Happiness and Unhappiness

What is happiness ?

Happiness is best defined as a feeling or emotion that brings pleasure or joy in our being. When we are in a state of happiness we feel complete and purposeful. This state is the only natural state. This state of being in the present moment is life. When our mind swings from one moment in the past to the anxiety of the future, we are lost in balance. Love and happiness can be instantly recognized as that moment when we feel the warmth and ease in our existence.

This makes us want to understand what unhappiness is:

Unhappiness, simple put, is a state of disturbance. We have disturbances in our lives all the time but when all events of our life are tainted with worry and anxiety, then the disturbances start to become a normal course of our mental state. As a cumulative effect, when the energy of disturbances dominate our mind, we experience what is called unhappiness. This state is recognized with the feeling of not being satisfied or pleased with a situation.

The various causes for unhappiness are:

• Excessive re-creation of the past negative experiences in the mind

• Vain imagination of possible failures and set back for the future

• Dwelling upon mistakes and magnifying them in our mind

• Creating images of people we hate or dislike and conversing with them in the mind

• Comparison with people better than ourselves

• Shifting focus from who we really are to who we imagine we want to be

• Having a low estimate of ourselves

When we study such patterns and understand the cause of unhappiness, we always search for solutions. The immediate solution that come to our mind is to correct each and every cause that makes us unhappy. While this may seem to be a sensible way to deal with the problem of unhappiness, we should remember that an emotion cannot be altered with an idea. An idea may take possession of the mind and encourage us but the healing cannot be done with it. An idea is a function of the intellect and the intellect is just a rationalising machine.

Unhappiness being an emotion and energy, the real remedy to heal unhappiness can only come from another emotion and energy and that is happiness. We have to learn to focus on cherishing the moments when we are happy. We have to understand what great power it has over us. Mental energy's growth in power depends on where the awareness or attention is fixed. This means, we have to practice building more impressions of happiness in our mind and there should be a focus shift. Seth, whose ideas are regarded as one of the cornerstones of New Age philosophy says, "If you do not like your experience, then you must change the nature of your conscious thoughts and expectations." “You need to learn the power of thought and emotion.”

Changing the nature of our conscious thoughts require courage. Will is not a necessary condition because, intrinsically, we all want to be happy. In fact every action that precedes the will is intended to bring us happiness. We need to develop courage to put a stop to our state of mind that is dwelling in unhappiness.

• The first step is to tell our selves that we need to bring about that change in our mental state.

• Slowly and steadily, every moment of happiness is to be lived with the belief that even if painful moments follow, happy moments will come back again.

• We need to be around people who encourage us to be who we are and people who live in the moment.

With every help we get and every step we take, we can get stronger in ensuring that our awareness is more towards the positive dimension of life. Todd Kashdan says, "When we are open to new possibilities, we find them.”

To do this, there are methods we need to follow. Being in the moment, connecting with our pain by observing and studying it with help of a friend or a mentor and; meditation are the means to bring about happiness.