Are You Truly Happy (page 4)

Golf

Poppers, you seem to be a young person, could you educate more about why its's a fallacy to think "there's gotta be something that makes you happy?"

As a professional athelete, to reach your goals you gotta make things happen. It doesn't come to you on a silver platter. Work is the optimum word.

Dansk and I used the word, 'content.' I would love to meet a person that has complete and continuous happiness. In professional sports you better have your mind on the present. There are degrees of happiness.

Golf

fairchild

I feel happy beyond words when I look out my living room window across the valley and see its beauty. I am even happier when I notice the first smells of springtime. It is a feeling which has made me happy for as long as I can remember.

Golf

Fairchild, I love the morning sunrise and evening sunset. I've taken pictures of both settings but the pictures never catch the essence of nature's beauty. Sunrise's and sunset's are one of a kind.

I appreciate your comment.

Golf

poppers

Golf said, "Poppers, you seem to be a young person,"

Gee, thanks for that - I am 54.

"could you educate more about why its's a fallacy to think "there's gotta be something that makes you happy?"

I am not talking about striving to accomplish certain things in daily life, or the pleasure you get from certain activities. Rather, I am pointing out what happens when one discovers one's essential nature, when one realizes what they really are. The THINKING that there HAS to be something that MAKES you "happy" is an idea which arises in the mind, and that any happiness that comes from reaching "goals" is only temporary, is fleeting. If one only had to do a certain thing to gain happiness, what good is that happiness if it is only fleeting? A state of "less than happy" will arise again until another "goal" is reached or another activity is found to take the place of the previous one - what if no such goal is realized again, or if the acivity which provided happiness no longer works and a new one can't be found? This sort of "happiness" will keep one continually looking outside oneself, and this is the fallacy that I am referring to.

To be "truly happy", means to me, a "happiness" which is unconditional, and this is what is found when one's true nature is uncovered. This happiness doesn't imply that one is in a constant state of super-happy bliss, but it does mean that there is the realization that nothing more NEEDS to be added on to what you already are, or no circumstance NEEDS to be avoided. No matter what is going on, when one's essential nature is realized/known there will always be an underlying current of happiness. That "happiness" is the natural by-product of realizing what you really are.

There are people whose outer circumstances seem "grim" to others, yet there remains happiness within themselves. And there are people whose every whim is realized, yet their happiness is continually fading. Where "you" are between these extremes indicates the degree to which you know what you really are. There are many people who are discovering this unconditional happiness, and they are discovering that this happiness can only happen now, in the present moment.

Smiles_Smiles

Well put, Popper!!!

What you refer to as happiness above is what I refer to as inner peace. And it is a constant for me no matter what's happening around me.

Benjamin Belial

YYYYYouch! I'm not a professed christian either, but what did he do that deserved being slapped? He taught love, forgivness, hospitality, fed the hungry, healed the sick and was a pacifist. Why do you hate him so?

Behold the healing powers of Jesus.

alt

These are some samples from a tract about Jesus that describes perfectly what I think of Jesus and how I feel about him. I'd post the whole thing here but I don't want to totally hijack the thread or slow down people's computers with a lot of pictures. In any event, there you have it.

tijkmo

i was asked by someone tonight how happy i was on a scale of 1 - 10

i said 3

but thats up from last year

Golf

poppers

Smiles said, "What you refer to as happiness above is what I refer to as inner peace. And it is a constant for me no matter what's happening around me."

Good for you Smiles. Happiness is the stepchild of inner peace. There will always be happiness when there is inner peace.

Are You Truly Happy

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