by Tyler K | Jun 21, 2020 | Sapiens, What is happiness
“If you are talking about temporary happiness, it arises out of the context of knowing what the opposite feels like. Sadness gives meaning to happiness because they are connected and on the same plane. We ‘want’ to be happy not sad. That is how you know they are opposites. Some things make you happy and some things make you sad. These are usually external events that trigger an inner reflection in you. You are more at the mercy of your inner workings than external stimuli because the external world doesn’t move you nearly as much as your mind does. It is your inner workings that move you and present you your feelings of experience which is what you act upon. This is what you are most truly intimate with.
Given the context of the rest of these questions, I assume you mean the lasting true wholesome happiness? I’m not sure if it exists yet, though I have found it a worthy thing to prod at to find its potentiality. I have a theory that it’s more of a balanced contentment with life. Contentment is the state of non-desire (an oriented perspective or operating state that which has abandoned all control of trying to ascertain pleasure and reject pain) an immediate association of grace with whatever may come in the present natural reality. In contentment, you don’t wish a thing to be different, rather a gratitude for how things are, especially in adversity. For in the state of desire, you subconsciously declare the natural reality of existence is not good enough and is inherently naturally flawed, and your naturally flawed being (a part of nature) is somehow supposed to fix this crucial and urgent flaw of nature as if the entirety of existence depends on it, when it doesn’t at all.
If existence were possible to be extinguished it would have been already, yet here we are, Now genocice, oppression, limiting of natural rights, that may be a worthy desire to have to fix and bear because the alternative is to let the suffering of other self experiencers happen when you know all too well that it is me suffering. Let us only use desire like medicine in the cabinet. When we truly need it. The state of desire is never content. It is the state of wanting, longing, the state of not enough. The state of lacking fulfillment. If you don’t desire there is no problem. There is no wanting. No reason to distract yourself. You could say wanting started the problem. Why want? If I am thirsty I just go get the glass of water and that’s that. I don’t sit around desiring about it, I just go get it and don’t even think about it. This long term contentment without desire, is the happiness i think you’re asking about.
Like i’ve stated previously i don’t currently necessarily believe in an eternal bliss state, i feel even feelings need to waver like the sea and light. It takes conditioning of practice to find for yourself what is the end of desire. What end does it meet? What goal does it accomplish? What does it mean to indulge and desire and repeat. What does it do for you and others? Are you content with yourself and your decisions? Contentment actually i feel would be our normal state if not overstimulated by our minds needs and wants pulling us in all sorts of directions. Our culture naturally creates the brain structure to form in this way, if you always get more, you’ll begin to expect more.
So stop all this incessant trying and just be with and dig what is without wanting it because wanting it does nothing but put you in an unsatisfactory state of experience. The alternative to really getting with life and being grateful for it is to turn away from what is and to resent it. You can see obviously which one sounds like the better life to live.”
by Miranda D | May 24, 2020 | Sapiens, What is happiness
“I think happiness is a term that gets confused a lot in our society today. The idea of happiness can be thought about in terms of a mental state – a state of joy, contentedness, acceptance. But it can also be thought about in terms of feeling satisfied with life, with our needs being met, feeling fulfilled. I think that this second perception of happiness carries more baggage around it, and is often what leads to the desperate seeking of happiness in our culture that, ironically, results in a lot of unhappiness and depression. Happiness shouldn’t have expectations or attachment – then it only leads to disappointment. Happiness is a state of being, like a passing cloud.”
by Swami Satchidananda | May 7, 2020 | Sapiens, What is happiness
“Permanent happiness cannot come from holding on to something that is not permanent. The fallacy is that all of us live by searching for and expecting permanent happiness from holding on to impermanent things. That is the reason why we have this huge need for security and control, living all the time in insecurity and fear that it may be lost. This does not require much intelligence. Your experience itself makes you a philosopher….
