Does Money Matter In Happiness?

The question whether money can bring one happiness, is a controversial topic discussed by theologians, philosophers and social scientists. Money is definitely a luxury and one can indulge in it. Many research shows that people with money are not much happier than people with less money. Recent research by Jennifer, Melanie and Cassie of Wharton contradicts the earlier research. According to their findings you must know how to using happiness with your hand earned money. They state that you should spend money on experiences rather than baubles like jewellery, diamonds or a farmhouse in the hinterlands. They also advise us to buy small pleasures instead of big ones and share experiences with family and friends. Do not compare, or compete with the Joneses or other rich and famous people. The forgoing seems logical based on some of my personal experiences too. With money I don’t have to worry where my next meal would come from, which was the case when I was broke. Of course I passed my stage of extravagance in my youth. Now money gives me interesting possibilities, like spending it on an old peon who was in dire straits. His emotional letter gave me a lot of happiness. So too similar gestures that I randomly shower on some needy and less fortunate people. Money helps me to do what I want to, especially to be generous to my old friends. Property and real estate has no allure for me, I would rather spend it on a throwing a fabulous party with fun and frolic or a memorable trip with friends. Money has given me access to highly intelligent, stimulating people, making for an interesting life. My personal needs still remain simple, yet living a chequered and extraordinary life. Try and delay sensual consumption of pleasure to gain the benefit of anticipation. Since I have a vagabond’s heart like a gypsy and a philosophers mind, the idea of wealth is not based on how much I have, but on how much was creatively spent. Money must be spent to create happiness. -Vinay-

Objectivism.

Ayn Rand was a Russian – American novelist and philosopher who propagated the philosophy of objectism - a philosophy full of “I” that it fails to make space for the “we” - that is an integral part of relationships and lose themselves as individuals. Rand advocated reason as the only means of acquiring knowledge and rejected all forms of faith and religion. She strongly supported rational and ethical egoism while rejecting ethical altruism. In politics, she condemned any sort of forced initiation as immoral and opposed all forms of collectivism or Statism, she supported laissez faire capitalism. She believed that capitalism was the only social system that protected individual rights. She stated that all important questions of life like who am I, what is the purpose? lie in our subconscious, though we are not aware of it, she was critical of philosophers and their traditions but tolerated Aristotle. The Ayn Rand mystique has a huge fan following and many who hate her for propagating the dreadful, atmosphere of intellectual repressiveness that pervades her philosophy. She promoted romantic realism in art and literature and often echoed the sentiment “That it is the happy moments in life that really count.

Is Spirituality an Esoteric Philosophical Theory?

Everything in the world need not be laden with meaning or elemental truths. Most people spend their entire lives in search of some profound meaning in the universe. We are obsessed with dead metaphors of blind faith, deaf to logic and reason. What is the meaning and purpose of life? Where am I? What should I do for salvation? Every man and woman tries to prise out the answers, whether he is consciously aware of it or not. As they grow older the anxiety to find answers to these existential questions increase in leaps and bounds. This causeless fear, anxiety and undefined guilt make them desperate and they reach out to organized religions for succor. Religions cannot answer these questions “who am I” or define your identity. They set about doing what they know best – that is vapid, internecine squabbling between faults, a powerful testament to the conflict, and brokenness inherent in mankind, religion and civilization. Carl Jung believed that the barren materialism of science and technology with its empirical formulae and organized religions stripped of its mystery has “desacralised” the world. Man must discover a deeper source of his own spiritual life. There is only one science that can attempt to answer these unanswered questions: philosophy. Philosophy with its tinge of spirituality, studies the fundamental nature of the existence of man, and his relationship to the universe. Philosophy unlike the silos of science and religion deals with those aspects of the universe which pertain to everything. Religion which is exoteric is suitable for the masses. Philosophy reveals to those in the inner circle through spirituality – how you can discern the content of your mind. Through this comes comprehension of your form and you will be familiar with your innermost self.

Maximum City.

Mumbai also described as the “maximum city” by Suketu Mehta like New York has become a maxim for the rise of volatility and density that is gripping Asia, a continent witnessing the imploding rise in displacement and the dislocation of most of its inherent values. Discarding its agrarian roots this continent propels all its inhabitants into capitalistic gamblers. Mumbai is the measure of India’s journey – a constant system of abuse, an unabashed route to seeking affluence, the new avatar, showcasing India’s new avatar, identity and primacy. Simit tries to explore and understand the furtive drive of an insatiable, collective greed to own any and everything at a spirally hyper-inflated cost. The poetic metaphor describes the conflicting duality that creates a rootedness as well as the difference to live and survive gracefully, if not in the utilitarian salvation of the cosmopolitan. This fuses the materiality of the urban mind scape, entrusting it to other sets of knowledge: including those from religious realms to spiritual and sensual desires – symbolically interrogating the entanglements in which we survive as a society in a competitive environment. A mitigating relationship within the urban sprawl, from spiraling land prices to the intense effects of ecological misdemeanor. The urban space called home becomes a metaphor, where spiritual primacy offers rhythms of numerological beliefs. In this steel and concrete jungle, with its marked territories, chants and own set of laws – herding the doubts, where cash – enhanced kismet (destiny) drives away the uncertainties of those still arriving. We float and fly to reach those faraway goals, in our eternal quest to reach a “destination”. – Simit Raveshia-

Universe Consciousness.

