My pursuit of happiness

We meet so many people in our lives; we hear a lot about some; and we read about so many others. We get to know some of them, while some of them are just an acquaintance and the remaining whom we never get to know. However, all these guys do affect our lives in some way. We may realize it or be completely oblivious to it but that’s the way it is. In Short, our lives are “dependent” upon so many others. “Influenced” may be the correct term.
I am not a regular Blogger. Nevertheless, I do write about certain events which have influenced me. So many things happen around us. The Events which we see or hear about can have a big say in one’s life. A small incident can change the course of one’s life. This article is about one such incident that I would like to call a defining moment in my life. Its about how an character in a Novel whose words influenced me a lot.
With time, I begun to see the world as a totally different place from what I had imagined, it was nowhere close to the perfect world with clean streets, zero crime I had imagined, it was vile and bad. The Cities stank. The villages were parched and dry. Television had murders to report every day, Murderers were justifying their Killings in the name of “jihad” and that’s when I understood good and bad was a relative concept, what was good for one was bad for another and vice versa.
I had a bad feeling about this. Not knowing what is good and bad can leave you stranded. It can leave you distracted, emotionally withdrawn and make you indulge in the Worldly pleasures that give you pleasure but not happiness. I did some things like that, because I did not care about anything else in the world. I knew I was not happy.
I got a book “Shantaram” written by Gregory Roberts, it depicted the experiences of the Protagonist “lin”. The book was laced with amazing view points on Religion, God and Life.

In the book Khader khan, a character explains to the protagonist the difference between good and evil. The philosophy behind this is quite simple, according to him, “The truth is that there are no good men, or bad men,’ ‘It is the deeds that have goodness or badness in them. There are good deeds and there are bad deeds. Men are just men–it is what they do, or refuse to do, that links them to good or evil. The truth is that an instant of real love, in the heart of anyone–the noblest of man alive or the wicked–has the whole purpose and process and meaning of life within the lotus-folds of its passion. The truth is that we are all, every one of us, every atom, every galaxy, and every particle of matter in the universe, moving toward God”. He tells us that all things in this world move towards God, an ultimate complexity, anything that moves towards the ultimate Complexity is good, and anything moving away from the Complexity is bad. This line, I tell you will be a defining moment in my life. I did not know Khader Khan, Shantaram or any one mentioned in the book, yet they left a deep impression in my life.
That Quote made me think, as how my actions affect the lives others around me. I wanted to know whether my actions helped others in any way. I begin to empathize, started caring about others and begin to see myself in a new light. In short, I felt as if I understood what Life meant.
I sign off with one final Quote from Khader Khan “There’s no believing in God…We either know God, or we don’t.” So now, here I am, looking at life with renewed hope, hoping that my actions of love, hatred, kindness, anger would help us all to move towards the Final complexity. Now I am happy. This is how my pursuit of happiness ends or rather begins.