happiness

• none without intelligent effort

48:7.108. Ef­fort does not al­ways pro­duce joy, but there is no hap­pi­ness with­out in­tel­li­gent ef­fort.

• linked with intelligent and enthusiastic pursuit of worthy goals

94:8.17Ac­cord­ing to the orig­i­nal teach­ings of Gau­tama, sal­va­tion is achieved by hu­man ef­fort, apart from di­vine help; there is no place for sav­ing faith or prayers to super­hu­man pow­ers. Gau­tama, in his at­tempt to min­i­mize the su­per­sti­tions of In­dia, en­deav­ored to turn men away from the bla­tant claims of mag­i­cal sal­va­tion. And in mak­ing this ef­fort, he left the door wide open for his suc­ces­sors to mis­in­ter­pret his teach­ing and to pro­claim that all hu­man striv­ing for at­tain­ment is dis­taste­ful and painful. His fol­low­ers over­looked the fact that the high­est hap­pi­ness is linked with the in­tel­li­gent and en­thu­si­as­tic pur­suit of wor­thy goals, and that such achieve­ments con­sti­tute true prog­ress in cos­mic self-re­al­iza­tion.

• indissolubly linked with spiritual progress

100:4.3But the great prob­lem of re­li­gious liv­ing con­sists in the task of uni­fy­ing the soul pow­ers of the per­son­al­ity by the dom­i­nance of LOVE. Health, men­tal ef­fi­ciency, and hap­pi­ness arise from the uni­fi­ca­tion of phys­i­cal sys­tems, mind sys­tems, and spirit sys­tems. Of health and san­ity man un­der­stands much, but of hap­pi­ness he has truly re­al­ized very lit­tle. The high­est hap­pi­ness is in­dis­sol­ubly linked with spir­i­tual prog­ress. Spir­i­tual growth yields last­ing joy, peace which passes all un­der­stand­ing.

• only by reconciling ego desire and altruistic urge

103:5.5Hu­man hap­pi­ness is achieved only when the ego de­sire of the self and the al­tru­is­tic urge of the higher self (di­vine spirit) are co-or­di­nated and rec­on­ciled by the uni­fied will of the in­te­grat­ing and super­vis­ing per­son­al­ity. The mind of evo­lu­tion­ary man is ever con­fronted with the in­tri­cate prob­lem of ref­er­ee­ing the con­test be­tween the nat­u­ral ex­pan­sion of emo­tional im­pulses and the moral growth of un­selfish urges pred­i­cated on spir­i­tual in­sight—gen­uine re­li­gious re­flec­tion.

• follows pure thinking, virtuous living

131:3.3“Un­righ­teous­ness is con­temptible; sin is de­spi­ca­ble. Evil is de­grad­ing, whether held in thought or wrought out in deeds. Pain and sor­row fol­low in the path of evil as the dust fol­lows the wind. Hap­pi­ness and peace of mind fol­low pure think­ing and vir­tu­ous liv­ing as the shadow fol­lows the sub­stance of ma­te­rial things. Evil is the fruit of wrongly di­rected think­ing. It is evil to see sin where there is no sin; to see no sin where there is sin. Evil is the path of false doc­trines. Those who avoid evil by see­ing things as they are gain joy by thus em­brac­ing the truth. Make an end of your mis­ery by loathing sin. When you look up to the No­ble One, turn away from sin with a whole heart. Make no apol­ogy for evil; make no ex­cuse for sin. By your ef­forts to make amends for past sins you ac­quire strength to re­sist fu­ture ten­den­cies thereto. Re­straint is born of re­pen­tance. Leave no fault un­con­fessed to the No­ble One.

• reward of deeds well done

131:3.4“Cheer­ful­ness and glad­ness are the re­wards of deeds well done and to the glory of the Im­mor­tal. No man can rob you of the lib­erty of your own mind. When the faith of your re­li­gion has eman­ci­pated your heart, when the mind, like a moun­tain, is set­tled and im­mov­able, then shall the peace of the soul flow tran­quilly like a river of wa­ters. Those who are sure of sal­va­tion are for­ever free from lust, envy, ha­tred, and the delu­sions of wealth. While faith is the en­ergy of the bet­ter life, nev­er­the­less, must you work out your own sal­va­tion with per­se­ver­ance. If you would be cer­tain of your fi­nal sal­va­tion, then make sure that you sin­cerely seek to ful­fill all righ­teous­ness. Cul­ti­vate the as­sur­ance of the heart which springs from within and thus come to en­joy the ec­stasy of eter­nal sal­va­tion.

