Happiness

The Way Home

One perfect summer day, a man walked across a green field. Young and sure, with a stride in his step.

As he approached the edge of the field, a twinge of worry flickered in him. There, at its border, was a figure. Against the sunlight, he could see the figure holding what looked like a sickle. He paused for a moment, frowning, wondering, and then continued walking.

The figure hadn’t moved an inch as he walked. It just stood there, its robe flapping in the gentle breeze. And finally, just as he was about to walk by the figure, averting his eyes, the figure said, simply, “Come”.

“Come where?”, asked the man, not sure whether to ignore it or not.

“It’s your time”, replied the figure.

“My time?”, laughed the man.

The figure pointed at a ravine at just past the field. And then he pointed at the setting sun. “Right now. This very moment. It is your time”, it said.

The man understood with a shudder, and laughed uneasily. “You are just a man”, he said.

“I am not”, smiled the figure, taking off his hood. The face beneath wasn’t a skeleton, or a demon. It was just a face, kind and gentle. And yet, in the eyes, there was a great sadness.

“You are not Death. Prove it”, said the man, afraid.

The figure smiled sadly, and raised his sickle at the wheat. It wilted instantly, shrivelling into dust.

At that very moment, the man, his heart bursting with fear, began to run, as fast as his legs would carry him. He did not know where, or even why, and he did not stop until he had reached the top of a little hill past the ravine he was meant to have fallen into. There, panting, he knew he could run no longer.

Death stood at the bottom of the hill, looking up at him. Not with anger or fury, but almost, it seemed, with sympathy.

“Come, then”, roared the man, in surrender and rage.

But Death just stood there.

The man panted, and thought.

“You cannot, can you?”, he said, triumphantly. For it is a little known fact, but nonetheless a true one, that Death, who is the king of the underworld, cannot climb a hill.

Death smiled sadly. “You cannot stand there forever”, he pointed out to the man.

The man knew that he was beaten. And yet he refused to budge.

There they stood, all night long. Until at last, as the sun was rising, Death said, “I will make you a bargain. No man can cheat me. All men must die. But I will let you live until your body fails, to the natural end of your days”.

The man thought for a moment, remembered his grandmother’s parable about always driving a harder bargain, and shook his head.

Death laughed, and said. “I will let you live until the natural end of your days, and I will give you three wishes. What more can you ask for? I cannot give you any more than that. Immortality is not mine to give.”

The man thought about this for a while, pursing his lips. And finally, he nodded, and assented. “Good. We agree. Here is my first wish. I want everything that I desire.”

“I can only see the thread of your fate”, said Death quietly, picking up a blade of grass, “You must tell me all that your mind desires. But there is no rush. Take your time, and don’t cheat yourself of happiness. For that is really what you are asking for, isn’t it?”

The man frowned. And then set to work composing a list in his mind. It was long and detailed and thorough. It took him a full ten minutes to recite to Death. Death said, throwing the blade of grass into the dirt, “When you return home, all these things will be yours. Is that fair?”

The man nodded. Behind him, something rustled. He turned around. Nothing was there. And when he looked back, Death was gone, as if he had never been there at all. Just the little blade of grass in the dirt.

The man returned home, excited, worried, afraid. But nothing had changed. Not a single thing. He laughed. What a fool he had been! Believing that some stranger playing a prank on him had been Death himself. Had he lost his mind?

And yet, the very next day, it all began to happen, just as Death had said. He inherited a fortune. He met a beautiful woman, who adored him. Soon, they were married, living on a grand estate. He became famous for nothing at all, just the glamour and ease of his life.

And soon he was a middle aged, handsome and tan and fit and rich. The years had gone by in a flash. And yet, somehow, now, indulgence didn’t bring him the satisfaction that it once did. The endless demands for him to flaunt his wealth, his fortune, his things. They seemed to exhaust him more than they seemed to satisfy him. Where had his happiness gone?

So he looked in the mirror one day, and said, “Death. I asked you for happiness. I know now that happiness isn’t just satisfaction.

