Welcome To Anandam
The meaning of this Sanskrit word “Anandam” is Happiness. Imagine dreaming about anandam or let’s say happiness. Let me ask you a strange question – what is the greatest amount of happiness you can conceive of in life when you’re going to speak about happiness? Well, you see, when we talk about Anandam we mean to talk about overcoming suffering and attainment of happiness. Search For Happiness seems to be the essence of all the strivings of life; not just our lives, everybody’s lives, any living creature in fact is searching for satisfaction happiness. In the Vedanta philosophy, we say that our goal should be to attain complete cessation of suffering and attainment of bliss.
In the quest of happiness and bliss, I have read many books, articles and I have personally met some monks from different parts of the world. I will share all of those great experiences in this website through my blogposts. In the meantime below are some great book recommendations. Trust me, these are really some of my personal favorites.
DEATH: AN INSIDE STORY
In this book Sadhguru provides a thought-provoking and insightful exploration of the the concept of death from a spiritual perspective. This is a must read book.
LIFES AMAZING SECRETS
A self-help book that is filled with great insights and techniques that provide practical advice to develop self-discipline, awareness and personal growth.
I think we really need to look deeply into what we are trying to do in life and find out what is the better way of seeking happiness. Let’s take a deeper look and do the analysis of happiness, in fact, let us do an inquiry or an investigation into happiness. The way I look at this is, that there are broadly two parts to this quest for happiness. The first part is the one dealing with conventional religion or as we say in hindi – Karma Kanda; let us call it the Ritualistic portion. The other part is the one dealing with philosophy, but the operations in it have the highest teachings of elevators which are called Vedanta. At this stage before I go on talking more on this subject, I must talk about a particular section of people rather it’s very common these days, it’s the new age term most of us we have heard about it – Spiritual But Not Religious and the acronym attached to this group is SBNR. Yes, SBNR – Spiritual But Not Religious. There are folks who say that they are spiritual, it’s not that they are atheistic or don’t believe in God or materialist; no, they are very much spiritual but it’s just that they are not religious. They don’t believe in any particular religion nor do they think they should. So, that was about SBJR – Spiritual But Not Religious. Now let me get back to what I was saying.
If you look carefully what I wrote before that there are two parts, I guess it wont be wrong to say that first part is what we might today call religious but not particularly spiritual; what we might call it as conventional religion and remember that’s the first part of the Vedas the Karma Kanda. The second part would be, well, something spiritual but not religious. When you’re going to analyze something, you need a unit of measurement, isn’t it? So you want to analyze something, even something as abstract as happiness you need to measure it. In order to develop a unit of measurement, you should dream about happiness. Just think what are the conditions in which you will be happiest, it doesn’t cost to dream, you know it already how to dream and it doesn’t have any expense attached to it. This way, you set up an ideal of human happiness parameter. This would be your first step towards attaining happiness in life. Hence, in the search of happiness we start with an analysis and investigation into Anandam. For those of you who do not know, Anandam in Sanskrit is the word for bliss.
The second important thing needed for happiness is a condition. The condition is you need to be young; now, more elderly people should not get paranoid and stop reading the article here itself. I just want to highlight that things are better when we are young, you’re more vigorous and bodies heal faster and you have a very sunny outlook on life. In the Vedanta philosophy, they say for happiness one needs three things. They say, to enjoy life one needs three things – the first thing is a body (this body in Sanskrit is called sharira) the other thing you need is an Object Of Enjoyment, which here might be music, it might be food, and dance and things to do and or maybe vacations to take. This Object Of Enjoyment is called Vishaya; it means those things in the world out there which give us happiness. The third thing needed for happiness is that you need an environment; this Environment in Sanskrit is called Loca. So to summarize, for happiness we need Loca, Vishaya, and Sharira.
If a piece of cake makes you happy, then two pieces should make you happier, isn’t it? You may say yes, it does. Well, then three pieces should make you even happier. Most of you would have read about the law of diminishing marginal utility in Economics; you get happiness from the consumption of something. You grow happier and happier if you consume more, but you will agree with me if I say, each time you consume a little more, you get smaller and smaller increments in your happiness. That’s what happens to us, just look at your own experience if those things give you happiness, then each time you have that you should get equal happiness, more you have should mean more happiness. In the cake example above, when somebody gives you the fifth piece, or the sixth or the 10th piece you want to run out, you want to throw up. How is it that the same thing can give you happiness and the same thing cannot give you happiness because that thing is not giving you happiness? Then what is happiness?
Conclusion: On this website, we will uncover some rare known facts that have answers to the fundamental question – what is the better way of seeking happiness? So, keep visiting this website, bookmark it in your browser and if you like reading our articles then please sign-up for our newsletter by filling out the form on the right side of this page.
Below are some fantastic videos that I have found on YouTube for our self-help. I am myself a great follower of Sadhguruji and Swami Ramdev. My pranam to their holy feet. My pranam to Gaur Gopal Das JI Maharaj and to Joyce Meyer for their teachings and showing us the path to light from darkness. These videos are from the gurus of life; these can help to bring positivity in life and keep us energized whole day. Please try to pull out sometime everyday for yourself and talk to yourself. If you don’t do this; I must you missed talking to an interesting person.