You should look back on this logic from your experience to see if this logic is faulty. Let us look at our impending death, towards which we travel on each birthday. We keep the body close to us, always hoping to live forever, but the facts tell us that the reality is we will end up either in the fire or under the ground to be eaten by insects. Yet, we ignore this reality and live hoping to forever be happy. For most of the time, this fear of life dictates the quality of our life. We also come to believe that by more control, we can extend the span of happiness. Of course, this works in an opposite direction.
Maybe you find out from your experience and reflect on our pains. Look at all relationships and all the things that made you happy – what happened when you lost them? Extending this to the universe, the moon is impermanent, so too is the sun. Astronomers see the birth and death of stars and galaxies coming to life and dying almost every day. Impermanence.
So we live in a catch twenty two situation that we call samsara. If everything and every relationship is impermanent, then permanent happiness is not possible in this life, we are doomed to live in pain with little doses of pleasure or happiness.
But here is a suggestion – while you are free to enjoy things and people, do so with the knowledge that they can go anytime. Be prepared to let them go. Holding on will only cause pain. This is slightly better than assuming that it will be permanent. This knowledge can help us to live life a little better.
From an Advaitic point of view, permanent happiness can come only by holding on to something that IS permanent. Atman / Brahman is the only permanent thing in the whole universe.”
by Swami Satchidananda | May 7, 2020 | Sapiens, What is happiness
“Since we seek pleasure all the time, we have to understand this in a little more depth to be able to live a good life. Pleasure arises when the senses come in contact with objects, situations and people. There are millions of things outside that don’t give pleasure or pain by themselves. So contact is the significant thing. Three kinds of problems arise in seeking pleasure: The pain of acquisition, the pain of holding on, and the pain of losing that thing. I will expand on each of these three below…
There are three kinds of problems that arise. First is the pain of acquisition. Say a car to a man..A job, medical insurance, we can go on… So acquiring something involves some pain. It doesn’t come free, as you know. A person hunting for a job for six months or a person on look out for a partner – visualise what they went through.
The next is the process of holding on to something that has been acquired. This is inevitable. After you buy a car, you start thinking of how to pay the monthly payments. Or a home – even more dicy because of the amounts involved. Suddenly you forget that you only wanted it. Or trying to hold on to a partner with riving eyes or bad habits. You begin to wish you never met him or her.
The next is the departure of that thing or person..It can be your parents, your love, your child, your car, your home etc. Any departure gives great pain. You feel an emptiness that is indescribable. We did not understand this when we acquired these things.
So this is life. And this is why we say happiness has this other side. So can you change the nature of this design. No, that is not possible. It’s part of the great design. So what do we do? Bear it and keep morose and keep crying with a few laughters to balance it?
There are two issues which have only to do with ourselves. First, to build up the strength before you acquire anything. Second, to learn to convert loneliness into aloneness and being content within oneself. If both of these happen, then you can navigate the world and it seems like a paradise of opposites playing their games. There must be mental preparedness both in having and not having anything. The world cannot give permanent happiness or security. This is the reality – all is subject to change.
I sincerely believe that the knowledge of Atman as your real Self will give you all that you need to enjoy life. This is life. This is heaven, here and now. Not after death or in an unknowable place.”
by Chiron | May 3, 2020 | Sapiens, What is happiness
“Happiness is our original state of being, and is experienced as love. Beyond the mindscape, there is a witness/eternal presence that exudes happiness. Happiness is an inner experience and can be created under any circumstances. External events simply mirror it. This means happiness is a choice of shifting one’s awareness beyond the identification with the mind.”
by The Kid | May 2, 2020 | Sapiens, What is happiness
“‘Happiness’ is a trap. There is no place where it exists, no time where it appears, no form it’s built in or language it can be read. The illusion of happiness being attainable sometime, somewhere, is perhaps the biggest fallacy humans have ever come up with. Yet, we are all drawn, in a primal way, to some sort of wellbeing; some sort of liberation from the constant suffering. In this way, ‘happiness’ is only accessible as an indirect result. It must be birthed from freedom, wisdom, and compassion.”
-InJoy
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