There must be something more than just satisfying these endless desires. I am tired of it. I want a greater happiness.”

Death appeared in the mirror. “My old friend”, he said gently. “You do not mean that you wish to be a monk, do you?”

“Of course not. I love my wife, my home, my life”, replied the man. “I just”, and he struggled for the words, “this is too much, but it’s still not enough. I want what lies beyond desire. I want — contentment”.

“Ah”, said Death, laughed. “Contentment. You mean that you want freedom from the burdens of desire. Very well. That I can give you, too.”

The man nodded. The crows’ feet around Death’s eyes wrinkled, and he vanished.

The very next day, the man’s wife told him that she was pregnant. And soon they had a home full of little children, squealing and laughing and chasing one another around the gardens.

Day by day, a great sense of peace and calm grew in the man’s heart. All the desire that had burned within his mind seemed to have been consumed, become ashes, dust, blown away by the wind of a greater happiness. Every day, he would sit in the garden, watching his little children grow. And soon enough, the world forgot about him, and he forgot about the world.

The years went by that way, sweetly and simply. And now he was old and frail. Each breath was a struggle. His vision was cloudy and his hands shook and his skin was paper.

His grandchildren now played in the very same garden. And yet, somehow, though he felt a great happiness at watching them, there was still something that eluded him. Something flickering through him. Sometimes, it felt like a fear of finally meeting Death. And sometimes, it felt like something infinitely greater and purer still than even contentment. But he could not quite grasp it. It was like trying to catch the sky.

And so one night, the full moon high in the starlit sky, he tottered out into the garden while all the family lay sleeping.

“Death”, he whispered, afraid of the very question he was about to ask, “here is my last wish. I want to know what happens after I die.”

He turned around, hearing the breeze ruffle something. There stood Death, his robe gently billowing in the wind.

“My old friend”, said Death, gently, sadness and compassion in his eyes. “Are you sure?”

The old man nodded firmly, teetering on his cane.

Death dropped his robe, and light flooded out. The old man, blinded, shielded his eyes. When he looked up again, there stood Death. But this time he was not Death at all.

He was the man as he had been, that summer day so long ago when he had met Death.

He looked for Death. But Death was not there. Just he as he used to be.

“I don’t understand”, cried the old man, in despair. “I don’t understand!”

The young man looked at the old man, and gently said, “what did you really ask for all those many years ago?”

And then, suddenly, as if he saw all of life itself, he understood. As a young man, full of wanting, he had thought happiness was desire. And all that had yielded was a little relief from the pains of envy, jealousy, greed, spite. Then, as he grew, tired of wanting, he had thought that happiness was contentment. That was truer, greater, fuller. Yet that too, that still, had only yielded relief from another set of pains. The pains of living, dying, knowing, holding all the beauty of life so close and having it taken away too fast.

Now he knew, at long last, that happiness was both of these, and none of these. It was truer and simpler and infinitely vaster. It was the truest part of him. Stripped of things, of memory, of knowing, of self, there was nothing left but stillness, peace, grace, joy. Nothing left but pure being, which was happiness.

Inside what was inside, he had always been happiness, which was love by another name. What else could he have been? What else lit the spark at the start of the fire that led to him? What else was being but life returning home to love? Love was the change in every form, gravity and motion and light. Love was time’s arrow, being’s hands, the letters of every name. And he was just letters, the flight one arrow, one grasp of the hand.

He had been all along what he had been seeking. And so, suddenly, he laughed. Everything he had ever thought was backwards. All his life, every single thought and action had depended upon this one: that happiness was something he had to find. But how could that be? Happiness was not a thing at all.

Happiness was just the experience of returning home. That was what every instant of it had ever been. A tiny glimpse.

And at that moment, as he laughed, his old and weary heart, seemed to explode, with grace, with age, with ending, with beginning.

“Come, my old friend”, said Death, gently, like a brother. “Let us go home”.

Umair
May 2017