We living in our AC homes and offices may pity
people of the past who had to work outdoors, sweating profusely under the
burning hot sun. Yet we don’t realize that despite our air-conditioners, we too
end up sweating, not because of heat but because of stress.
Comfortable misery is still misery
The comforts that our contemporary
techno-centered culture has provided us can be so infatuating as to blind us to
its cost, especially when the cost is not as visible as the comfort. The
comforts are visible because they are largely physical, whereas the costs are
invisible because they are mostly psychological – increased anxiety, for
example.
As long as people believe that better material
things will make them happy, they hardly ever question whether the acquisition
of comforts is actually making them happier. Craving and slaving to get
comforts, they hardly give any thought to that pursuit’s flip side. That flip
side stems from an uncritical adoption of a materialistic worldview, which
makes people inordinately dependent on material things for their sense of
self-worth and security. When faced with the uncertainties that characterize
the ever-changing world of matter, they suffer enormous anxiety. Their physical
comforts do little to remove their psychological misery – they end up
comfortably miserable.
Gita wisdom explains that we are not physical
creatures; we are spiritual beings. So, physical comforts can’t provide the
security and satisfaction available in spiritual realization. Seeking material
things keeps us dissatisfied (14.12) and sentences us to misery (14.16).
We don’t need to reject comforts, but we do need to
realize that comforts can’t make us happy – only realizing our spiritual
essence can. For gaining such realization, the most efficacious process is
bhakti-yoga, for it connects us with the supreme spiritual reality, Krishna.
When we practice bhakti-yoga diligently, we find a sublime inner security and
satisfaction that doesn’t depend on external comfort.Comfortable misery is still misery