It is unfortunate that some ideologues within religions tend to set up science and religion as binaries. During the time of Roger Bacon, father of modern scientific research, scholars of all creeds, religions and beliefs were welcome. Modern science may seem Eurocentric as it was part of the imperialist expansion. For centuries it was thought that science was opposed to religion because it believed in materialistic reducibility. Minds or consciousness could in this sense be reduced to a manifestation of the biological operations of the brain and nerve cells. But quantum physics has now ushered in an era of uncertainty in matter that needs interaction of a mind to resolve it. Carl Jung believed that the barren materialism of science and technology research – and organized religions steeped in mysterious myths has “desacralised” the world. As Sir Rudolf Peierls the physicist stated. “The premise that you can describe in terms of physics the whole function of human beings including knowledge and consciousness is not wholly tenable ………something is missing. Materialism is not consistent with quantum mechanics. With science comes questioning and is not as dangerous as religion which come with fixed ideology and dogmas. Stephen Barr states “if the human mind transcends matter to some extent beyond the physical universe, there might also, exist an ultimate spiritual mind. According to Indic philosophy this phenomenon of manifestation is a single thought on the canvas of pure consciousness – the boundless space with nether inside or outside, where the universe is born, develops and perishes, in a never ending cycle. That is why the Nobel laureate Engine Wigner endorsed the Vedanta philosophy practiced in India by the ancient sages – especially its theory of the universe as an all – pervading consciousness. – Compiled with thoughts of Professor Stephen Barr & Mukul Sharma.

Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.

For several centuries, Americans have been living under the regime of common sense - hard-headed empiricism, Yankee ingenuity, and so on—with respect to practical affairs. Yet at the same time this “nation with the soul of a church” has produced a plethora of emotionally charged creeds, most of them claiming exclusive access to the deity while denouncing their rivals and predecessors as cold, false, and dead. This now is the case of Islam that is rearing its religious head, starting from the Middle East and spreading all over other Islamic states. Truth games of the spiritual type, if they are not to sink into anodyne church/mosque/temple conversation, cannot and must not be confined within the frames of an epistemological establishment or within institutions of a politics of knowledge that's given once and for all. Religion sees “third world” humanism as a kind of "taming of men" that saves them from "barbarism, infidels and heretics. For cultural historians - social struggles, war, pain, the arts, politics, accidents, poverty, culture, science and technologies, are more important than trying organizing and domesticating the social life of people through the creation of organized religious institutions. Over the years the religious framework faded and accumulation became more acceptable, the Protestant, Catholic and Islamic ethic will be transmuted into the spirit of capitalism—a set of moral and psychological sanctions for systematic moneymaking. For much of world history, the marriage of religion and capitalism was the only one fitfully consummated. Mammon is the ultimate God.

I Love My India.

India is an ancient land two world’s meet the negotiation between the spiritual and the material a semi bridge between two different cultures East and West. It is at once ancient and modern, westernized and oriental, wondrous and ordinary, familiar and exotic. It is also the largest functional democracy in the world. This geographic and cultural land hosts numerous sacred sites revered by Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and Hindus, giving it a feel of ancient holiness. It has invaluable artifacts of early Indus valley civilization, byzantine majesty and a spiritual supremacy. It’s an ethereal and dream like experience submerged in the pristine mist – meandering brooks, it’s like you have reached a place beyond reality, realms where dreams are made, a cocoon of timel essness. Priests, Sages, Gurus, Prophets, and Charlatans rub shoulders with each other in the holy places, houses of worship – Sadhus in loin cloth with holy ash smeared all over proclaim the nudity of their faith. Hinduism is the prevalent way of life here and there are millions of gods, but the Gods do not bother anyone, as they are as amazing as they are tolerant. So many religions thrive here unlike Europe where Christianity is much more exclusive or Middle East where Islam holds sway and are intolerant. And at the same time India is also a horrible place – it’s got poverty, its corrupt, most places are filthy, it’s that contradiction that makes it so alive. Like their multitude of gods and irrational rituals, this doesn’t make sense on its own, but helps make sense of the world or Maya, a visually sumptuous place. It is a repository of all ancient civilizations nurtured by its spiritual soil, a place that can teach you many things. A terrible, wild, crazy, horrible but wonderful warm place. I don’t know, it’s ambiguous, like so much in life its vivacity is unmatched.