Nandrikku vitthagum nallozhukkam theeozhukkam endrum idumbai tharum - Tirukkural
Good behavior/thoughts/habits is the seed of happiness; bad behavior/thoughts/habits leads to sorrow - Loose translation
You know, I really hate these words that seem so simple and peel off in layer after layer of meaning. I break out in tears much like I would when I peel that pungent vegetable which also has so many layers.
You cannot blame Tiru much though for using them. For some weird reason, he HAD decided to give all his advice in couplets (for those of my compatriots who prefer the foreign to the Indian one may call them sort of haikus) and if he had to cram so much meaning into so few words, he had to squeeze each word for meaning till it cried 'Uncle'!
This 'Ozhukkam' is one of those words. AT first sight, it means discipline. The problem is that it does not stop there. It means morality, behavior, attitude (NOT the attitude that teens so love. It means the way you view and interact with the rest of the world, not color streaked hair and tattoos) and what not. You need to read it to mean the sum total of your character - thought, word and deed - rather than merely a list of dos and donts that you need to stick to.
So, essentially, Tiru says that the seeds of happiness lie in being a good person, in thought, word and deed. AND not being good always leads to unhappiness.
Very questionable, isn't it? I mean, we live in a world which largely equates being good to being a loser. Though, yes, in Tiru's time they had a sort of long view of happiness - they tended to see it as something as applied both in life and in the after-life, so perhaps they meant that overall being good would equate being happy. Largely in the afterlife, maybe.
But, then, I am not too sure, overall, that Tiru is wrong about the happiness while you live. Yeah, to be sure, being wealthy seems a better prescription for happiness than being good, so one tends to see the latter being sacrificed in pursuit of the former. The issue, though, is...
Well, there is this story about Duryodhan and Yudhishtir. The former was asked about the people in Hastinapur. He said most of them are knaves who would do anything in the pursuit of their own goals. When Yudhishtir was asked the same question, he said that they were all good people pursuing dharma. The moral (yes, that damn thing does tend to crop up in such tales) being that each saw others as a reflection of who they themselves were.
THAT is the issue. I mean, if I am bad, I live life in suspicion about all those around me. If I am good, I am more willing to trust, more likely to make meaningful relationships. (AND, thank you, being good does not mean being STUPID, so it does not always mean that I would end up becoming a pauper). Which of the two is a happier life is left to you to decide.
The most vexed thing about this whole issue is the definition of good and bad. Right from the clothes you wear to the food you eat, there is always someone ready with a classification of good and bad...and willing to kill for it. As far as I am concerned, anyone who only lives up to HIS classification is good; anyone who tries to impose his classification on others is bad. Period.
I tell you one thing for sure though. If all the people around me were 'good' THAT is not merely the seed of MY happiness, it is a whole ORCHARD!