What is real happiness?
Video transcript: What is real happiness?
What is real happiness? Is there such a thing?
Is happiness moments of joy?
I was taught as a child that there is no such thing as lasting happiness, but just moment of happiness. Those moments can happen because circumstances have been arranged for my favor or just a moment of grace.
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It didn’t feel right to me, but I had no proof or argument to the contrary, except that intuition. My own condition certainly wasn’t a proof for lasting happiness. In my late teens days, I suffered a lot from painful anxiety attacks which were ruling my emotional life and also my decisions. It wasn’t my only problem. My life in general was moving between mediocracy and pain. I was living through my thoughts and emotions, as everyone does, and that placed me at the mercy of whatever pops up in my system and whichever interpretation was yielded to events that took place to me. I thought it was me who did the interpretation. I now know it was my mind and I simply believed it fully to be my own voice, or otherwise, as my internal trusted advisor.
Awakening in India
All that changed drastically when I was around 22.
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After a couple of years of dedicated meditation and other forms of internal work, I had an awakening which changed my life from the core. It changed my understanding of what life is, who I am and what happiness is and can be.
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I was between retreats in India and a friend came to my room. She told me with fiery eyes – “All is well!” I said, “yes sure. All is well. I know.” I didn’t know.
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She said: “No, you don’t. All. Is. Well.”
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And something unimaginable happened. I got it. I got something I had no idea was there to get. It was like I was permanently holding a screen in front of my eyes, and in that screen was some sentence, some interpretation. This screen was how I interacted with life and what I took life to be. And then to my amazement that screen was gone.
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I was shocked. That is life! What I realized was the simplest thing – I just realized that I live in a quiet world. Absolutely, and exclusively silent. There is no soundtrack to it. No interpretation is needed. I found myself in a boundless, gorgeous meadow. I was always there but for some inexplicable reason, I decided to look at this little screen. Now I didn’t.
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Obviously all is well. not because I believe in it, or because I’m convinced by it. It is simply the nature of reality. All is silent, and that silence is wellbeing itself.
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The relief was beyond words. My new state of being was heaven itself, and yet it was completely ordinary. I can’t even call it spiritual. It was simply life as it is, without that silly unneeded screen.
Life is happiness
I didn’t understand then how it happened and how a person can reach that state, but now I know. The model of moment of joy is indeed the best that little screen could produce. Whoever taught me that wasn’t wrong. They just weren’t aware of a far, far deeper way to engage with life.
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No, happiness is not just moments of joy you encounter in life. Life is happiness. It is made of happiness. Alongside peace, beauty and meaning. And love and kindness are its obvious expression.
The answer to the question of whether there is real happiness
So the answer to the question whether there is real happiness is a raving yes.
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And the answer to the question what is real happiness, the answer is that it is who you are and what life is.
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And to the most important question, can you realize that real happiness, the answer is absolutely yes. There is a clear way to do it. There is a way, because it is who you are and what life is.