Happiness is the art of the approximate

 

What is well-being? When do you feel well in your life? When do you truly feel well? When you are very happy, you're well. Even if you’re physically ill, you are still well. Even if you are medically diagnosed as ill, you're very happy right now, you're feeling well. So fundamentally, well-being means a certain level of joyfulness, a certain exuberance of life 

What is happiness

  We can say, happiness is this and that but in terms of life, your life energies are happening in a more exuberant way than they normally happen. Depression means your life energies have become very low and stayed. Happiness means your life energies are exuberant.  

There are many ways of describing Happiness

But only those who are happy know what it means to be happy.

There is nobody who has not been happy. Everybody's been happy but the problem is they are not able to maintain it. That's all. Everybody has been happy. In the last 24 hours, how many moments of joy have you known? Maybe you can count on your fingers. Many people have nothing to count on. When you were five years of age, as a child, how many moments of joy did you know in 24 hours? 

Lots of them. Somebody had to make you unhappy. Now somebody has to make you happy.

 

The whole equation has gotten reversed somehow

All these efforts in life, everything that you did, education, career, business, family, whatever you did, everything was in pursuit of happiness. Everything that humanity has done on this planet is in pursuit of happiness.

What's the change which nowadays people have 

 In the last hundred years, we have done too much on this planet. With the use of science and technology, we have changed the very face of the planet. Today, we have all kinds of comforts and conveniences that no other generation could ever imagine. What royalty could not afford a hundred years ago, today average citizens have. Aren't most of you driving chariots with a hundred, two hundred horses? Even kings could not afford this. 

After having all this, are we any happier?

We are the most comfortable generation ever on this planet, physically. But are we also the most joyful generation? So, it's not working. Science and technology have brought an enormous amount of comfort and convenience to our lives. Things that we could not imagine just 25 years ago, we are just living in reality today. 

But are we any more joyful? 

No. And all these comforts and conveniences have not come easy. They've come at a tremendous cost to every other life on this planet. Yes? Every creature from plants to animals to everything including human beings has paid an enormous price to create these comforts and conveniences and we are not even happy. What is the point? We are making a bonfire on this planet. We are not even happy. I think it's time to look at it. 

Whatever happened to you within yourself 

Where have you seen the whole world? Within yourself. Everything that ever happened to you…… Pain and pleasure happened within you.

Joy and misery happened within you. Agony and ecstasy happened within you. Even light and darkness are happening within you. What happens in the world may not happen the way you want it, but at least what happens within you must happen your way. Hence, if what happens within you is not happening your way, fundamentally we have not figured out what is the nature of our life. Without understanding, even the fundamentals of our existence, we are trying to live. 

Both pain and pleasure originate from within you

There may be a stimulus from the outside, but all human experience comes from within you. What's coming from within you, must happen your way. Otherwise, you're just in an out-of-control situation. Do you agree with me that we are the most comfortable generation enjoying the most incredible conveniences that no generation could ever dream of? Even the royalty didn't have it a hundred years ago, today ordinary citizens are enjoying it. 

Why are all these facilities going to waste humanity 

This is happening because their experience of life is not enhanced. After all, their well-being will never come from outside. From the outside, you can create convenience, but you cannot create well-being. Well-being can only happen from within you because human experience is created from within. Whatever it is, unpleasant or pleasant, both are being made from within you. 

 

If you were in charge of yourself 

Would you create pleasantness or unpleasantness for yourself? If there's a choice between misery and blissfulness, what would you choose for yourself? Please, you must make a choice. At least for yourself, it's the highest level of pleasantness. Why is such a simple thing not happening? Simply because of this cerebral activity in the process of evolution, it is new. It's a new thing happening, this……this big brain. 

What happens when your intelligence turns against you

Hence we have intelligence for which we don't have a stable enough platform. You don't need anybody to torture you. You don't need any outside help. You're self-help. You can sit in one place by yourself and make a hell out of it. Because your intelligence has turned against you. 

Conclusion

You can call it by all exotic names. You can call it misery, you can call it depression, you can call it by a variety of diagnoses. Once your intelligence gets turned against you, nobody, no power in the universe is going to save you because wherever one takes you, you will be miserable.

The problem is not from the outside. Outside situations are there, some situations will go the way we want, and some will not go. Even if you are just two people in the family, does everything happen just the way you want it? We can manage it to some extent. If right now what happened within you was the way you wanted it, would you keep yourself at the highest level of pleasantness or not? 

Even if death confronts you it should not matter because whatever is happening is the way you want it.