Eliminate the Immunity Against Joy

A Hypothesis about Happiness: Eliminate the "Immunity Against Joy"!

By Dr Dharmagat Bhattarai, USERN Junior Ambassador, Nepal

The "hygiene hypothesis" in immunity proposes the concept that lack of exposure to microbes at childhood leads to multiple allergic diseases and failure of development of immune tolerance. Likewise, lack of peace or inability to find joy might be the root cause of many maladies. Stress, depression, and obesity are the most dreadful enemies of health in the existing world, though underappreciated in many reports. Protocolized artificiality has become the way of thinking, behaving and living. None of us perceive small but brighter titbits of life. Garbage of civilization has made us resistant to the joy of existence. In the crater of unfathomable desire, we are never happy in present world.

Everyone defines happiness differently and almost everything about happiness looks uncertain. Simply, It is all about pursuing the action that you love from the core of your heart without snatching away anybody else's peace of mind. It's not practicable with ‘camouflage' life. It's all about being natural and in unison with vibrations of your soul. But, our happiness should not kill any dimension of happiness in others and that's a rule. The journey towards happiness requires your soulful presence where you are and liberation from the garbage of desire and superiority.

With the intoxication of comparison, ego and rat-race for excellence, we are trained for a mere "physical survival", not a soulful living. Survival is well sustained with prosperity but there will be no liveliness in that life. Within the arena of rapidly expanding the horizon of economics, science, and technology, we are engulfed in the profound black-hole of rush and unending desire. It appears as we are too mature for our soul that we almost have killed the one within us.

When was the last time you smiled or even laughed soulfully, peacefully or naturally? When did you listened to your toddler freely and hugged passionately? Are we living with phony expressions and lost so much in the translation of civilization? With the rapid degradation of compassion and wisdom, we are transformed into breathing robots. As long as wide eyes can cover, we are running in an unending futile race. Sadly, happiness is no longer a priority for us.

When a friend of mine visited a panoramic and beautiful Himalayan mountain region of Nepal and came back, I asked what and how he felt. His reply was "Too cold! …clicked some photos and came back. Nothing significant really! I was busy planning my upcoming research proposal when I was really clicked in!" If we cannot feel anything while being at or seeing at mountains, falls, flowers, woods, lakes, music, children and so on, then, how can we fulfill our happiness from our bank balances?

Hellen Keller once said "seeing sees little". Yes, we truly realize the importance of anything only when it's lost. Yet sadly, we have lost peace of mind long back and still, we are not even aware of it. Compassion, conscience, and consonance confer congruent thinking and rationality, yet mere knowledge may augment bigotry and bias. We can imagine the awful state of uncleanness after a week without bathing, but we are not aware of garbage in our mind because we have never tried to bathe it and this might be the reason for our immunity against happiness. We are unaware of the truth that real joy comes from being present and useful rather than being successful. When we pursue it in our daily life, we will be empowered with a mesmerizing smile. We will be in a persistent state of meditation just like a serene sky after heavy rain. 

Happiness lies within the simple things we do. Here are some of these innumerable joyous titbits, of my experience:

1. Early exposures are crucial! Feel like a child, and smile like a child. Exposure to joy, misery, fear, and anger are all necessary for the emotional system to evolve and learn when to respond and which response to choose.
2. Liberate yourself from unending desires and materialism! All we need is the peace of mind rather than prosperity. Happiness is not about perfection, but about perception.
3. Embrace humanity! Hug the innocent souls! Live vibrantly as if you will not regret even if you die now.
4. Help without expectation of the return! Feel the equality with subordinates too! 
5. Do not try to fix life in a protocol! No two persons can have the same anatomy and fate. The immune system develops hundred thousands of scenarios to combat invading pathogens, with a few simple tactics. Rules are the same but the formula is unique. 
6. Accept the truth and proceed ahead! Pain may be inevitable but "to suffer or not" is your choice.
7. Feel yourself! Bathe your mind! Feel your breaths, sensations, vibrations of your body, mind, and willpower! Be yourself. Do not camouflage!
8. Be soulfully present! Do not let a ''bystander'' anguish make you ''hypersensitive'' to your own peace of mind.
9. Develop tolerance! Act like the Peyer's patches in the small intestine! See tons and tons of imperfections pass by every day and still do your own job and present what is right for your happiness to maintain!

Be a river and liberate yourself from rushes and races!