What Is Happiness

What is happiness? This question is often asked, yet I have never heard an answer that credibly satisfies my curiosity. Usually people will come up with these type of answers;

• having more than enough in each area of life
• minimizing pain and maximizing pleasure
• being at peace with oneself and the world
• knowing that I am loved.

The American Psychological Association says;

Attaining popularity or influence and money or luxury is not what makes people the happiest and is at the bottom of the list of psychological needs, according to a new study.

Topping the list of needs that appear to bring happiness are autonomy (feeling that your activities are self-chosen and self-endorsed), competence (feeling that you are effective in your activities), relatedness (feeling a sense of closeness with others) and self-esteem.

Wikipedia defines it like this;

Happiness is an emotion in which one experiences feelings ranging from contentment and satisfaction to bliss and intense joy. This definition is, however, a synonymous one. A more clarified one is almost impossible to conceive due to the capacity by which a human can allocate the correct words into an appropriate and meritable sentence that would describe happiness.

But None Of These Really Explains What Happiness Is...

Well ok. As Wikipedia says, maybe we can't describe happiness accurately in words, but what I can do is share the understanding I have gained after 14 years of intense study and exploration of what happiness is.

These descriptions are how Individuals experience happiness, but they are not what happiness is. Just as light, is not the ability to see.

To explain this we must start by explaining the nature of life.

Life has three levels. Each is separate and has a different function. That we know this is evident in the way our book shops separate Mind, Body and Spirit.

Spirit is the level that sources life. You may take any physical object, animal, mineral or vegetable and it is made up of an atomic structure. The atom will always be 99.9% empty. All there is, is a tiny amount of energy darting around so fast it gives the impression of solid matter. The differences in properties an object appears to have is a function of the vibrational pitch of the energy.

This is Spirit. It is the basic building block for our world. So our world, etheric and non-etheric, is a ball filled with this energy. And in this energy is the intelligence that co-ordinates Life. Where the energy is allowed to flow, life is. The more life that flows the healthier that being is. When the life stops flowing through it, the being decays.

Body is the level of physical sensation. It holds all the nerve endings and intelligent circuitry that enables us to experience a thought as feeling. You can hold a thought of stress, anger, jealousy or joy and physically experience the sensation of that thought.

Our senses create our perceptions of the world from interpreting the energy of Spirit and, from our framework of beliefs, then making meaning from what we have perceived.

Mind is the level of thought. It is thought that creates your experience of life. Our bodily perceptions bring us only an energy pitch, it is our mind that makes it into something meaningful.

Therefore it is our mind that holds the key to our life experience and so our happiness. This is where we have control. It is for this reason that so many people have trouble sticking to diets, stopping smoking and so on. Because they try to change things from the physical level. But really life is decided on a level of mind.

This may be an easier way to think of it. A house is built from the materials of the world (Spirit Level). It is built according to an Architect's designs (Mind Level) and can be lived and experienced (Bodily Level).

So what determines happiness?

Spirit level is always there and is none of our business. We cannot affect it or change it in any way. All we can do is experience it.

Many people will talk about being spiritual or spiritual activities. I understand what they mean in that they are seeking to connect with spiritual intelligence and have more flow through their body, but it's impossible to be spiritual, physically.

An action is performed by a body and so must be on a physical level. If it is done physically, if it can be touched, it must be physical. To be spiritual is to be pure without a physical form. So a spiritual ritual is a physical action, not spiritual. Where some people can move their consciousness from the physical into the spiritual can be said to be spiritual, but not conscious actions.

The physical level is determined by the mind, so it is not what we do that creates happiness. Many research studies spend years identifying what happy people do. But it is the mind behind the action that determines whether the action is joyful or not.

This leaves us with the one level with which we can control our happiness.

The level of mind. This is where we exert our free will. So what is our free will?

It is our choice of emotional location. You see just as we can travel physically to different locations, so can we travel the emotional landscape. Our choice has two polarities. If you are religious you might see it as a choice between heaven and hell. If you are a very moral person you might see it as right and wrong. A Psychologist might see it as being mentally healthy and ill. In our case we will choose between happiness and unhappiness.

In every decision we have two contenders to vote for. Of course we have more than two thoughts, but they are sponsored from only two sources. Which we choose determines how we feel.

The first contender is Spirit. Choose Spirit and we open the gateway for Life to flow through us. In doing so it restores our strength and health making us joyful. Spirit is our identity when we accept that each of us is connected to everyone and everything in the world and so making all one. It therefore looks out into the world as if all were one. And therefore it's choices harm no-one in the world.

However Spirit's choices do hurt someone. The second contender, your Ego.

Ego is the side that fights for your personal self interest and it wants special treatment. It doesn't want peace and equality, it wants more than anyone else. It wants special treatment for you. Because it defines you as being limited to your physical body, it's concern ends at the boundaries of your body.

The most obvious outcome of this is that it is selfishly concerned for your own personal interest. However the reason why this will limit your happiness has two parts.

Firstly, the flip side of being concerned with your personal interest is loneliness, fear, insecurity and being in perpetual competition. If you are separate from everyone else and all of you are fighting to be special and for the worlds resources, then it is a harsh and savage world. Therefore you have much to fear and you are alone. So you live with perpetual insecurity and without the ability to share freely

The second reason is concerned with what happiness really is. Happiness is the flow of life through you. As the ego fights with Spirit, the more that you choose for the ego, the less of Spirit that fills you and so the emptier you feel.

Spirit flows through you when you have something and someone to share with. If you water your flowers, you aim the hose at the flowers and it receives the water. But the strongest flow of water is not felt by the flowers, it is in the flow of the hose. So too, when you give, the strongest flow of Spirit comes through you..

So happiness is a greater presence of Spirit. It is a connection to life. A feeling that you belong and are an integral part of life.

Here's an interesting and entertaining 20 minute video of Dan Gilbert, the best selling Author of Stumbling On Happiness.