The Happiest Man on Earth” Narasimhan Vijayaraghavan
“The Happiest Man on Earth”
Narasimhan Vijayaraghavan
“If you are lucky enough to have money and a nice house, you can help those who don’t, he would tell me. ‘This is what life is all about. To share your good fortune. My father used to say to me there is more pleasure in giving than in taking, that the more important things in life- friends,family,kindreds- are far more precious than money.A man is worth more than his bank account.I thought he was crazy then, but after all I have seen in this life, I know he right”.
How true! It resonates with yours truly. May it resonate with everyone else.
“Happiest Man on Earth” ( Pan Macmillan- 2020- 195 pages- Rs.650/-) – Abraham Salomon Jakubiwock @ Eddie Jaku, has written these words in the book of same name. One started reviewing this work even before starting it. And what a start, middle, and closure for a man who turned a proud centenarian in 2020. He, who, as a Jew suffered the horrendous worst between 1938-45 in Hitler’s Germany. First in Buchenwald, then in Auschwitz.Then on a Nazi death march, while losing family, friends and the country, he loved as his.
Eddie survived it all. Vowed to smile every day and did and does. He turned a living testimony to symbolize Dr. Wayne Dyer- “Remember that any time you’re filled with resentment, you’re turning the controls of your emotional life over to others to manipulate”. It is impossible to imagine it in someone who has all the reasons one can possibly have, to resent everything and everyone who tortured him in the prime of his youth. Remember “ Man’s Search for Meaning is a 1946 book by Viktor Frankl chronicling his experiences as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps during World War II, and describing his psychotherapeutic method, which involved identifying a purpose in life to feel positive about, and then immersively imagining that outcome”.
This book is a brilliant and ‘entertaining’ ( whet a word to use – but the Happiest Man on Earth would approve) sequel and lends meaning to life to you and me too.
The book is full of quotable quotes. It is philosophically and psychologically inspiring and unnerving- moving and tragic- magical and hellish- brilliant and unsettling- and more and more. Just read this quote, “You see,your food is not enough. There is no medicine for your morals. If your morals are gone, you go”. And one is keying in even while tucking in hot idlis with inji ( ginger) chutney.
Who said this? A man who writes “We had no food and very little water… We were cold. We were sick… The average survival time of a prisoner in Auschwitz was seven months…. And every night at least twenty died while sleeping next to you naked for naked you cannot escape”.
Yet, he carried and carries no hate to say, “ Hate is the beginning of a disease, like cancer. It may kill your enemy, but it will destroy you in the process too”.Adolf Hitler may come to mind as one . But contemporaneously, one recalls this famous quote from Richard Nixon, he of the Watergate infamy. “ Always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.”. These men proved Eddie’s spiritual stance.
Adi Sankara said it. Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Ramana lived it. Swami Vivekanada followed. Our Vedantha from the Vedas is this very quintessence. Mahakavis Bharathi and Tagore mused on it. Gita told Arjuna. And even the Napoleon Hills, Bob Proctors, Deepak Chopras, Ecckhart Tolles say the same. It is old and ancient wisdom from Tilopa. Our forgotten masters. It is in our bhoomi. Salt of our earth ie. Bharath. What?
“Happiness does not fall from the sky; it is in our hands. Happiness comes from inside yourself and from the people you love. And if you are healthy and happy, I am a millionaire ”. Excuse me, I am not happy with this. I am inclined to be a billionaire. Why not?
When are we supposed to be happy? Eddie echoes our own Masters.” You can choose every day, every minute to act in a way that may uplift a stranger, or else drag them down.The choice is easy. And it is yours to make”.
Eddie is a hundred plus. He has seen it all. The best and worst. I am not alluding to more from the concentration camps. Despite all, if he claims to be the ‘ Happiest Man in Earth’, what right or claim we have not to be, at least Happy. We have so little to complain to hate or resent, if an Eddie has none.
His core message. He has a right to advice. From a lived experience. “ Please, every day, remember to be happy, and to make others happy too. Make yourself a friend to the world.
DO THIS TO YOUR FRIEND,EDDIE”.
I have begun with this little mite from me, Eddie.
An unputdownable must read, if you care.
( Author of Mahakavi Subramania Bharathoyar ( Musings,Anecdotes,Episodes),Kalaimagal Publications,2022- practicing advocate in the Madras High Court)
