Happiness !

Albert Schweitzer : Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.

Algernon Black : Why not let people differ about their answers to the great mysteries of the Universe?
Let each seek one's own way to the highest, to one's own sense of supreme loyalty in life, one's ideal of life.
Let each philosophy, each world-view bring forth its truth and beauty to a larger perspective, that people may grow in vision, stature and dedication.
There is no need to force our own theological points of view upon one another or to insist that the moral life grows out of final, absolute authority.

I still remember my mother buying me Children books....or little stationary stuff...I never care about chocolate..Ice Cream or Sweets in my childhood..these were the things brought joy or happiness in my life. How simple...innocent...hmm...we had been in our childhood?

How we know....that we are happy ? Can we calculate happiness ? Is there a universal rule or formula for cultivating or growing happiness ? And if there is....what are the ingredients ?

Little gifts used to make me happy while I was a child. Than my growing age make it hard to attain happiness in whatever I do. I never find any burden or find it a curse to do anything in my childhood...now...when I don't want to do anything...I start considering my self unhappy.

What is the criteria...on which I start putting my self on happy or unhappy states?

I couldn't find the answer...

Happiness is a state of mind or feeling characterized by contentment, love, satisfaction, pleasure, or joy.

hmm....this is not enough to be happy I said to myself after finding the happiness definition in Wikipedia.

It is my wanting or longing to always be ahead of everyone around me...being the most praised one...being the most loved one...being the most accomplished one..will give me the real happiness.

And that's true....sometimes our being selfish and wanting to hurt someone gives us happiness....

Sometimes...gossiping and doing something bad behind someone gives us happiness....

Sometimes...being the most naughtiest or being the daring warrior gives us the happiness.....

I know that all the above states of mind or actions may give me happiness but how long they will keep me happy? May be for a day or two...number of hours or minutes....

We learn from the Noble Qur'an that happiness is an exclusive quality of the soul. Thus, a body that attains all the material successes it longs for - money, power, fame, etc. - often belongs to an unhappy person. Happiness depends totally on the degree of growth and development attained by the soul, the real person.

Or may be finding the way my MAKER resolves our issues...HIS authority over our lives...HIS way of doing us favours...is a real happiness.

When we find ourselves completely connected with our Lord....we can say that we are happy.

When I felt that I am far away from the worldly relationships and detest humans while I come more close or near to my MAKER....I was happy because I was contented. But my joy depends on humanly relationships....knowing that I again came back to humans. I found pleasure in friendship while joy with children. I regard love highly in my life and work to find it.

hmm.....even than...all the above dialogues....my confidence on myself being happy trembled down by simple idea of Charlotte Bronte in her Villette :

Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with manure. Happiness is a glory shining far down upon us out of Heaven. She is a Divine dew which the soul, on certain of its summer mornings, feels the dropping upon it from the amaranth bloom and garden fruitage of Paradise.