So, what is well-being? When do you really feel well in your life?
When do you truly feel well?
When you're very happy you're well. Even if you're physically ill, you're still well, isn't it ?
Even if you're medically diagnosed as ill,
you're very happy right now, you're feeling well, isn't it?
So fundamentally well-being means a certain level of joyfulness, certain exuberance of life.
What is happiness?
We can say happiness is this that but in terms of life,
your life energies are happening in a more exuberant way than it normally happens.
Depression means your life energies have become very low and stayed.
Happiness means your life energies are exuberant.
There are many ways of describing happiness,
but only those who are happy know what it means to be happy.
There is nobody who has not been happy.
Everybody's been happy but the problem is they're not able to maintain it. That's all, isn't it?
Everybody's been happy. In the last 24 hours, how many moments of joy have you known?
One, two, three - how many?
May be you can count on your fingers.
Many people have nothing to count.
(Laughs)
When you were five years of age, a child, how many moments of joy did you know in 24 hours?
Hmm?
Lots of them, isn't it ? Somebody had to make you unhappy.
Now somebody has to make you happy, isn't it?
The whole equation has gotten reversed somehow.
All this effort of life, everything that you did,
education, career, business, family, whatever you did,
everything was in pursuit of happiness, is it so?
Everything that humanity has done on this planet is in pursuit of happiness, is it so?
In the last hundred years, we have done too much on this planet.
With the use of science and technology, we have changed the very face of this planet.
Today, we have the kind of comforts and conveniences that no other generation could ever even imagine.
Yes? What royalty could not afford a hundred years ago,
today average citizens have, isn't it so?
Aren't most of you driving chariots with hundred, two hundred horses? (Laughter)
Yes? Even Kings could not afford this.
But are we any happier?
We are definitely the most comfortable generation ever on this planet. Is it so, physically?
But are we also the most joyful generation?
So it's not worked.
Science and technology has brought enormous amount of comfort and convenience to our lives.
Things that we could not imagine just 25 years ago are just a living reality today, isn't it?
But are we any more joyful? No.
And all these comforts and conveniences have not come easy.
They've come at a tremendous cost to every other life on this planet.
Yes? Every creature from plant to animal to everything including human beings,
have paid an enormous price to create these comforts and conveniences and
we are not even happy. What is the point?
We are literally making a bonfire of this planet.
If you are ecstatic, it's okay, burn the planet. It's alright.
We are not even happy. I think it's time to really look at it, isn't it?
Why are we burning it up, if you're not even happy?