What is Happiness?

[SQAAD]

Because of massive, super extreme type of suffering in my life i have been very motivated to get a better grasp on what reality is all about and how things work.

I have distinguished in my mind what is a dopamine hit.

I have also distinguished what is satisfaction by doing a concentration exercise.

But i do not understand what is happiness if am being totally honest..

Is it a feeling? Well feelings come and go..

Is it the absence of all feelings?

What is it?

David Parish (spiritual teacher) says that what most people call happiness is actually gratification. Gratification is when you get what you want.

 

Edited 20 hours ago by SQAAD

[Xonas Pitfall]

It’s alignment with yourself, knowing yourself, loving yourself, and feeling yourself being loved.

If possible, take the life purpose course.

Other than that, ask yourself questions:

1. What makes me happy?
2. What makes me laugh?
3. What kind of people make me feel grateful, positive, and like life is worth living for?
4. What kind of work makes me feel fulfilled and energized?
5. What do I want to contribute to the world?
6. What activities make me lose track of time?
7. What do I deeply care about?
8. When do I feel most at peace with myself?
9. What does success look like to me, beyond material achievements?
10. What am I passionate about, even if it doesn’t lead to any tangible rewards?
11. What excites me about the future?

I know these questions can seem vague and difficult to answer, but the happiest version of you eventually figures them out and aligns with them. Just don’t fall into the trap of thinking there’s only one thing or that it never changes. People’s values and alignments can shift throughout life. Awareness is crucial; you’ll be asking yourself these questions over and over again as you grow.

Also, don’t fall for the trap of believing meditation or psychedelics will give you infinite, permanent happiness. They won’t. Human happiness is most definitely conditional. You can reach states of pure bliss, but your baseline will remain human most of the time, unless you deliberately pursue a yogic path, and even then, it’s not guaranteed.

That’s why making these questions as clear as possible is key. And if you don’t know the answers right now, that’s fine, your next goal is to find out what they are. Experience, test, try, and explore.

In many emotional frequency charts (such as David Hawkins' "Map of Consciousness"), shame is considered the lowest, followed by guilt, apathy, and fear. Shame is directly a pure lack of self-love or a desire to deny and suppress yourself. That’s what depression often is, the suppression of the self due to a lack of love and shame. Given that depression is one of the lowest emotions you can feel, the direct opposite would be self-expression, self-love, a lack of self-shame, and acceptance, which would be the highest emotion, i.e., happiness.

What is yourself? Who are you? Do you love it or do you hate it? Would you want to express more of it or suppress it? This is the key question to answer.

Edited 20 hours ago by Xonas Pitfall

[UnbornTao]

Good question.

You contemplate it and tell us what you find.

[Princess Arabia]

Sadness exists. No difference. It only feels worse. We chase happiness because we're neurotic beings. Chasing a high. Chasing happiness is an addiction. Do you see anybody up in here asking what is sadness. Who cares. We don't want what exists we're neurotically chasing a feel good high. 

Edited 18 hours ago by Princess Arabia

[Someone here]

It's a state of mind that can be easily achieved with a healthy human body & mind. But otherwise..the hardest thing to get. 

Edited 17 hours ago by Someone here

[Princess Arabia]

8 minutes ago, Someone here said:

It's a state of mind that can be easily achieved with a healthy human body & mind. But otherwise..the hardest thing to get. 

Sadness doesn't imply an unhealthy body. Chasing happiness does. As life has proven to us time and time again, it's natural states cannot be gotten or achieved forever by neurotic humans. Life is sad, life is happy and it's perfectly fine with both, it's humans that want to own everything for themselves and suffer for it.

[Someone here]

@Princess Arabia I'm speaking from the relative perspective not the absolute perspective. 

[Princess Arabia]

8 minutes ago, Someone here said:

@Princess Arabia I'm speaking from the relative perspective not the absolute perspective. 

I am too. Humans justify their neuroses by saying it's relative to chase happiness. There's nothing absolute about chasing a high. 

[Someone here]

@Princess Arabia stop talking nonsense please. If there is actually one thing that truly matters in this fucking disgusting piece of a shit of a world that we live in..it is happiness. 

People with zero hope to achieve any degree of happiness in their lives immediately kill themselves. 

[Princess Arabia]

15 minutes ago, Someone here said:

@Princess Arabia stop talking nonsense please. If there is actually one thing that truly matters in this fucking disgusting piece of a shit of a world that we live in..it is happiness. 

People with zero hope to achieve any degree of happiness in their lives immediately kill themselves. 

