life. Well, the sate of complete detachment is something which will take a lot of self-control and practice to master, but it is a state which is worth aspiring for, if one wants to lead a life free of misery. However until we reach that ideal state, it is best to have minimal attachment to things in life – both materialistic and non-materialistic. There is a proverb in Malayalam, which captures this very well – “Adhikamayal Amruthum Visham", which roughly translates to, “In excess quantities even nectar can be poisonous”, in English. Everything is good, provided it is within limits, even attachment too. The lower your attachment, the lower is your misery, and the more your happiness. Sometimes in life, it’s as they say, “Less is more”.

So on this  auspicious occasion of Dussehra, here is wishing everyone a joyful life, completely devoid of misery; let's burn the 'Raavan' of 'Misery' and welcome happiness in our lives, and now you know the formulas that can make it happen!

 

Equations for life from 'The Gita': Happiness

The ‘Bhagvad Gita’, which roughly translates to the “The Song of God” is a Hindu scripture which is a part of the epic ‘Mahabharata’, and is a dialogue between Lord Krishna and Arjuna in the battlefield of Kurukshetra. The conversation is about Arjuna’s dilemma as to whether to fight the battle of righteousness or to give up, as fighting would mean hurting his own kith and kin even though they had done Arjuna and his family wrong, and how Lord Krishna helps Arjuna overcome the dilemma, by teaching him about ‘Karma’ and other great truths of life. Though it is a Hindu scripture, The Bhagvad Gita has a very universal appeal. Its situations, its lessons, they apply to anyone, anywhere in the world, to people from all walks of life. The lessons from Bhagvad Gita are not just for life, they can even be applied to Management and Business as well, which is why many great leaders often vouch that they use the lessons from Bhagvad Gita in their professional life to do better at work, to lead, and to motivate their teams.  

 

It is a book that I always go to when I need clarity in life. Recently, it occurred to me, The Bhagvad Gita and Mathematics make a great combination. Firstly, the book is full of solutions; for all problems in life. Secondly, if you apply a little maths to the lessons from it, you can get equations that can change your entire perspective towards life. It was my inspiration to start this series on “Equations for life from ‘The Gita’”.

Here is presenting the very first equation in the series.

It’s strange that a formula for Happiness could be this simple. All of us are in some way or the other searching for happiness, but very few actually find happiness, why? The answer lies in the equation. We often have huge expectations from people and situations in life, but when things do not turn out as we expect, we tend to get disappointed. People with too many expectations are almost always unhappy about life, whereas, someone who has very less expectations, is almost always happy.

From the equation for happiness, it is very clear that happiness and expectations are inversely proportional to each other. The less you expect from life, the happier you are. Hence, the key to bliss or infinite happiness is having nil expectations as Zero Expectations = Infinite Happiness! Well, having no expectations at all is a very ideal situation to wish for. In the fast paced lives that we lead, in this highly competitive world that we live in, it is quite difficult to reach this state of "Zero Expectations".

Almost everything we do in life, we do expecting something in return, isn't it? If you are working, you work hard at office, expecting a good rating in appraisals or a good pay hike. If you are a student, you study hard, expecting good grades, maybe even a rank. But what happens when things do not work out as planned. What if despite your efforts, you do not get a good rating, or you do not get good grades, would you not be disappointed? The answer is a big emphatic "Yes". Think about a scenario in which you work hard, but you do so without any expectations of a result. In that scenario would you be disappointed, if you did not get a good result, definitely not. You were not expecting anything in the first place, so there is no room for disappointment. If the result is good, you will be pleasantly surprised, if not, you will be happy that you tried your best, but this is how the result turned out to be, you accept it and continue to do your work without any regrets. I know, it does sound too good to be true, but trust me, I can vouch from my personal experience that this approach works wonders in life. When one does something without expecting anything in return, one is always happy. I agree, it is difficult to adopt this ideology overnight, but slowly, consciously if we start doing small things in this way, one day we can reach a stage where we do things without any expectations at all, and find a way to be truly happy. Start by doing something very simple, like helping someone who you know can never return your favour and Oh, that feeling, what can I say, it is bliss!

In one’s pursuit of happiness, all that matters ultimately is if one finds happiness or not. If sacrificing something as unnecessary as expectations can get one there, then I think it is worth the sacrifice, after all what good has ever come of expectations, nothing! Expectations can only give rise to frustration and unhappiness. So the choice is in one's hand - happiness or expectations. The formula is very simple, all you need to do is decide, what do you want to let go of, so choose wisely!