• depends upon willingness to be led by Adjuster

149:5.2“Si­mon, some per­sons are nat­u­rally more happy than oth­ers. Much, very much, de­pends upon the will­ing­ness of man to be led and di­rected by the Fa­ther’s spirit which lives within him. Have you not read in the Scrip­tures the words of the wise man, ‘The spirit of man is the can­dle of the Lord, search­ing all the in­ward parts’? And also that such spirit-led mor­tals say: ‘The lines are fallen to me in pleas­ant places; yes, I have a goodly her­itage.’ ‘A lit­tle that a righ­teous man has is bet­ter than the riches of many wicked,’ for ‘a good man shall be sat­is­fied from within him­self.’ ‘A merry heart makes a cheer­ful coun­te­nance and is a con­tin­ual feast. Bet­ter is a lit­tle with the rev­er­ence of the Lord than great trea­sure and trou­ble there­with. Bet­ter is a din­ner of herbs where love is than a fat­ted ox and ha­tred there­with. Bet­ter is a lit­tle with righ­teous­ness than great rev­enues with­out rec­ti­tude.’ ‘A merry heart does good like a med­i­cine.’ ‘Bet­ter is a hand­ful with com­po­sure than a super­abun­dance with sor­row and vex­a­tion of spirit.’

• faith augments h.

159:3.12When my chil­dren once be­come self-con­scious of the as­sur­ance of the di­vine pres­ence, such a faith will ex­pand the mind, en­no­ble the soul, re­in­force the per­son­al­ity, aug­ment the hap­pi­ness, deepen the spirit per­cep­tion, and en­hance the power to love and be loved.

100:7.12Je­sus was con­sis­tently cheer­ful, not­with­stand­ing he some­times drank deeply of the cup of hu­man sor­row. He fear­lessly faced the re­al­i­ties of ex­is­tence, yet was he filled with en­thu­si­asm for the gospel of the king­dom. But he con­trolled his en­thu­si­asm; it never con­trolled him. He was un­re­servedly ded­i­cated to “the Fa­ther’s busi­ness.” This di­vine en­thu­si­asm led his un­spir­i­tual breth­ren to think he was be­side him­self, but the on­look­ing uni­verse ap­praised him as the model of san­ity and the pat­tern of su­preme mor­tal de­vo­tion to the high stan­dards of spir­i­tual liv­ing. And his con­trolled en­thu­si­asm was con­ta­gious; his as­so­ciates were con­strained to share his di­vine op­ti­mism.

100:7.13This man of Gal­i­lee was not a man of sor­rows; he was a soul of glad­ness. Al­ways was he say­ing, “Re­joice and be ex­ceed­ingly glad.” But when duty re­quired, he was will­ing to walk coura­geously through the “val­ley of the shadow of death.” He was glad­some but at the same time hum­ble.

• ensues from recognition of truth, which can be lived

2:7.6In­tel­lec­tual self-con­scious­ness can dis­cover the beauty of truth, its spir­i­tual qual­ity, not only by the philo­sophic con­sis­tency of its con­cepts, but more cer­tainly and surely by the unerring re­sponse of the ever-pres­ent Spirit of Truth. Hap­pi­ness en­sues from the rec­og­ni­tion of truth be­cause it can be acted out; it can be lived. Dis­ap­point­ment and sor­row at­tend upon er­ror be­cause, not be­ing a re­al­ity, it can­not be re­al­ized in ex­pe­ri­ence. Di­vine truth is best known by its spir­i­tual fla­vor.

