What is happiness?

Somebody who has been reading the void's typed scribbles, wanted to know the void's interpretation of what is happiness or rather true happiness. The Void's word is obviously not the final word and it should not be, but here it is again from a hotel room adding to the scribbles.

We need to be aware that the definitions are extremely subjective.

Happiness is a state of mind while a happy person is what the void would call as, a person who is temporarily in a favourable disposition to a given situation.

Sometimes we confuse pleasure with happiness. Pleasure is dependent on an object external to us.

Is a life without worry a happy life - well you could say so. As long as you dont have anything negative, by which the Void means, an event or stimulus which makes you sad like the death of a beloved one, or the loss of what you value most and if you have enough money, and the resources to lead your life you will not have the negative vibes that have been mentioned above, but still not necessary that you may be happy. Some people start using the word "bored" at such a stage.

Is running behind your dreams filled with activity going to keep you happy - it keeps you busy, your ego inflated and deflated according to the rhythms of what has been achieved and lost so you may be like the pendulum which swings from one end to another, and assuming that no external agency acts on this pendulum, at some point of time it comes to rest. Action may not bring happiness, but a happy person will need action, but remember this state need not be for ever because he is enjoying the pleasures of his or her action.

Now if i want to associate that state of rest of the pendulum to happiness, then this is what i prefer to call it "bliss" - where the mind is with itself, not dependent on any external source, the state which every religion describes as "I am".

In a worldly sense, if your talents and expectations are exactly balanced then you will not be unhappy.

But the fundamental question the void has, why should somebody want to get lost in the semantics of happiness and sadness. What if we learnt and understood life as a given and our body mind complex as a mere tool in the whole process. It is not a resigned state where you give up and remain a loser, but an extremely active state of a fully observant mind where you do everything with the fullest energy and joy and be true to what you have to do in a given role, then that process by itself is blissful, and a by-product of that process will be a happy human being.