In Pursuit Of Happiness

There is a darkness that everyone must face

It wants to take what’s good and fair and lay it all to waste

And that darkness covers everything in sight

Until it meets a single point of light

These words from the song “Points of Light” by Randy Travis seem to resonate at a much deeper level today than ever before as Karachites bear witness to another episode of senseless violence. We seem to be all asking the same questions and coming up with the same answers – answers which do not contribute to solving the problem, just deepening our darkness. We are all searching for that ‘point of light’.

There is a famous Sufi story in which the Sufi comes across a man on his hands and knees feverishly searching for something on the road. The Sufi asked him “what are you searching for” the man replied “I dropped my keys”. The Sufi decided to help him and joined in the search but no matter how meticulously they looked every inch of the ground the keys were nowhere to be found. Tired the Sufi asked the man “do you remember where exactly did you drop them?” “Of course” the man replied with indignation “I dropped them in my house”. Taken aback with this reply the Sufi asked “then why on earth are we searching in the middle of the road?” The man replied “Because there is more light outside”.

Some people laugh when they hear this story as if it’s a great joke, but it is in fact a story with a very sobering morale. Like that man most of us spend our time looking for answers outside but in actuality most answers lie within us.

Evil is ‘live’ spelt backwards, hence whatever is anti-life is evil. Being anti-life does not only mean the taking away of actual lives, it also means taking away of the joy, the dreams, the spark to fight and the determination to win against all odds, because these are things which make a difference between an existence and a life. So, whenever we propagate a sense of hopelessness, whenever we succumb to the darkness of our own thoughts and even worse when we spread negativity to others we drain the life force of others as well as ourselves and we too become guilty of being ‘evil’.

There are some who would argue that only the truly callous and shallow can remain unaffected by what is happening around us so how is it possible to remain happy and positive in the midst of so much despair? But for evil to win it is enough that good people do nothing. Our politics are too convoluted for most of us to understand and we certainly have no power to change our external circumstances, however we can fight evil, simply by refusing to succumb to it. We have to look within ourselves and keep our happiness intact. I’m not saying that we lose our compassion or our humanity, far from it, but being hopeless and despairing will not change our circumstances, rather we will be perpetuating the cycle.

Matter and energy are interchangeable and all matter in the universe is constant are 2 principles we learnt in basic physics but little did we know that in these short statements lies the secret of life itself. Our brain emits electrical impulses therefore every thought we have is a particle which has its own unique frequency or vibration. Hence every thought has the capacity to convert into matter i.e. manifest itself into our tangible reality or simply put ‘thoughts become things’. This is the core philosophy of the Law of Attraction i.e. whatever we think about constantly manifests itself into our lives. But it is not just our thoughts which create our physical reality it is actually our feelings which attract circumstances in our lives. One can constantly think of that perfect house they want to buy but when they think those thoughts if their predominant feeling is that of noticing its lack or feeling hopeless that it is not in their capacity to get it, then they will just get more events which will make this dream seem impossible. So the more despairing we are guess what do we attract? Yes circumstances which bring more despair.

Being happy and positive is the best weapon we have against evil and actually changing our current circumstances. We need to stop looking outwards for our answers, let the political analysts do their job, we are neither trained to do that nor will it make a scrap of difference by sitting around the TV feeling depressed. We are not helpless, we do have the power to bring change by making our own and others’ happiness our prime goal. We will need to actively seek ways to make ourselves full of joy and hope - its not easy but its not impossible .

Ever since I was a child I have heard people say that there is no future for this country, that everything here is doomed or that we have hit rock bottom. But each day something happens which makes us reassess the depth of the abyss we seem to be in, each day we say this is the worst that can happen, and each day we change that view as well. The more we focus on how ‘bad’ everything is, the worse the situation becomes. We have tried to be miserable and unhappy for so many years and it has made no difference, so perhaps its time to change our attitude. We will have to look inside for the keys, no matter how dark it might be.