• integration of truth, beauty, and goodness

2:7.11All truth—ma­te­rial, philo­sophic, or spir­i­tual—is both beau­ti­ful and good. All real beauty—ma­te­rial art or spir­i­tual sym­me­try—is both true and good. All gen­uine good­ness—whether per­sonal moral­ity, so­cial eq­uity, or di­vine min­istry—is equally true and beau­ti­ful. Health, san­ity, and hap­pi­ness are in­te­gra­tions of truth, beauty, and good­ness as they are blended in hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence. Such lev­els of ef­fi­cient liv­ing come about through the uni­fi­ca­tion of en­ergy sys­tems, idea sys­tems, and spirit sys­tems.

• opportunity to pursue self-maintenance, self-perpetuation, and self-gratification

70:9.17But this equal­ity ideal is the child of civ­i­liza­tion; it is not found in na­ture. Even cul­ture it­self demon­strates con­clu­sively the in­her­ent in­equal­ity of men by their very un­equal ca­pac­ity there­for. The sud­den and nonevo­lu­tion­ary re­al­iza­tion of sup­posed nat­u­ral equal­ity would quickly throw civ­i­lized man back to the crude us­ages of prim­i­tive ages. So­ci­ety can­not of­fer equal rights to all, but it can prom­ise to ad­min­is­ter the vary­ing rights of each with fair­ness and eq­uity. It is the busi­ness and duty of so­ci­ety to pro­vide the child of na­ture with a fair and peace­ful op­por­tu­nity to pur­sue self-main­te­nance, par­tic­i­pate in self-per­pet­u­a­tion, while at the same time en­joy­ing some mea­sure of self-grat­i­fi­ca­tion, the sum of all three con­sti­tut­ing hu­man hap­pi­ness.

• takes origin in inner life

111:4.7Hap­pi­ness and joy take ori­gin in the in­ner life. You can­not ex­pe­ri­ence real joy all by your­self. A soli­tary life is fa­tal to hap­pi­ness. Even fam­i­lies and na­tions will en­joy life more if they share it with oth­ers.

• does good like medicine

131:2.9“The Lord is near all who call upon him in sin­cer­ity and in truth. Weep­ing may en­dure for a night, but joy comes in the morn­ing. A merry heart does good like a med­i­cine. No good thing will God with­hold from those who walk up­rightly. Fear God and keep his com­mand­ments, for this is the whole duty of man. Thus says the Lord who cre­ated the heav­ens and who formed the earth: ‘There is no God be­side me, a just God and a sav­ior. Look to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth. If you seek me, you shall find me if you search for me with all your heart.’ The meek shall in­herit the earth and shall de­light them­selves in the abun­dance of peace. Who­ever sows in­iq­uity shall reap calamity; they who sow the wind shall reap the whirl­wind.

• contentment is greatest wealth

131:3.6“The fool has said in his heart, ‘Evil shall not over­take me’; but safety is found only when the soul craves re­proof and the mind seeks wis­dom. The wise man is a no­ble soul who is friendly in the midst of his en­e­mies, tran­quil among the tur­bu­lent, and gen­er­ous among the grasp­ing. Love of self is like weeds in a goodly field. Self­ish­ness leads to grief; per­pet­ual care kills. The tamed mind yields hap­pi­ness. He is the great­est of war­riors who over­comes and sub­dues him­self. Re­straint in all things is good. He alone is a su­pe­rior per­son who es­teems virtue and is ob­ser­vant of his duty. Let not anger and hate mas­ter you. Speak harshly of no one. Con­tent­ment is the great­est wealth. What is given wisely is well saved. Do not to oth­ers those things you would not wish done to you. Pay good for evil; over­come evil with the good.

• little dependent on environment

140:4.10Ed­u­ca­tion should be a tech­nique of learn­ing (dis­cov­er­ing) the bet­ter meth­ods of grat­i­fy­ing our nat­u­ral and in­her­ited urges, and hap­pi­ness is the re­sult­ing to­tal of these en­hanced tech­niques of emo­tional sat­is­fac­tions. Hap­pi­ness is lit­tle de­pen­dent on en­vi­ron­ment, though pleas­ing sur­round­ings may greatly con­tribute thereto.

