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!