Happiness is something we all seek in a variety of different ways. But, what actually is real happiness?

When I think of happiness, the first things that spring to mind include:

• Peace of mind, the absence of mental disturbance.
• A sense of living in the heart rather than mind.
• A feeling of goodwill to others and the rest of the world. When I get joy from other people’s happiness.
• A feeling of spontaneity and living in the moment.

I would say real happiness comes from within, from our state of mind; it is a state of consciousness. It is the happiness which is unaffected by outer circumstances. Real happiness does not depend on material success or material wealth, but a feeling we are leading the life we were meant to lead. When there is real happiness and satisfaction, we feel joy springing from within, this happiness makes even the mundane interesting and ordinary beautiful.

Absence of Fear, worry, anxiety

If we have tension, fear or anxiety this is not happiness. For example, we might get a thrill out of cheating someone. Part of us likes the danger, excitement, but however hard we try our conscience doesn’t allow us peace of mind. Real happiness can only come when we have peace of mind and are not thinking about the future or past.

Childlike Simplicity

The man is happiest who lives from day to day and asks no more, garnering the simple goodness of life.

- Euripides

If we have a childlike simplicity we will find joy in the simplest of activities. We will feel happiness through the spontaneity of living in the present moment. This spontaneity means we are happy with who we are and not trying to be someone else; just living as you are. This is a real happiness. Happiness is when we can feel our soul – when we don’t cloud our mind with useless thoughts and desires.

Giving Happiness

The soul’s philosophy is:
Give happiness constantly,
Give happiness unreservedly,
Give happiness unconditionally.

If we can’t give happiness to others how can we expect to be happy ourselves? What we give, we will feel as a reality within ourselves. Sometimes we feel happiness is limited and we need to find and hold onto it. But, real happiness is something that can be given to others and spread. When we give selflessly we are able to learn a new type of happiness. As the Buddha said:

“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”

- Guatama Buddha

Happiness that comes from within

Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

-Abraham Lincoln

Sometimes we can look at the weather on a rainy day and say to ourselves ‘it is a miserable day’ On other days, we may feel the rain has a real charm. It’s not the weather that determines our happiness. It is our approach – our reaction to the weather. This shows how happiness stems from the way we look at the world, the way we see ourselves.

Following Our Inner Call

True happiness
Is not a mental hallucination.
True happiness
Is not a complacent feeling.
True happiness
Is the spontaneous feeling of joy
That comes from knowing
You are doing the right thing
And leading a divine life.

- Sri Chinmoy [ Sri Chinmoy, Ten Thousand Flower-Flames, Part 91, Agni Press, 1983. ]

Sometimes, we just know we are doing what we are supposed to do. It may not be  particularly glamorous or outwardly attractive, but we feel we are doing something our soul wants us to do. Often we can be surprised at what is giving a sense of satisfaction. It requires us to try to listen to our inner voice, our conscience. It may require ignoring conventional wisdom or expectations, only by listening to our inner voice can know what gives us a sense of fulfilment.

Acceptance

How do I find happiness?
I find happiness
By loving the world more,
Ever more.

We can never have real happiness if we constantly blame the game of superiority and inferiority. The mind can frequently be comparing and judging us to other people.

If we live to fulfil our desires we will always be wanting something more, we will always feel unfulfilled, unsatisfied. If we get what we desire, we are temporarily relieved. But, if we don’t get it we will have great frustration. If we just accept and love, then we will know happiness.

What is happiness?

We have to be the judge. We will know when we get a real happiness and when we have a mere passing pleasure.

What is happiness to you?

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It is not by chance that we find ourselves happy or miserable. Over 2,500 years ago, the Lord Buddha left us this unmistakable truth:

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought. 
If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him. 
If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, 
happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him. ”

These are the simple tips to cultivate happiness – a happiness that doesn’t depend on external circumstances.

Be Happy Where you Are.

We often talk about the importance of being in the ‘here and now’. But, what do we actually mean by this? The nature of our mind is that it is often planning for happiness in the future. If we get that degree, job, relationship, if we can only move to where reasonable people live e.t.c – then we will be happy. But, with this attitude of planning for future happiness, means it will always remain elusive – like chasing a shadow.

