Gouri Tripathi



Every body wishes to be happy in life. However, different people try to get happiness in different ways. Is there a universal cause for happiness? Is happiness relative or absolute? Is our happiness real or virtual? We feel happy when we are apparently in a more advantageous state than the people we know more closely or compete with. This is true within a materialistic frame of things.

Absolute happiness is practically unattainable as with the case of other absolute concepts, such as absolute success, absolute contentment, absolute misery etc. Even the zero and the infinity of science are also extreme limits of smallness and largeness. Absolute values exist only in theory, not in practice.

Life has opposites: happiness and misery, success and failure, profit and loss, hot and cold, honour and humiliation and so on. The Hindu scripture Bhagbad Gita says one who is above these mundane things is a stithaprajna and is really happy. It also states that there are three vices-Kama (lust), Krodha (anger) and Lobha (greediness)-that lead to misery. A person who has control over these vices can be happy. However, no human being, howsoever virtuous, has complete control over these things.

Happiness and misery are two states of mind. Misery starts where happiness ends. What is the boundary that separates the two? Is it unique or relative, too? I shall try to borrow ideas from the phase transitions in matter and see whether the phase transition from

happiness to misery can be reasonably modeled on this basis?

Matter undergoes phase transformations. The most important phase transformation is the solid-liquid-gas transitions. This transformation takes place as a function of temperature and pressure-two important thermodynamic variables. To illustrate this point, below the freezing temperature (0o C) water becomes ice and above the boiling temperature (100oC) it becomes steam-a gaseous state. Thus the freezing and boiling temperatures are well-defined boundaries for the said transitions. For different materials these threshold temperatures are different. Solid materials undergo different kinds of phase transformations-ferromagnetic to paramagnetic, super conducting to normal-conducting etc. There are different order parameters, associated with phase transformations, which are finite in one phase and zero in the other. For example, magnetization is finite in a ferromagnetic phase and zero in the paramagnetic phase.

In a similar fashion, we can say that within some threshold limits of lust, anger and greediness, a person can be happy and, beyond these, plunges into misery. These threshold values are different for different people, depending on their temperament, priorities and ability of self-control. For example, for a miser the threshold value of greediness is more than a person whose sole obsession is fame and reputation. Similarly for a womanizer, the threshold value for lust is more than that of a miser. For a wicked man, the threshold value of anger is more than the corresponding limits for a womanizer or a miser.

Now let us find the parameter, which orders happiness. It is very subtle and the quest for such a parameter does not end here. I believe that the one, which may be a close approximation, is contentment. In other words, contentment is finite in the happy state of a person and is zero at the threshold limits of the three vices. It is maximum at absolute zeroes of lust, anger and greediness, decreases with increase in these variables and vanishes at the respective thresholds. This is also in accord with the Buddhist view- misery ends when longing ends. Contentment results from a spiritual interaction made effective by the forces of truthfulness and honesty. Although it may be sometimes externally brought in, the strongest energy comes only from within.