HAPPINESS
Truly speaking, there is no single definition of happiness. A
happy man is variously described as glad, pleased, cheerful, delighted,
carefree, blissful, ecstatic, contented and satisfied.
Quotations on happiness, too, are highly diverse. According
to the English poet Coleridge (1772-1831) happiness can be built only on
virtue, and must of necessity have truth for its definition.
Roman emperor and philosopher Marcus Antoninus (121-80)
believes that no man is happy who does not think himself so.
French philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623-62) claims happiness
is neither within us , nor without us; it is the union of ourselves with God.
American author Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-64) compares
happiness to a butterfly , which when pursued, is always just beyond your
grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.
Lastly the suggestion of Greek historian Herodotus (484-425 B.C.):“Call no man happy, till you
know the end of his life. Till then, at most, he can only be counted
fortunate.“
My chief concern here is with the views of Baruch Spinoza who
is known as “God-intoxicated philosopher.” He was born at Amsterdam in
Netherlands on 24th November 1632 and died at The Hague,
Netherlands, on 22nd February 1677. Among his half a dozen important
works is : Short Treatise on God, Man and His Well Being.
Spinoza was keenly interested in three questions. First, what
sort of world do we live in? Second, who put us here? Third why has God put us
here?
I am leaving out his answers to the first two questions
because they are not germane to my purpose in this write up.
Spinoza’s answer to the third question is that we have
been born into this world to be happy. He defines happiness as the presence
of pleasure and the absence of pain. “It is our duty to seek pleasure and avoid
pain, after first understanding our limitations. We are cogs in a cosmic
machine. The will that moves this machine is the infinite and eternal mind of
God.” To be happy human beings must abide by the laws of God. There is no such
thing as free will.
Spinoza writes : “There is in the mind no absolute or free
will; but the mind is determined to will this or that by a cause which in turn
is determined by another cause, and this by another, and so on to infinity.“ To
put it in simpler words our acts are no more free and they have no more to do with
the will than the falling of the rain from the sky or the flight of an arrow
that has been shot out of a bow. The only difference between the flight of an
arrow and the act of a human being is that the human being is conscious
of his act and mistakes his consciousness for will power.
Spinoza claims human beings are chained to their destiny.
They are only spectators in the little drama of their life. They have no voice in its direction. They
have the ability to watch their acts, which they mistake for the ability to will
them. Our decisions ae the result not only of our own past life, but of the
past lives of all our ancestors.
To be happy, our chief interest in life should be to love
ourselves and to seek what is useful to us; and in order to love ourselves, we
must love others. Love, pleasure and happiness are the treasures of the soul
and are best enjoyed when most generously shared. Aristotle called it the
doctrine of enlightened selfishness, which is as true today as it was in
ancient times. The wise man, says Spinoza, knows that he can help himself only
by helping others. He realises that individual happiness is mutual happiness.
He avoids envy because envy produces not happiness but pain. He avoids hatred
because hatred begets hatred. He avoids hurting others because he knows that
injury is repaid with injury, that he who takes up the sword is destined to
perish by the sword. He avoids conquest because he realises that every military
victory sows the seeds for a future war of revenge. “Our greatest victories are
not won by arms but by the greatness of soul.” The truly good man is the truly
happy and the truly wise man. He is generous to others because in this way
alone can he be most generous to himself.
Spinoza asserts that that our ultimate aim in life is to seek
happiness through knowledge, through the acquisition of wisdom, through the
enlightened understanding of the vital interrelationship that exists bet ween
man and man. He who understands will hate nothing, despise nothing, injure
nothing and fear nothing. He will live a life not of individual ambition but of
mutual co-operation. He will adhere to the teachings of the ancient prophets
and to the principle of the Golden Rule. He will “desire nothing for himself
which he will not desire for the rest of mankind.”
Finally, according to Spinoza all men are equally important
parts of God. And so, in order to be happy you must love yourself. But to love
yourself is to love mankind, and to love mankind is to love God. And this is
the reason for which we have come into the world.
Before I conclude, I would like to admit my grateful
indebtedness to Henry Thomas and Dana Lee Thomas , the authors of ‘Living
Biographies of Great Philosophers (1941)’, for the views expressed in this
brief write up.
………
30th
August 2020 G.
R. KANWAL
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