We need to be happy whereever we are. Even in the most difficult of situations there are opportunities to be a little more cheerful and a little less frustrated. Don’t allow small things to knock you off balance, as this frustration can spoil the rest of our day.

Be Happy with your work.

A problem is that we often associate happiness with pleasure, rest and lying on beach in some far off tropical paradise. Well, there’s nothing wrong with a tropical paradise. But, unless you happen to own an island in the Bahamas, your fate will place you in different circumstances. Work is necessary and  no matter how repetitive or difficult it maybe, take pride in it. Be conscious of the ability to gain satisfaction from doing a good job and serving other people.

There are times when we can be happy from a mundane activity such as washing dishes. It is such a simple task, but if we can do it cheerfully, (without complaining that someone else should have been doing it), then we will really be able to cultivate real happiness.

Part of the problem is just being aware that we can be happy even in mundane situations. Focusing entirely on the job at hand, can help us to forget the inevitable ruminations of the mind.

Society places a subtle pressure to compare ourselves with other people. When we compare we will never be satisfied. There will always be someone better off than us; there will always be someone who seems more successful. As soon as we start comparing, jealousy and frustration inevitably follow. Avoid comparing with others. Instead, learn the art of self confidence and self-respect.

Do not compare
If you want to be happy.
Do not blame
If you want to be happy.

- Sri Chinmoy

If you find yourself subject to jealousy, the best way to overcome it is by sincerely appreciating the good qualities / achievements of others. Appreciating the good qualities of others is the best way to learn them yourself

Smiling in the Face of Adversity

Life has a habit of putting is together with difficult people. Is there anyone who has the pleasure of just living with saints? – of course not … If you find your happiness challenged by other people, escaping from them will merely switch one problem for another. Keep smiling, and silently offer your good will. Don’t spend your time analysing and criticising their faults. Let the negative qualities have no impact on you.

The Heart – Mind and Meditation

As the first quote by Lord Buddha suggests, it is our thought and state of mind that determines our inner life. If we are subject to a negative train of thoughts, we will slowly but steadily become miserable. The art of happiness is to lessen the impact of our negative mind. It is not about just repeating positive mantras by rote; We are trying to bring the heart to the fore. This is just simply the more divine, peaceful part of our nature. There are times when our heart comes to the fore even without trying – this could be in the beauty of nature, listening to sublime music – But, at times we need to make the effort.

Try these simple exercises:

• Meditation on the heart can make us consciously aware of this inner happiness.
• Learning to control our thoughts. Difficult, but definitely possible. There are few better things that we can learn to do.

The great paradox is that by being aware of our state of mind, we can learn to be happy without reason – or at least happiness for no external reason.

True happiness
Is not a mental hallucination.
True happiness
Is not a complacent feeling.
True happiness
Is the spontaneous feeling of joy
That comes from knowing
You are doing the right thing
And leading a divine life.

- Sri Chinmoy

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photo by Tejvan

Recently, at a public lecture on the theme ‘blueprint for world peace’ I found myself sitting next to a very quiet African man  from Burundi. We both took a liking to each other and I gradually learned over the course of several subsequent encounters that he had been one of many refugee children, dispossessed by war and fleeing from murderous armies and tribal militias, that had been the subject of much media attention and outrage. Hounded and decimated by soldiers, killed by wild animals or dying of starvation, these many hundreds of children  had dwindled to only a handful of survivors and my new friend whispered of the terrible events that had filled his life and caused the death of his entire family.

Friendships bloom in the unlikeliest of manners and our life paths kept intersecting. On one amusing occasion I invited him to a hotel function that celebrated  a happy conclusion to a peace initiative I had been involved with. Nicholai had told me he would be a late arrival, and as his English language was not strong I promised to look out for him. After quite some time had passed I became concerned and began to look for him. Over in an adjacent huge ballroom, corporate types were hosting their own national get-together, a bacchanalian affair where hundreds of suited executives were dining, speech- making and almost climbing over each other to lay siege to a buffet table groaning under mountains of alluring food. A sudden possibility occurred and I scanned their ballroom from the open door – and sure enough there was our lost guest sitting merrily with a group of complete strangers, glass of champagne half-raised to his lips and blithely unaware that he had wandered in to the wrong function and invaded a Civil Engineers soiree. He looked so happy and I wondered whether I should leave him there with his whole new set of friends and dazzling new social possibilities. But I quietly retrieved him and brought him, both of us smiling at life’s vagaries, to our rather less glamorous function.

