The staffroom of Rome university is considered to be the unique of its kind in the whole world because of its two distinct qualities; one is due to the presence of those great minds that have influenced the whole world and second due to the old and classic style of the staffroom which tells the story of many centuries in which this great staffroom had the honor of witnessing innumerable great minds who breathed in its air. Mostly, the professors of the university were found to be busy in reading a book or writing their thoughts but very rarely, some of the professors gathered at a corner of the staffroom and discussed a topic and then came the flurry of information that could have never been better in any part of the world.

The ideas presented here were refined by the knowledge and study of many decades and extracted from the best of the books and were the yields of the best minds of the world. One day, a professor ignited a discussion about the true face and origin of happiness and then came a number of ideas from different great minds present in the staffroom. There were varying ideas about the topic; some thought that happiness is found in the mind of a person and however one thinks, feels the same

. It was no doubt based on the famous rule of psychology that we can feel different and have a better life when we are in position to control our thoughts. If one is strong enough to control his thoughts and gradually become successful in cultivating happy and pleasing thoughts and kick out the pessimistic thoughts, he will always feel happy and thus he would be a happy person without considering the external conditions. This was a revolutionary idea in the field of psychology and thousands of books were written on the topic in which thousands of people from around the world shared their personal experiences who got benefitted of it.

Anyhow, it was unfortunate that same people who found it to be effective in the beginning later on became disappointed as the idea did not work on permanent bases or something else happened wrong. Anyhow, the discussion kept going and a professor was of the view that those who believe in spirituality and knew the different physical exercises like Yoga, contemplation and others were found to be very successful in attaining the pure form of happiness.

The idea was rejected by majority of the participants of the discussion on the grounds that the concentration and devotion needed for carrying out successfully such acts was almost impossible for a common man and it never let a person to live a common life rather those who were happy of it used to live in mountains and had completely deserted the civic life.

Some others termed the religion as the only source of getting mental calmness and a source of living a happy life but all those who were present belonged to Christianity and Christianity had long ago lost its effect in the west and now religion was supposed to be the tool of fathers to live a comfortable life on the income of people and the state and thus this ideas was also rejected.

As far as other religions were concerned, they were not ready to consider them at all due to the numerous reasons. About Islam, they had only read that it was a religion that spread by the power of sword and it only asked its followers to capture more lands and remain always ready to fight. This cruel image of Islam was never acceptable to any of them. Some of them favored Buddhism but the way its monks had become impractical in the routine life, it had no more remained of any practical use to the common person of the world. Some of them also discussed the practices of Hinduism but the way it had paralyzed its followers by the superstitions, in which a single person was frightened by a number of self-made idols and lack of teachings that could help its followers in the issues of common life had made it a religion that can be used only for some religious festivals and nothing else. In the end, the discussion ended without reaching to any single and mutually agreed upon consensus.

The above part is taken from a book written by the professor present on the spot. The actual narration of the book is very lengthy and discusses the above points in profound detail but here, you were provided with a precise summary of the descriptions and ideas given in the book.

Then the writer comes up with a number of ideas of himself which attracted my attention as he had later on explained them very beautifully, bringing them closer to the practical life of a common person. According to professor, the ideas that influenced him a lot in this regard were the following:

‘A person is the happy person who is able to live happily in his present condition’.

‘A person can be termed happy who doesn’t relate or tie his happiness with materialistic things, i.e., he doesn’t become happy when he gets something or doesn’t become unhappy when he loses something.’

The professor admits that these ideas are not of his own or new and many of you might have read them already but these are ideas are so effective and practical that he has observed them working in the lives of many. Out of many examples, we should take the following examples;

‘A man earned his livelihood by carrying load on his donkey-cart. He would start his work early in the morning and worked till evening and when he returned home, he had nothing to worry about and thus slept as happily as if he was the king of the world. He had accepted his present condition and had no hidden desires to wish for more and thus he was happy with whatever he had.’ In contrast to the above condition, there are many of us who are living in the world of dreams, a world in which we will be better from our present situation and in this way, we never accept our present. But when we open our eyes, we found ourselves with present realities and of course, this really makes us sad as it is not what we were expecting. This habit is also called ‘day dreaming’ and it is the reason that our Saints had a famous advice in this regard, ‘Learn to live in your present.’

In the same way, this is also a reality that material objects never remain the same. Some get them more and some get them less. When a person develops the habit of living with the materialistic acquisitions, he and his emotions and feelings are enslaved by these things and thus one never gets free of these feelings. He always thinks of getting something to feel happy and when he gets this, he becomes happy for a while and then another demand comes forward and the chain of demands keep prolonging. It is also unfortunate that in some cases when a person gets each and everything that he wished (like some Hollywood stars or billionaires), and doesn’t get the expected contentment out of it, he becomes really disappointed and some of them have even committed suicide.

The solution that comes then is to free your feelings of the gain and loss of material things.

Though these ideas may not be new to many of our readers but having a look at the general conditions of our society and especially of our youth, these two lessons need to be remembered time and again.