Happiness is that which all sentient beings desire

What is the one thing that all sentient beings desire? Is it not happiness? For whom do we desire happiness? We do not do anything – whether through mind, speech or body – that is not driven by our fundamental desire to be happy. Each and every one of our actions is motivated by our desire to be perfectly happy. If we always keep our mind subsided in our true and natural state of self-conscious being, no external circumstances can prevent us from remaining happy.

The reason why Lord Buddha left his beloved wife, child and other relatives was not because he did not care for them. He left them only because his love for them was so great that he could not bear the thought that he was powerless to save them from the inevitable sufferings of embodied existence, and he was therefore determined to find the means to do so.

Only because his love and compassion were so great that he was impelled to withdraw his mind from those he loved most in order to find the real solution to the sufferings of all embodied beings, was he able to attain the true knowledge that enabled him to teach us all the means by which we can attain nirvā?a, the true state of just being, in which all suffering is extinguished along with its cause, our mind or illusory sense of finite selfhood.

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We all want happiness. But what sort of happiness do you want? Happiness is a complex concept that cannot be pinned down to one simple dimension. Our love for our own self and for our own happiness is not wrong. It is perfectly natural, and therefore unavoidable. It becomes wrong only when, due to our lack of correct understanding about where true happiness lies, it impels us to do actions that cause harm to other people. Therefore, in order to avoid doing any harm to anyone – to avoid making anyone else unhappy – it is essential that we understand what true happiness is and where our true happiness lies.

Since love and happiness are subjective feelings that are experienced by us, we cannot understand the true nature of either of them without first understanding the true nature of ourself. Only if we understand our own true nature will we be able to understand how the desire for happiness arises within us, and why we love our own self and our own happiness above all other things.

We can understand this by critically analysing our experience of our three states of consciousness, waking, dream and deep sleep. In our waking and dream states we experience a mixture of pleasure and pain, or happiness and unhappiness. But what do we experience in deep sleep, when this mixture of pleasure and pain is removed? In the absence of this mixture, do we experience happiness or unhappiness? In the state of deep sleep, do we not feel perfectly happy, and free from all misery or unhappiness? Is it not clear therefore that neither unhappiness, nor a mixture of happiness and unhappiness, is natural to us? Since we can exist in the absence of unhappiness, it cannot be our real nature. Unhappiness is merely a negation of happiness, which is natural to us.

In the final analysis, are not all our desires just various forms of our one fundamental desire to be happy? Is not our fundamental desire for happiness the essence of every form of desire that we may ever have?

Martin Seligman. ... Seligman's conclusion is that happiness has three dimensions that can be cultivated: the Pleasant Life, the Good Life, and the Meaningful Life.

Happiness= Pleasure + Engagement + Meaning

The Pleasant Life is realised if we learn to savour and appreciate such basic pleasures as companionship, the natural environment and our bodily needs.

As per Martin Seligman "Meaning" component is more important in happiness. You are more happy if you do meaningful work in life.

Daniel Nettle describes three levels / types of happiness in psychology each representing different aspects of the positive emotions we strive for as human beings.

Life potentials three different types of happiness in Psychology...

Level 1 happiness: Represents momentary feelings of joy and pleasure. ...

Level 2 happiness: Represents judgments about feelings. Level 3 happiness: Represents a higher meaning of life, flourishing and fulfilling one's potential.

As per Hinduism, there are four permissible goals which are kama, artha, dharma and moksha, with each goal being more important than those before it. It is commonly observed that most people in a society are working towards the two objectives namely artha (earning wealth) and kama (pursuit of desires). However, the artha and kama are considered as short-term objectives whereas, the other two objectives namely dharma and moksha are long-term objectives.

Happiness= 20% Pleasure (Kama) + 35% Engagement (Artha) + 45% Meaning (Dharma)

It encompasses the human desires for passion and emotion. Dharma (righteousness, moral values), Artha (prosperity, economic values), and Moksha (liberation, spiritual values). Since all living beings want [or like] to be always happy without what is called misery, since for everyone the greatest love is only for oneself, and since happiness alone is the cause for love, [in order] to obtain that happiness, which is one’s own nature, which one experiences daily in [dreamless] sleep, which is devoid of mind, oneself knowing oneself is necessary.

Our desire for happiness is the driving force behind all the countless forms of effort that we are always making. Do we not each desire happiness for ourself? First and foremost, we each want ourself to be happy. Though we may also want other people to be happy, we want them to be happy because seeing their happiness makes us feel happy. All our actions of mind, speech and body are impelled by our desire for our own happiness. However unselfish we may think our actions to be, they are still all motivated by our desire for our own happiness.

Even if we sacrifice our time, our money, our comforts and conveniences, or anything else that is precious to us, in order to do some altruistic action, whether to help some other person or to support some noble cause, the ultimate driving force behind such sacrifice is our desire to be happy. We do altruistic actions only because doing so makes us feel happy.

However unselfish we may think our actions to be, they are still all motivated by our desire for our own happiness.

Prof (Dr.) Kanayalal Raina specializes in providing consultancy services. His strategic plans were used for obtaining funding to run various programs of NFP organisations. He strengthens NFP nonprofit and business organizations through education, empowerment of leadership and mentoring. Areas of expertise are Govt. funding and preparation of Business Plans, Strategic Plans, Marketing plans, Sales and Pricing Plans, Balanced Scorecard, Business Performance Management.