What is real happiness and when does it come?
Real happiness is of divine origin; it is pure and unconditioned. Ordinary happiness is of vital origin; it is impure and depends on circumstances.
[CWM2, 17:18]
True happiness does not depend on the external circumstances of life. One can obtain true happiness and keep it constantly only by discovering one’s psychic being and uniting with it.
[CWM2, 16:289]
Is the aim of life to be Happy?
Happiness is not the aim of life.
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It is not in order to be happy that we are upon earth, for in the present conditions of terrestrial life happiness is impossibility. We are upon earth to find and realise the Divine, for the Divine Consciousness alone can give true happiness.
[CWM2, 14:07]
The aim of human life is to discover the Divine and to manifest It. Naturally this discovery leads to happiness; but this happiness is a consequence, not an aim in itself. And it is this mistake of taking a mere consequence for aim of life that has been the cause of most of the miseries which are afflicting human life.
[CWM2, 12:312]
Who is truly happy?
“Happy is he who possesses nothing, he will partake of the delight of the radiant gods.” To possess nothing does not at all mean not to make use of anything, not to have anything at one’s disposal. “Happy is he who possesses nothing”: he is someone who has no sense of possession, who can make use of things when they come to him, knowing that they are not his, that they belong to the Supreme, and who, for the same reason, does not regret it when things leave him; he finds it quite natural that the Lord who gave him these things should take them away from him for others to enjoy. Such a man finds equal joy in the use of things as in the absence of things. When you have them at your disposal, you receive them as a gift of Grace and when they leave you, when they have been taken away from you, you live in the joy of destitution. For it is the sense of ownership that makes you cling to things, makes you their slave, otherwise one could live in constant joy and in the ceaseless movement of things that come and go and pass, that bring with them both the sense of fullness when they are there and, when they go, the delight of detachment.
Delight! Delight means to live in the Truth, to live in communion with Eternity, with the true Life, the Light that never fails.
[CWM2, 3:253]
…it is not money that makes a man happy, but rather an inner balance of energy, good health and good feelings. Stop drinking, smoking and over-indulging, stop hating and envying, and then you will no longer lament your lot, you will no longer feel that the world is full of misery.
[CWM2, 13:174]
How can one feel sweetness and joy when one is in difficulty?
Exactly, when the difficulty is egoistic or personal, if one makes an offering of it and throws it into the fire of purification, one immediately feels the joy of progress. If one does it sincerely, at once there is a welling up of joy.
That is obviously what ought to be done instead of despairing and lamenting. If one offers it up and aspires sincerely for transformation and purification, one immediately feels joy springing up in the depths of the heart. Even when the difficulty is a great sorrow, one may do this with much success. One realises that behind the sorrow, no matter how intense it may be, there is a divine joy.
[CWM2, 08:252]
I don’t know why I have lost all my happiness and peace. I don’t know when it will come back to my heart. My sweet mother, what shall I do?
My dear child,
When one’s attention is always turned towards oneself, one is never happy. When one allows oneself to be ruled by every passing impulse, one is never peaceful.
It is through work and self-mastery that one can find happiness and peace.
[CWM2, 16:132]
Thoughts on Happiness
Be happy, my child, it is the surest way of progress.
[CWM2, 14:179]
Happiness is as contagious as gloom—and nothing can be more useful than to pass on to people the contagion of a true and deep happiness.
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The happiness you give makes you more happy than the happiness you receive
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To be concerned for one’s happiness is the surest way of becoming unhappy.
[CWM2, 14:180-81]
Delight means to be free, free with the true Freedom, the Freedom of the constant, invariable union with the DivineWill.
[CWM2, 3:254]
SMILE
Never grumble. All sorts of forces enter you when you grumble and they pull you down. Keep smiling. I seem always to be joking but it is not mere joking. It is a confidence born from the psychic. A smile expresses the faith that nothing can stand against the Divine and that everything will come out all right in the end.
[CWM2, 14:221]
Is delight the highest state? And if so, could it be said that when one loses delight, one’s consciousness is lowered?
Sri Aurobindo has said that the universe is built upon the delight of existence and that delight, being its origin is necessarily also its goal, so this would mean in fact that delight is the highest
state.
[CWM, 8:326]
CHEERFULNESS
Cheerfulness: a joyous smile of Nature.
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Cheerful endeavour: the joy that one finds in the effort towards the Divine.
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Mental cheerfulness: it knows how to take delight in everything.
[CWM2, 14:179]
JOY
Joy comes when you take the right attitude.
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Joy comes from submission to the divine command.
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Joy of spirituality: the reward of sincere effort.
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Once a man has tasted the joys of inner life nothing else will ever satisfy him.
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No joy is comparable to the feeling of the eternal Presence in one’s heart.
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Joy’s call: it is modest and rarely makes itself heard.
[CWM, 14:182]