• to child, h. is immediate pleasure craving; too often associated with wealth

140:5.71. “Happy are the poor in spirit—the hum­ble.” To a child, hap­pi­ness is the sat­is­fac­tion of im­me­di­ate plea­sure crav­ing. The adult is will­ing to sow seeds of self-de­nial in or­der to reap sub­se­quent har­vests of aug­mented hap­pi­ness. In Je­sus’ times and since, hap­pi­ness has all too of­ten been as­so­ci­ated with the idea of the pos­ses­sion of wealth. In the story of the Phar­isee and the pub­li­can pray­ing in the tem­ple, the one felt rich in spirit—ego­tis­ti­cal; the other felt “poor in spirit”—hum­ble. One was self-suf­fi­cient; the other was teach­able and truth-seek­ing. The poor in spirit seek for goals of spir­i­tual wealth—for God. And such seek­ers af­ter truth do not have to wait for re­wards in a dis­tant fu­ture; they are re­warded now. They find the king­dom of heaven within their own hearts, and they ex­pe­ri­ence such hap­pi­ness now.

• being responsive to human need

140:5.161. “Happy are they who mourn, for they shall be com­forted.” So-called com­mon sense or the best of logic would never sug­gest that hap­pi­ness could be de­rived from mourn­ing. But Je­sus did not re­fer to out­ward or os­ten­ta­tious mourn­ing. He al­luded to an emo­tional at­ti­tude of ten­der­heart­ed­ness. It is a great er­ror to teach boys and young men that it is un­manly to show ten­der­ness or oth­er­wise to give ev­i­dence of emo­tional feel­ing or phys­i­cal suf­fer­ing. Sym­pa­thy is a wor­thy at­tri­bute of the male as well as the fe­male. It is not nec­es­sary to be cal­loused in or­der to be manly. This is the wrong way to cre­ate coura­geous men. The world’s great men have not been afraid to mourn. Moses, the mourner, was a greater man than ei­ther Sam­son or Go­liath. Moses was a su­perb leader, but he was also a man of meek­ness. Be­ing sen­si­tive and re­spon­sive to hu­man need cre­ates gen­uine and last­ing hap­pi­ness, while such kindly at­ti­tudes safe­guard the soul from the de­struc­tive in­flu­ences of anger, hate, and sus­pi­cion.

149:5.1When Je­sus was vis­it­ing the group of evan­ge­lists work­ing un­der the super­vi­sion of Si­mon Ze­lo­tes, dur­ing their evening con­fer­ence Si­mon asked the Mas­ter: “Why are some per­sons so much more happy and con­tented than oth­ers? Is con­tent­ment a mat­ter of re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence?” Among other things, Je­sus said in an­swer to Si­mon’s ques­tion:

149:5.3“Much of man’s sor­row is born of the dis­ap­point­ment of his am­bi­tions and the wound­ing of his pride. Al­though men owe a duty to them­selves to make the best of their lives on earth, hav­ing thus sin­cerely ex­erted them­selves, they should cheer­fully ac­cept their lot and ex­er­cise in­ge­nu­ity in mak­ing the most of that which has fallen to their hands. All too many of man’s trou­bles take ori­gin in the fear soil of his own nat­u­ral heart. ‘The wicked flee when no man pur­sues.’ ‘The wicked are like the trou­bled sea, for it can­not rest, but its wa­ters cast up mire and dirt; there is no peace, says God, for the wicked.’

149:5.4“Seek not, then, for false peace and tran­sient joy but rather for the as­sur­ance of faith and the sureties of di­vine son­ship which yield com­po­sure, con­tent­ment, and su­preme joy in the spirit.”

149:5.5Je­sus hardly re­garded this world as a “vale of tears.” He rather looked upon it as the birth sphere of the eter­nal and im­mor­tal spir­its of Par­a­dise as­cen­sion, the “vale of soul mak­ing.”

• experience of those certain of God

159:3.10You shall not por­tray your teacher as a man of sor­rows. Fu­ture gen­er­a­tions shall know also the ra­di­ance of our joy, the buoy­ance of our good will, and the in­spi­ra­tion of our good hu­mor. We pro­claim a mes­sage of good news which is in­fec­tious in its trans­form­ing power. Our re­li­gion is throb­bing with new life and new mean­ings. Those who ac­cept this teach­ing are filled with joy and in their hearts are con­strained to re­joice ev­er­more. In­creas­ing hap­pi­ness is al­ways the ex­pe­ri­ence of all who are cer­tain about God.