People often ask me, “Are you happy?” With what you’re doing now, or in your new spiritual journey.
And every time I hear that question, something in me pauses.
Not because I don’t understand what they mean, but because I no longer relate to the direction of the question itself.
I am not searching for happiness.
I am searching for peace.
Happiness, as the world understands it, is always paired with its shadow.
If happiness can rise, sadness must also arrive.
If something can be gained, something can be lost.
If a moment can lift you, another moment will pull you down.
This is not pessimism.
This is simply how movement works.
Anything that depends on circumstances is unstable by nature.
And most people don’t realise this they call the rise “happiness” and the fall “bad luck,” without seeing that both belong to the same wheel.
For a long time, I was also on that wheel.
I wanted moments that felt good.
I wanted achievements that validated me.
I wanted relationships that made me feel whole.
And every time something arrived, fear arrived with it.
Fear of losing it.
Fear of not sustaining it.
Fear of returning to emptiness.
That is when I stopped and looked more closely at what I was actually chasing.
What kind of happiness requires constant protection?
What kind of joy disappears the moment conditions change?
What kind of fulfilment leaves you anxious underneath?
That is when I realised I don’t know what kind of happiness the world keeps talking about.
What I do know is this: I want to be okay where I am standing.
Not numb.
Not indifferent.
But steady.
Does that mean my life is free of difficulty?
No.
I still have hard moments.
I still face uncertainty.
I still feel loss, pressure, confusion, and fatigue.
Peace does not cancel life.
It changes how life is met.
Peace is not the absence of storms.
It is the absence of inner resistance during the storm.
When you stop demanding that life make you happy, something surprising happens you stop fighting reality.
You stop arguing with what is.
You stop bargaining for a different moment.
You stop postponing your okay-ness.
Peace does not mean everything is pleasant.
It means you are no longer at war.
Happiness says, “Give me more of this.”
Peace says, “This is enough for now.”
Happiness asks for continuation.
Peace rests in presence.
And here is the quiet truth no one tells you:
A peaceful person may still smile.
A peaceful person may still laugh.
A peaceful person may even experience happiness.
But they are no longer dependent on it.
They don’t collapse when happiness leaves.
They don’t cling when it arrives.
They have stopped measuring life in emotional highs and lows and started living from a deeper ground.
Peace is not dramatic.
It doesn’t announce itself.
It doesn’t demand attention.
It simply holds you.
So if you ask me again, “Are you happy?”
I may not have a clear answer.
But if you ask me, “Are you at peace?”
I know exactly what to say.
That is what I am learning to live from.
That is what I am learning to protect not through control, but through understanding.
And strangely, the moment peace became my priority, life stopped needing to convince me of anything. Not because everything became perfect, but because I no longer needed it to be.
एकात्म
