The Cause of Unhappiness : 1.

The happiness that we pursue should be unmixed, if it is genuine. It should not be contaminated by other features, as that would go to prove that there is some defect in the way in which happiness is being pursued. It will be observed that every passing phase of pleasure or joy in life is accompanied by another character altogether which precedes it, comes with it, and also follows it – namely, a kind of sorrow. An immediate consequence that follows the experience of contacting a pleasure is a feeling of having lost it, because it has not continuously become a part of one’s experience.


There is no such thing as a continuous, unbroken experience of happiness, because the happiness was caused by certain efforts and certain conditions. When the efforts cease or the conditions disperse, the effect also must vanish; therefore, there is the consequence of an unhappiness of having lost the happiness that was once there. This peculiar character of unhappiness following a temporary experience of happiness will continue in spite of our pursuing it again and again.


Moreover, the repetition of an enjoyment increases the thirst for it due to a memory which is retained on account of that pleasure. Memory of unhappiness becomes an urge, a goad to drive the mind onward once again towards continuing the same process which it followed earlier. The fact that there was no satiation in an earlier experience of a similar character should show that there was some defect in the procedure adopted. Nevertheless, the same procedure is adopted again, and there is no improvement whatsoever in the modus operandi.



The result is, once again, a recurring feature: there is unhappiness; there is thirst. The quenching of a thirst does not end the matter – it creates further thirst – so the attempt at quenching the thirst is only a new effort that we are putting forth at creating a new thirst and a greater longing for the experience that passed away. How is it possible that a quenching of a thirst can create more thirst? The attempt is for one thing, and what happens is something else.

To be continued  ...