Happiness is a matter of practice. Everyone is seeking happiness, yet what is the path? How do we find it?
The ancient process for attaining happiness is called, bhakti-yoga, (bhakti means devotional and yoga means ‘connection.’ I equate this “yoga connection happiness” to the apparent romance of Jane Austen’s novels, (which I will get to a bit later). Indeed, it is the most natural thing for the soul to love, and therefore this Bhakti-yoga is something natural for us. Devotion comes naturally for the pure soul. Yet whom do we love and why? Naturally, we are attracted to a friend with a loving heart. Now, let’s consider our source.
Logically, if our source was just an impersonal glowing ‘radiance,’ it would be strange if it had a desire to create anything. And what to speak of creating this world full of personal beings, who seek love and loving connections with other people, with our children, with friends and others. If God was impersonal, where would we be as far as having a loving relationship? This deep connection to a personal, loving source is why friendship and love are where we find pleasure yet, in this world, we experience disappointment when seeking love. Why is this?
The first problem is, we ‘identify’ with these bodies, which are really just temporary vehicles for consciousness. We experience lust and selfishness, based on misidentifying ourselves with our body, and act according to different ‘modes’ (goodness, passion and ignorance). In reality, we are actually spiritual beings doing business as humans, but we get tangled up in these modes when we “identify” with the body, rather than seeing ourselves as the amazingly, even inconceivably beautiful and intelligent beings we really are! When we begin to practice Bhakti-yoga, we discover (uncover) the real self. This is called self-knowledge or self realization.
Let’s take a look at love through Jane Austen’s idea of ‘pure’ romance. Her novels, set in a ‘moral’ universe, teach us that in relationships where selfishness prevails, the “happily ever after” never happens. Only loving friendships give this type of satisfactory experience. This was understood long ago by the philosopher Aristotle. He categorizes three types of relationships: They are motivated by either utility, pleasure or ‘pure’ friendship. In a relationship based on ‘utility,’ one person is being more or less, used. Not good. The same goes for ‘friendships’ where it’s simply for the pleasure of one person, and not a mutually loving thing. Of course, one-sided relationships are also inferior. Taking without also reciprocating is not love and takers do not make good friends, or lovers. Finally, there are relationships of pure loving friendship, in which both parties care about each other and have mutual respect.
Here’s the amazing thing about Jane’s novels. They illustrate the highest love, in the mode of pure friendship which is why they are generally considered to be the most romantic ever written. Therefore it may seem strange to hear scholars call attention to her ‘anti-romantic’ stance. What does this mean?
We will need to distinguish Aristotelian ‘pure’ love from the very superficial “love” which is based completely in the “physical gratification” aspect of relationships, which is introduced sometimes as “love at first sight” although the love is more accurately lust. Understanding the difference in quality between pure love and lust in relationships is what Jane does so elegantly,
Jane encourages us to use our intelligence and to love, intelligently. Her heroines are careful when they find themselves getting that ‘crush’ on a guy. I find it nice too, that they usually get good advice (often just in time!) from a wise friend or an aunt or a cousin. When the love endorphins kick in, we can fall victim to that semi-mindless state which causes us to stop thinking and then it’s all downhill. So when we rush into relationships, ignoring all the signs that the person has no intention of reciprocating, what can we expect but unhappiness? Stupid love is not romance and, “But I love him/her” is not a compelling argument. This is more like an irrational “wishful thinking.” Somehow people get into relationships with people…that are, as my teacher says, sort of like climbing into one of those machines that grinds up tree branches.
The character of a person takes time to understand, so resist the urge to risk everything before you really know what you are investing in. It takes time so this is a test of one’s patience and character, despite all the hormones. Jane’s heroines feel those strong feelings of attraction, yet what keeps them out of the power of the wrong guy has to do with philosophy. Also reality checks with wise friends. Whatever it takes to gain perspective and support the checking of emotions.
Consider the realism! Jane’s villainous cads often seem like perfect gentlemen–at first. Yet, besides not falling for the wrong guy, keeping our eyes open is ALSO good for when the right guy comes along, like in P&P, when the heroine finally realized that she had the bad guy mixed up with the good one. “There certainly was some mismanagement…one has all the goodness and the other has all the appearance of it” (P&P). After unpacking the facts, the path to the true happy ending is easy.
My conclusion after 12 years of reading her works is that she understood the need for pure love as an essential’ for real happiness. The soul’s normal condition is to be absorbed in loving relationships so if we look at this from the point of view of a yogi who is trying to reconnect to the source, we can think about how a relationship works and that when you are dealing with the Supreme, the source of everything, what else do we have to offer? In the Gita, one of the most famous verses is the Lord’s request,
“Engage your mind always in thinking of Me, offer obeisances and worship Me. Being completely absorbed in Me, surely you will come to Me”(9.34).
Jane teaches this principle of pure love in her novels and Bhagavad-gita gives us the philosophical basis for reconnecting to our source with devotion. Once we ‘plug into’ that source it becomes easy to love others and to discover ourselves. Win-win situation!
Jane Austen Yoga 