Nicholai’s heart-rending life had not made him forlorn or melancholy but filled him with gratitude and purpose and a resolve to offer all of himself back to the world to repay his own gift of life. All of the deaths he had seen had deepened him and awakened him spiritually…’death is as close as your breath’ he would tell me. He carried a battered copy of the Dhammapada, the Buddha’s teachings on impermanence, and would whisper to me solemnly : ‘Why are we born?  We are born so that we will not have to be born again’. He was speaking of the viewpoint that all life experience, if properly understood, offers us countless opportunities to learn equanimity and end suffering with it’s endless cycles of birth and rebirth.

How much joy we get in the company of those with whom we share an affinity of souls. Nicholai’s life had been stripped of everything that most people spend a lifetime accumulating – in return he had won the great spiritual treasures of desirelessness, simplicity, gratitude and spiritual awakening. He reminded me of a story I had heard from the life of Sri Krishna:

- stopping for a night at the simple cottage of a very poor devotee, whose only worldly possession was a cow, Krishna and his dear disciple Arjuna are treated with care and great kindness by the old lady who does not recognize who they are. In the morning Arjuna requests Krishna to reward their host for her selflessness and sacrifice and He agrees – he will take away the life of her cow! How can you be so cruel, asks Arjuna in dismay. Krishna replies, now she loves both me and her cow, but soon she will only have me and I will be the only thing left to her. She will rely solely on me, and in this way she will soon become one with me and live always in my heart. Then I will take care of her every need.

In our own quest for happiness we so often look to the impermanent and outer things of life – later we come to understand that happiness is not another person or place or circumstance or acquisition but a state of desirelessness, an inner achievement, a life of simplicity or devotion to God, the offering of oneself to a higher cause, egolessness and inner contentment. ‘Simplicity is an advanced course’ wrote my own teacher Sri Chinmoy. Indeed.

Nicholai’s wife died of gunshot wounds and whispered to him- ‘don’t be sad…go far away and start again…’ My own wife died of a lingering illness and I have only a last aphorism she wrote on a piece of paper, the handwriting spidery and wobbling with effort, a quotation by Sri Chinmoy: ‘Obstructions loom large, within, without. Yet, like a kite I shall rise without fail and fly against the wind’.

Death and sadness and loss teach us our life lessons and form an integral, indispensable part of our compassion for others and our own enlightenment. Nicholai makes me smile when he says to me: “I’m not sad any longer when someone dies – his suffering in this life is over. If you want to be sad, be sad when people are born: ’Oh, no, they’ve come again. They’re going to suffer and die again!’ “ He quotes the Thai master Ajanh Chah – “ we don’t meditate to see Heaven, but to end suffering”.

This is a guest post by Jogyata Dallas. Jogyata lives in Auckland, where he frequently gives meditation classes for the Sri Chinmoy Centre. see: Auckland Meditation

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Photo by Unmesh Swanson, Sri Chinmoy Centre gallery

It seems we are all striving for happiness; but, what do we actually mean by happiness? There is a big difference between a fleeting pleasure and an inner happiness independent of external events. These characteristics help to differentiate between real happiness and false happiness.

Peace and Happiness:

Real happiness brings inner peace. When we are sincerely happy we are at peace with the world and with our self.
A false happiness will be accompanied by insecurities, doubts and worries. We think our happiness could easily be spoilt by external events. To cultivate  happiness based on an inner peace it is necessary to be detached from the worries of the mind. We should not have a feeling of indispensability, but a calm acceptance of external events.

He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.

- Johann von Goethe

Pride.

A false happiness comes from a feeling of superiority. We feel that happiness depends on proving to the world that we are better or more indispensable than other people. A close relative of pride is jealousy of others whom we can not surpass. Real happiness takes joy in the achievement of others; in real happiness there is no feeling of inferiority and superiority, but only a sense of oneness. If you are constantly judging yourself against others, real happiness will remain elusive. If you can gain joy from others success, you have discovered a secret of real happiness.

Praise vs Detachment

If we are praised to the sky we are in the seventh heaven of delight; when we are mercilessly criticised we feel in the depths of hell. Relying on the praise of others can, at best, only give a fleeting happiness. Permanent happiness comes only when we maintain a sense of self esteem which is detached from the volatile opinions of the world.