You're talking nonsense. Where has chasing happiness gotten you so far. Did you invent happiness. No. Why try to own it, life will show you whose boss over and over again. Silence me all you want, that's not going to make you boss over life and it's features. What does people killing themselves gave to do with the truth of happiness and that it's a feel-good chemical that the brain chases just like it does any other fucking high. I'm being fir real. You're being deluded. Do you think I don't want to be happy either. Of course but I'm not going to delude myself into believing that life gives a shit about me and my wants. It couldn't care less. What do I do, don't care if I'm happy or sad. I'll take them both because i'm a big girl that's not spoilt and think life owes me anything. It's everything including feeling miserable and chasing happiness only confirms youre a miserable son of a bitch.

[Someone here]

@Princess Arabia we are all sons of bitches . Marriage is no different than going to a prostitute for one night stand sex . Here you are paying for one night..and there you are paying for life-long partnership. 

 

[Dodo]

3 hours ago, SQAAD said:

Because of massive, super extreme type of suffering in my life i have been very motivated to get a better grasp on what reality is all about and how things work.

I have distinguished in my mind what is a dopamine hit.

I have also distinguished what is satisfaction by doing a concentration exercise.

But i do not understand what is happiness if am being totally honest..

Is it a feeling? Well feelings come and go..

Is it the absence of all feelings?

What is it?

David Parish (spiritual teacher) says that what most people call happiness is actually gratification. Gratification is when you get what you want.

 

Happiness is when you are satisfied. You seek nothing further to improve your current state, because you are completely satisfied aka happy and at peace. 

You might want to watch some Rupert Spira, lately he's been the one I resonare the most with, and I've listened to most you can find online that deal with nonduality.

[Princess Arabia]

That guy in the video doesn't know what he's talking about. Anybody that tries to teach a human how to be happy is deluded themselves. When someone, however, tells you that all emotions can arise at any time and that it's not personal and there's no blueprint for DEALING with emotions, then that's more like it. There is no way to practice your way out of sadness. Sadness may or not appear, happiness may or may not appear. That's it. Emotions aren't there to be dealt with, the same way you put up an umbrella in the rain is the same way the body shields itself from sadness and that might be through some form of distraction or whatever.

One cannot stop an emotion from arising, they can only not react, which is the body's response system at play from it's programming. Get real people and stop allowing these people to keep you chasing your own tail. The body releases endorphins that act like pain relievers and mood boosters. There's no way one can start or stop that from happening. There are no predictors of what will appear next as far as circumstances and happenings and appearances. You think you can say what appears next, you're kidding yourself. The body is going to respond with it's built in fight or flight mechanisms and endorphins will flow appropriately and without your doing. 

[Hojo]

Its an emotion.

[Hojo]

@Princess Arabia are you saying you can't respond to fight or flight except by fighting or running? When I used to have panic attacks I would get fight or flight and I wouldn't be able to stop myself running. If I got one now I'm not sure what would happen. I feel like I could sit there now but I don't get them anymore.

And if you did get it and can not move then something is there ignoring the bodies responses to situations essentially overriding the emotion.

Edited 14 hours ago by Hojo

[Princess Arabia]

11 minutes ago, Hojo said:

@Princess Arabia are you saying you can't respond to fight or flight except by fighting or running? When I used to have panic attacks I would get fight or flight and I wouldn't be able to stop myself running. If I got one now I'm not sure what would happen. I feel like I could sit there now but I don't get them anymore.

And if you did get it and can not move then something is there ignoring the bodies responses to situations essentially overriding the emotion.

The body is also doing that. Fight can also be not moving. That's the body's way of fighting passively. Yes, you won't know how the body will respond because there's no you there directing the body. The "no you syndrome" is everywhere in reality displaying itself. There is no something there overriding the body's response, it's automatic whatever it does.

[UnbornTao]

We could start with the observation that happiness is caused by you. 

[Hojo]

@Princess Arabia How is fighting not moving? Its an action word. Action words require movement or you aren't doing the action. 

Edited 12 hours ago by Hojo

[Princess Arabia]

1 hour ago, Hojo said:

@Princess Arabia How is fighting not moving? Its an action word. Action words require movement or you aren't doing the action. 

Action doesn't always mean moving. The same way stopping seeking spiritually is still a form of seeking or a protest of something by not doing that something is also an action. 

[Princess Arabia]

2 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

We could start with the observation that happiness is caused by you. 

No state is caused by you. Get sad now. Get frustrated or angry now. Something on the outside is required. This is why telling someone how to be happy all the time is futile. Peace is a state of harmony that is caused by the absence of it's opposite so even that is caused by the absence of something else.