Happiness. Everyone understands that he wants this most of all in life, everyone knows that he lives for this, but how rarely do people experience happiness … Why is this happening?
Happiness is a "part"
Remembering the mountains of theories that have passed through my brain, a whole series of answers about what happiness is seems to be born. But do they relate to real life? I will try to compare theory and reality, and try not to deceive myself or those who read these lines.
Back in school, my homeroom teacher used to say that "happiness" comes from the word "part." A person cannot receive everything, and now, when he is satisfied with what he has, with the part that life has provided him, then he is happy. If he is constantly chasing new benefits: a new apartment, a wife, a job, the horizon of happiness moves away in proportion to the speed of movement to happiness, and such a pursuit can last forever. It seems like a little more, a little more, you just have to buy a car, move to a new house, finish the job, and then life will begin! But decades pass like this, and nothing changes …
Does happiness boil down to possession? A person can possess objects, status, respect, etc. However, happiness itself is a kind of state. Here we return to the question again, but in a deep sense. What is happiness?
Happiness is contentment
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The tranquility that a person misses, being in constant striving for the future, must come from within, from the depths of consciousness. Happiness means being satisfied with what you have. But if you leave the definition at this stage, then happiness would fit the state of a well-fed person, or the state after successful sex. Indeed, I'm sure some people can say that this is happiness for them. But this assessment does not suit me!
Happiness is not just contentment. Otherwise, it turns out that happiness is simply the absence of hunger and passion. Happiness is fullness, a feeling of joyful wholeness in the whole being!
Happiness is "now"
When, ten years ago, I began to be interested in Eastern philosophy and esoteric ideas, I read somewhere or heard that the word "happiness" comes from the word "now". What does it mean? This means that happiness is not just the satisfaction of having what you have in the moment. The reason for the experience is even deeper. Happiness is the psychological satisfaction of accepting life as it is. Happiness is the absence of the pursuit of an eternal non-existent future and complete spiritual agreement with what is here and now.
So it turns out that the definition of happiness has grown from the world of objects to the category of time. If earlier happiness was a part, now it has become a period of time in which life takes place. After all, it is obvious that life always happens only in the present, and if you are satisfied with what is, you will realize that here and now there is no past that would weigh you down, and there is no future to worry about. You dissolve into what is - in the present. Isn't this the enlightenment that all teachings talk about?
From my own experience I can say that both the first definition and the second correspond to what I mean by happiness. Here, however, we come to one frightening edge. To a line that not everyone is ready to accept, and not everyone needs it. If you are comfortable with possession and contentment, you may not want to digest the next stage of happiness.
Happiness is truth
You can call this stage inhuman happiness of such a scale that drives a person crazy. This is the happiness of the enlightened one. Happiness is somewhat cold, because there is no attachment to the possession of objects or periods of time, there is no denial or striving, but there is total humility, acceptance of life as it is. This is spiritual happiness, the happiness of a saint.
This is not to say that the saint controls his brain one hundred percent, because true acceptance is not control, but deep wisdom and clarity of consciousness. At this stage, you have no fear of losing the state of happiness, because that state itself is true. The only thing that can disappear is an illusion. For example, such an illusion as the possession of something. The happiness of an enlightened person is his gut, his own being, in which life takes place.
The secret of happiness
Yes, there is a lot of injustice in the world. Is a person able to accept life totally? What level of wisdom should there be for this? Happiness comes to someone who knows life, who knows that you can worry forever, but it will give you nothing. The wisdom of happiness lies in staying calm and continuing to act, to create. Happiness comes to those who live according to their conscience and does everything they can to improve the lives of those around them. The soul of such a person is satisfied, the conscience is calm, the mind is clear, because man does not deceive himself or others. And only such a person is truly happy.