Have you every watched one of those compilations of celebrities whom many of us know from movies, television, music and so on, and whom we often aspire to emulate, admitting that although they had become very famous and wealthy they were deeply unhappy? It is a shocking phenomenon since our entire educational system, our societies prerogative, our upbringing, aims to become material successful.
In the material world no-one can be happy by relationships or an increase of power and wealth, because everyone’s desire here in the material world is to be the Lord, controller and enjoyer. When one becomes successful, has some wealth, some power, or some position in society, then his relationships become a source of unhappiness for him since even his father, mother, friends, siblings and children want his material assets for their own enjoyment. He cannot have real relationships at any stage because when he is poor he is neglected by everyone, especially the opposite sex for whom he so desires, and when he attains some material property everyone simply wants to exploit it. Since he cannot have loving relationship with his material assets in the forms of money and property, and his relationships with the other living entities are also non-existent, a so-called successful man in this material world actually becomes increasingly dissatisfied the more he tries to be happy.
This can be practically examined in the lives of the rich and famous who realize through their so-called success that all these worldly things cannot bring them the answers or relief that they so much desire. Many of them give advice on how to become happy; they say to be authentic to oneself, to do what one likes to do the most, to not aspire for more and more but to be content with what we already have. Although this may sound like a wonderful solution for the sentimental, those who can see things as they are will be able to detect the flaw: No-one in the material world knows who they actually are, what they actually want or what the real goal of their life is, since everyone is identifying with the temporary material body, of which they are not. This body is a just a covering, and the senses which we try to satisfy are just like dresses on the consciousness, or the real self. The objects of “happiness” here in the material world, including the illusory relationships, will be all be taken away by inevitable time. So this advice offered by the celebrities is only an attempt at more material happiness in the forms of mundane philanthropy for the coverings of peoples temporary bodies and minds.
The real self can be satisfied only by devotional service to Krishna, which is entirely on the spiritual platform, where there is no question of love or relationship or service in exchange for anything. Such devotional and transcendental relationship between the soul and the super-soul, Sri Krsna, is causeless and eternal, and at that stage only can be a person be fully satisfied without any trace of mundane anxiety.
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