The more we want, the less we have: The philosophy of simple living, high thinking

In his books, Śrila Prabhupāda emphasizes the idea of simple living and high thinking. We often misunderstand it as a simple boost to leave the cities and go to live on farms, but there is more to it.

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In his books, Śrila Prabhupāda emphasizes the idea of simple living and high thinking. We often misunderstand it as a simple boost to leave the cities and go to live on farms, but when we go deep into his teachings, we can start appreciating how deep and practical this idea is. It is a very practical guide to finding something we are all looking for, but not many can attain: happiness.

We often connect our happiness with attaining certain material goals. If one’s idea of happiness is having a mansion, a Ferrari, a yacht, and a supermodel wife, he will probably remain unhappy his whole life, since it’s quite improbable that this goal will ever be attained. He will always compare what he has with this unattainable goal, and thus feel that he is always lacking.

Even if he gets it, he will probably still be unhappy. Looking around, he will see other people who have still more, which will make him associate his idea of happiness with even harder goals, and even if he again somehow succeeds and becomes the richest man on Earth, he will still be unhappy due to the anxiety of losing what he got. This is a cycle that goes on without end until the end of our lives, leaving us unhappy and frustrated.

Everything we get in this world comes with a price. Some things are cheap and easy to obtain, while others are expensive and hard to get. Some are cheap and hard to obtain while others are easy to obtain but expensive in the long run (imagine an old car, for example). Thus, by expensive we are not just speaking about money, but about the whole effort we need to exert to obtain and maintain it.

If every time we desire something, we ask ourselves how much time, money, and energy we think it is worth, considering the amount of satisfaction it can realistically give us, we will often conclude that it is not a good bargain. What is the point of getting a bigger house if you are going to be stressed the rest of your life paying for it? Our difficulties start when we get caught in desires that are very hard to fulfill and require us to face excessive work and anxiety for extended periods. This is the “hoping against hope” Prabhupāda often refers to in his books. We suffer now in pursuance of something we hope will bring us happiness in the future, just to become frustrated at the end when such happiness fails to materialize.

When our idea of happiness depends on things that are difficult to obtain, we set ourselves up for distress, dissatisfaction, and insecurity, since not only are these things very difficult to get, but also incredibly fickle. Not only that, but we will become excessively attached to whatever little we have and fear not achieving what we desire. We will see time running out and be in deep anxiety about not fulfilling our dreams. This will cage us into a mindset of scarcity, where we see happiness as something in short supply, and we will become increasingly frustrated for not obtaining it.

Another problem is addiction. Life is hard, and we often think we need a pick-me-up to help us deal with the pressure. This can range all the way from minor stimulants, like caffeine, all the way up to serious substance abuse. Another form of addiction that we may often not realize is addiction to content in the form of posts on social media and so on. While such content is abundant and essentially free, it comes with a high cost in terms of taking up our time and saturating our minds with useless information that rarely brings us anything good. They work essentially like a narcotic, which gives us a quick dopamine fix, but in the long term brings us just frustration, apathy, and depression.

Here is where the idea of simple living, high thinking comes into play.

Simple living means adopting a mindset of abundance by basing our happiness in things that are easily obtainable, such as natural food and milk, living in contact with nature, having positive relationships, and so on. If we experience no shortage of things that make us happy, we will very easily attain a state of personal satisfaction.

The less we want, the more we have. And when we have more than enough, we don’t care much about gain and loss. We become less stressed and not afraid of changes, and as a result, we can live a carefree life that is highly favorable to spiritual advancement. Being satisfied with less is thus the key to finding abundance and happiness.

Materially speaking, this is the only way to be happy, since what we get is limited by our karma. No matter how we hope and hanker, we will not get more than we are entitled to. The only way to achieve abundance is thus to minimize our needs. That’s the key to happiness that Prabhupāda encapsulated in his motto of “simple living”.

What about high thinking? That’s the other side of the equation.

Minimizing material needs and finding abundance is only half of the solution. It allows us to live a plentiful and happier life, but this doesn’t really solve our problem, since everything in this world is temporary. However, this creates a favorable situation to practice spiritual life and gradually reconnect with our eternal nature as servants of Krsna, which brings us to the eternal platform.

High thinking means connecting our lives with Krsna. To find time to chant our rounds attentively, to cultivate healthy relationships with other devotees and cooperate with them in serving Krsna, to study the scriptures, to hear from advanced devotees, and to properly take care of our families. These are things that not only increase our present happiness but also create the path for an eternal and blissful life in the spiritual world.

It’s very difficult to separate high thinking from simple living. As long as we are living artificial lives, pursuing unattainable material goals, being constantly anxious about keeping the little we have, and lamenting over not achieving our illusory material goals, it’s not possible to have the peace of mind to properly cultivate Krsna Consciousness. We are then caught in a state of mental dissonance, where we understand that Krsna Consciousness is the correct path, but are not able to properly follow it because of our artificial lives.

How to escape this cycle? For most of us is practically impossible to leave the cities and go to live in rural communities. There are just too many obstacles for that. Even if we are physically able to do that, our disturbed minds will follow us, and it may still make us fail. However, we can gradually implement the principles of simple living in our current lives, limiting our exposure to consumeristic garbage, and instead increasing our hearing, chanting, and associating with advanced devotees, as well as our general awareness of the “real world”, instead of the virtual world of social media. If we can do that while at the same time minimizing our material needs and being grateful for what we have, we will gradually notice life is actually much better than we thought before.

We should always remember that the less we want, the more we have. With this idea in mind, we should try to minimize our material needs. As we reduce our expectations and expenditures, our choices broaden. With less financial pressure, we may be able to find a less demanding job, move closer to devotees, and have more free time for our spiritual practice. When we are successful at simple living, high thinking becomes much easier, and the combination of both is the true secret to happiness.

A Greek philosopher called Epicurus once said, “If you want to make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.” His philosophy is basically a form of hedonism, but he got a few things right. His main conclusion is that we should base our happiness on simple things that are easily available. It happens that the most easily available thing for us is the holy name. That’s the one thing we always have with us and in unlimited supply. Materially speaking, the path to happiness is to find happiness in simple things, but in the higher sense, true happiness is in the holy names. Simple living means thus to find provisional happiness in material things that are easily available, while high thinking means to achieve ultimate happiness in the holy names and our relationship with Krsna.

Simple living is important because it leads to high thinking. On the other hand, high thinking without simple living is very hard to obtain. Thus, these two ideas go together, and this is one of the pillars of Śrila Prabhupāda’s philosophy. Nowadays, we often try to achieve high thinking without simple living, but this is often just another recipe for frustration.

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