To live a pure unselfish life, one must count nothing as one’s own in the midst of abundance.

- Buddha
Success vs Self Transcendence.

Success gives us a temporary feeling of euphoria; we have fulfilled our desires and now we can be happy. But, the joy of success is temporary and short lived. No success is permanent, and often we are often left with a desire for an even bigger and better success. Self transcendence is the ongoing process of self development and self improvement. The happiness of self improvement is not in achieving, but in the process of aiming for a better life. The joy of self transcendence is not confined to the odd victory, but, is the permanent journey of self discovery.

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Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.

- Paul Boese.

Forgiveness is a powerful way of moving on from unfortunate experiences; it is a way of illumining a darkened past. Without forgiveness we dwell on the negative attitudes of other people and the limitations of our own self. True, it is easier to talk about forgiveness than actually do it; but, if we can forgive, it is a powerful way to let go of negative experiences and make a fresh start.

Why We Need to Forgive

Hatred makes us feel miserable.

If we are unable to forgive and forget the misdeeds of others we will carry a heavy burden around ourselves. It may have some justifications, but, hating others means that we will make our own lives difficult. When we concentrate on the bad action of others, we give too much importance to these negative qualities and invariably they become part of our mindset.

We cannot live in the past forever

Forgiveness is a way to move forward. If we are unable to forgive we will always be thinking of the past. By thinking of past blunders we will not gain illumination. Forgiveness means we allow a new chapter to be written and prevent the old mistakes and difficulties being repeated.

Mistakes are inevitable

We cannot expect ourselves or other people to be perfect. Mistakes are an inevitable part of life. Even if people are trying to do their best, they may often behave with the wrong motives and actions. If we expect anything near perfection from others, then we will always be disappointed. To be forgiving means to be flexible, tolerant and accommodating.

To err is human.
But be careful,
Do not over do it.
If to forgive is divine,
Then rest assured,
You can never over do it.

- Sri Chinmoy

A person is more than certain actions

Often our judgement of a person depends on a particular action of theirs. When someone does something wrong, we inwardly label them as a bad person.This is a mistake; someone may have unfortunate habits or bad actions, but, this is only one aspect of that person. We would not want ourself to be judged on all our mistakes; we have done wrong things, but we know this is not the sum of our person. Forgiveness means we are able to separate a person from a bad action. We are not condoning the bad thing they do; it just means we acknowledge that anybody who does wrong things also has the capacity to do good things as well. Somebody may tell a lie, but that does not mean we have to think only of them as a bad person.
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One great theme which psychologists have sought to address over the last fifty years is why so much human energy is directed to serving the needs of others. From the millions of people who give their time and energy looking after kids sports teams or working with the homeless, to extraordinary tales of ordinary people sacrificing their lives for people they have never even met, there is an enormous amount of care and giving out there, sacrifices that often do not get due attention in a media preoccupied with negative stories. For psychologists, it can be very hard to reconcile this behaviour with the evolutionary principle that we are all individual agents in a battle for ‘survival of the fittest’.

Giving comes from the heart

Undoubtedly, the notion that we are all looking out for ourselves and our progeny does indeed have some foundation in truth. There is no denying that there is an animal part of our nature which is still a considerable force to be reckoned with – the world is still rife with ‘survival of the fittest’ behaviour, jostling for position, and looking out for number one. When we live in the mind, it is this kind of behaviour that takes prominence. The mind tends to cut us off from others’ hopes and feelings and induce feelings of ‘them’ and ‘us’, with all the feelings of superiority and stereotyping that come with that.

However, those of you who are frequent readers here at Sri Chinmoy Inspiration know that many of our posts are given to exploring a deeper part of our being beyond the mind. In the heart – that space in the middle of the chest where we can feel the core of our being – we have a part of ourselves that we often only connect with in moments of great beauty or silence, a part of ourselves that comes forward when the mind is still, and a place where all the best impulses of mankind are located – empathy, brotherly love, and oneness. We have the saying ‘my heart went out to him…’ and this is exactly what happens when we see someone in a state of distress; we instinctively empathise with his condition and and we can feel a part of us wanting to overcome the self-obsessed aspects of our nature and help. This is the root of all true self-giving. Continue Reading →