RE: Meaning of Happiness

March 3, 2004

Hi All,

I suppose it wasn't really sensible thinking that I could post the material

in three separate parts and we could discuss each in turn. After all, no one

else could know what was present in the later posts and what was omitted.

Accordingly, I am posting the second part now and the third tomorrow. Then

you will have the totality of the matter and we can avoid repetition.

>From the responses so far, I would only comment on the remark by

Chittaranji: "Why is it that our own natural state of happiness remains

unknown to us? I believe there is no answer to this question..". Surely this

is simply that we are forever looking in the wrong direction. As the Katha

U. says (Ch. 2 Section 4 Verse 1 - 2): parA~nchi khAni ... na prArthayante

Death said 'God made sense turn outward, man therefore looks outward, not

into himself. Now and again a daring soul, desiring immortality, has looked

back and found himself.

'The ignorant man runs after pleasure, sinks into the entanglement of death;

but the wise man, seeking the undying, does not run among things that die'

(poetic licence translation by Shree Purohit Sami and W. B. Yeats).

Thanks, too, to Nirmala for reminding me of the story from Swami Dayananda.

This does, indeed sum up the typical Western attitude to the so-called

search for happiness!

The Meaning of Happiness - Part 2

Pleasure and Happiness

There is good evidence to suggest that pleasure is merely an evolutionary

development - we feel it when we do something that is 'good' for us, in the

sense of liable to help us survive and thereby propagate the species. Hence

eating and sex are good examples of pleasurable activities. Eating things

that are bad for us is likely to be accompanied by opposite feelings such as

nausea or disgust so as to discourage us. We will tend to choose those

things that are likely to bring pleasure and avoid ones that are likely to

bring pain.

There appear to be areas in the brain which, when electrically stimulated,

trigger feelings of pleasure. A recent theory suggests that pleasure is a

function that enables us to choose between activities. Thus, an experiment

with lizards shows that their favourite foods - i.e. the ones that give the

most pleasure - can tempt them out of a warm environment into a cold one,

whereas less enticing food will not.

Essentially, however, pleasure seems to be a short-term emotion, working in

an obviously mechanistic way similar to pain. In fact, there is good reason

to suppose that pleasure and pain are effectively opposite ends of what is

the same 'thing' - an evolutionary brain mechanism for encouraging behaviour

optimal to survival. Happiness, on the other hand, appears not to function

in this way. It does not seem to relate so clearly to 'things' or 'events'.

It seems much more related to me directly. I can say 'I am happy', but not

'I am pleasure'. Drugs might bring about an extremely pleasurable state but

they could never make me happy.

Most people (Advaitins excluded of course!) tend to think that happiness is

simply an emotion that we feel occasionally and there is no denying that

this is how it seems. They might think that it is a reward, in a sense, for

something they have done. This is because this is the sort of situation in

which it typically arises. If we have been working towards a goal, we often

feel happy once the goal is reached. If we have been wanting something, we

usually feel happy once we have obtained it.

If it were possible to do so reliably, it would be worth looking back to all

of the occasions on which we were happy and endeavouring to establish a

common denominator for those experiences. Unfortunately, the truth of the

matter is only clear in the present and looking through the filter of memory

and all of our concepts and mistaken ideas is unlikely to be helpful.

Reliving the past is not an activity to be encouraged!

When looking to the future, as we usually do when not reminiscing or

agonising over the past, we often think that we need certain things in order

to be happy. Precisely what form these take depends upon which aspect we

have identified with. If we believe we are the body, we will want to be fit

and healthy, beautiful and so on and are likely to pursue material things.

If we identify with the mind, we will pursue ideas and ideals and find

self-esteem through other's recognition of our achievements. Identification

with higher aspects of the intellect might see us seeking to excel in the

arts or abstract studies of some other sort. Religious types will find

happiness through acting morally and unselfishly, perhaps seeing their

ultimate purpose as not being realised in this life.

************

Many people seem to be at their happiest when they are doing something that

they enjoy. The logical conclusion that they draw from this is that, in

order permanently to be happy, they should seek always to be doing something

that they enjoy. Though this might seem reasonable on cursory examination,

it is quickly found to be false. If, for example, the 'something' happens to

be raving it up at a night club, exhaustion and probably other undesirable

consequences will quickly ensue. If it happens to be eating, fullness and

ultimately nausea will occur.

Most activities that bring happiness are contingent upon factors other than

our own desires and motivation and these other factors rarely pan out

exactly as we would wish. And they are all inevitably limited in time. As

soon as they end, we are back more or less where we started.

To this extent, I agree with what R. S. Mani said in his 'Doubt on Iswara'

posting on 29th Jan. (I didn't make any comments at the time because I

didn't want to pre-empt this discussion on Happiness.) He said:

"What we actually seek is not happiness i.e. vishaya-ananda, but bliss or

Ananda itself. Happiness is Ananda or Bliss, but Ananda or Bliss is not

happiness as we know, because the so-called happiness is conditioned and

limited by object, time and space, whereas Ananda is not conditional, as it

is our own svarUpa."

I don't disagree with the essence of what is said here but the first part of

the statement gives, I think, the wrong impression and the second part is

potentially misleading. What it implies is that what we normally call

happiness is not the real thing. This is not so. Happiness is happiness,

whether you call it bliss, Ananda or anything else. Yes, whenever we

normally experience it, it is usually short-lived and invariably attributed

erroneously to some external object but it is still the real thing. It is

not limited in any way but our recognition of it is quickly covered over by

the next activity of mind. I.e. the limitations are not of happiness but of

the mind.

The problem is, of course, that we are always looking to find happiness

outside, in events, objects or people, when in reality it is, as R. S. Mani

pointed out, our own nature.

The reason why we are frequently happy, albeit for a relatively short time,

when we are pursuing what we might call 'enjoyable' activities, is not

because of any property intrinsic to the activity. It is because, as we

sometimes put it, we 'forget ourselves'. What this actually means is that

the sense of 'I am doing this' or 'I want that' or even 'I am enjoying this'

is momentarily forgotten. There is simply 'doing' without any overlay of ego

or mental commentary. In the absence of mind or ego, the natural happiness

of the Self is able to shine through. Momentarily, there is no duality, no

enjoyer and enjoyed, subject and object, simply enjoyment of one's own Self.

The extent to which we fail to appreciate this is cause for the ultimate

irony, however. The moment quickly passes. The ego returns and immediately

claims 'I am happy' and ascribes the happiness to a separate object or the

result of an action. This is then stored in memory, reinforcing our false

belief that happiness results from all of this 'doing' etc. and then,

inevitably, we feel that we have to seek to repeat the activity or search

for something new in order to 'bring back' the sense of joy. And we fear the

loss of this 'happy state' as it is now perceived. Such ideas immediately

cover over the Self with ignorance and the happiness dissipates. And it is

all quite untrue - at the moment of happiness the ego was not there at all.

If it had been, there would not have been any happiness. Any thinking about

happiness objectifies it as something other than ourselves and thus renders

it unattainable.

So it is that we are forever searching in the wrong direction, for something

'other' than ourselves in order to find that which can only be found within.

Our experience tends to reinforce these false beliefs since we typically

find that it is those with 'full lives' who seem to be the happiest. Someone

with very little to do, with few friends and no outside interests, we often

find to be depressed or miserable, sitting around by themselves wishing they

were doing something else. But this is due to the same reason, merely from

the other side. Here, such a person is self-obsessed, forever thinking about

what they want, the problems that they feel they have and the lack of any

solution. Their attention is forever focussed on their ego and related ideas

in mind. There is simply no chance of seeing the natural happiness through

all of this junk.

************

Best wishes,

Dennis

March 3, 2004

Dennisji

very beautifully said.

Happiness is the ultimate goal of human life.

everyone is search of happiness knowingly or un-knowingly.

one can ask why to have moksha ? why to do all this meditation and philosophy

and get enlightement?

whats wrong if i never get moksha or never come out of birth-death cycle.

the answer is, if you want complete happiness, you have to gain moksha, there is

no other way.

Most of the people search in wrong direction for happienss.

in alcohol, sex, art, ..etc...

these are pleasures and they get a feel of happiness in these pleasures but not

complete happiness.

These pleasures are momentory and ultimately turn into pain.

but slowly that jiva will differentiate into things that give him pleasure for

longer time.

these pleasures will create vasanas.

slowly & slowly (not in a single lifetime, maybe after 2, 3 or more lifetimes

depending on his vasanas) he will get birth which will be his last one.

In that life after having done all 'vasanakshaya' and after gaining 'jnana' he

will be forever happy. That is 'Ananda' or bliss.

Om tat-sat

vishal

Dennis Waite <dwaite wrote:

>>>>>>>>