Happiness and Joy
Today's entry is inspired by the question that was given by a friend of mine who visited my blog. Is it true that while happiness comes from outside, joy is from inside; while happiness is depending on the external circumstances and may not last persistently, joy can remain whatever his or her external situation may change as it is from inside?
That is an interesting question. I understand the point and agree that there are two kinds of positive feeling -- one is something that comes from inside and the other is from outside. I am not sure if the former can be signified as "joy" and the latter as "happiness." But it seems to me that your signification can be helpful to explain each other's difference.
For example, when we say that we seek for our happy lives, it seems that we always tend to pursue something external as if a typical happy life can be made of only the external factors such as beautiful houses, higher educations, promising jobs, compatible partners, sociable friends, inherited assets, and so on. If you feel certain happiness because of such external factors, then what you think of happiness is something like what you have to possess as if you have to try hard and strive to become a so-called high achiever.
On the other hand, as you said, joy does not necessarily rely on such external factors. Even in a very simple life we can feel the tremendous joy. It is because, as you said, joy is that which comes from our inside. It is NOT what we have to reach further and grab hard to keep such possession. If joy comes from our inside, then which means that it has been there ever since. When we feel joy, it is NOT that we have gone somewhere and traveled around, but that we just have realized something that has been there ever since from the beginning. It is never lost; hence it is NOT what we have to possess, but what has been with us, as you also said.
If so, the way that joy comes to us is very similar to the way that God talks to us. As I repeatedly mentioned, when we were the residents in the Garden of Eden, our ego identity was not really separated from the environment. We were just like other animals as the part of the environment; therefore the part of God. Just like other animals we knew God unconsciously.
Once, however, we have had our own consciousness in which we can see ourselves, then such dual self-recognition makes us feel that we are separated from the environment and from God. Since we can suddenly have the ability to think about ourselves, we can imagine our own selves in the vision of our consciousness where we are standing and facing the world that seems outside us. Then, we have had the first "humanistic" questions such as who we are; where we came from; and where we will go. And probably in line with your question, we also tend to ask these questions: what is happiness? Are we happy or not on earth? If not happy, what should we do to become happy?
After we left the Garden of Eden, our ego identity (rather than our unconscious self) has more dominated us. Since our ego believes that we have been separated and even alienated from the environment and from God, what happiness means for our ego is first of all to seek for something that separated from us. In other words, our ego tends to think that happiness must be outside us just as our ego believes that God must be outside us – to reach God, we have to do this and do that, etc.
Ego believes that God is conditional – you believe that you can not see God unless you master this or that, etc. and in the same way, for such ego, love is also conditional. Such love or God is rested in the world of polarity. Sometimes God loves you depending on your conditions; therefore, sometimes God also punishes you because of your faults. For our ego, God is still in the love/hate polarity. Thus, as long as we listen to our ego identity alone, we can never realize the truth that God is unconditional – there is such a thing as unconditional love. Probably we can understand it as our knowledge, but we cannot feel the very reality of such unconditional God and unconditional love that can only come from our inside.
When we were just like other animals, we knew God unconsciously. Just like the peace of the Garden of Eden, it must be a kind of homeostasis. It is an ideal condition in a sense. But in this condition we have to be like other animals forever. Though I am not sure, one day God thought that He wanted us to be more like Him -- the ability to have self-recognition (consciousness) and to perceive the concept of time, so that we can see the so-called evolutional dynamism.
The eternal homeostasis means that nothing changes forever -- it seems that this is almost the equivalent of death. The essential factor of life is "change" -- the spiral repetition of birth and death, which is the evolution of life itself. Thus, to be born you have to die; to return to the source you have to go away. This means that we have to die in order to be born; we have to leave the Garden of Eden in order to return there; and we have to lose God in order to see Him again.
Because of the birth of consciousness we can no longer see God unconsciously as we are no longer the residents of the Garden of Eden. Because of our ego identity, we tend to seek for God and our happiness always outside since our ego believes that everything is outside – the world is outside us. We lost God because of our ego and our consciousness. However, we have not totally forgotten the time when we could unconsciously know that we were part of God.
Our great teachers in the human history have realized that what we seek for is not outside and also they have realized that we can never reach what we seek for as long as we rely on our ego identity. Such great teachers told us that God was not outside us; God was not conditional but always unconditional; our ego cannot see Him. Thus, the great teachers taught us that "happiness" is not outside but always what we can find inside us; such "happiness" has never been the external conditions, but what has been unconditionally rested inside us ever since, which can be probably called joy.
That is an interesting question. I understand the point and agree that there are two kinds of positive feeling -- one is something that comes from inside and the other is from outside. I am not sure if the former can be signified as "joy" and the latter as "happiness." But it seems to me that your signification can be helpful to explain each other's difference.
For example, when we say that we seek for our happy lives, it seems that we always tend to pursue something external as if a typical happy life can be made of only the external factors such as beautiful houses, higher educations, promising jobs, compatible partners, sociable friends, inherited assets, and so on. If you feel certain happiness because of such external factors, then what you think of happiness is something like what you have to possess as if you have to try hard and strive to become a so-called high achiever.
On the other hand, as you said, joy does not necessarily rely on such external factors. Even in a very simple life we can feel the tremendous joy. It is because, as you said, joy is that which comes from our inside. It is NOT what we have to reach further and grab hard to keep such possession. If joy comes from our inside, then which means that it has been there ever since. When we feel joy, it is NOT that we have gone somewhere and traveled around, but that we just have realized something that has been there ever since from the beginning. It is never lost; hence it is NOT what we have to possess, but what has been with us, as you also said.
If so, the way that joy comes to us is very similar to the way that God talks to us. As I repeatedly mentioned, when we were the residents in the Garden of Eden, our ego identity was not really separated from the environment. We were just like other animals as the part of the environment; therefore the part of God. Just like other animals we knew God unconsciously.
Once, however, we have had our own consciousness in which we can see ourselves, then such dual self-recognition makes us feel that we are separated from the environment and from God. Since we can suddenly have the ability to think about ourselves, we can imagine our own selves in the vision of our consciousness where we are standing and facing the world that seems outside us. Then, we have had the first "humanistic" questions such as who we are; where we came from; and where we will go. And probably in line with your question, we also tend to ask these questions: what is happiness? Are we happy or not on earth? If not happy, what should we do to become happy?
After we left the Garden of Eden, our ego identity (rather than our unconscious self) has more dominated us. Since our ego believes that we have been separated and even alienated from the environment and from God, what happiness means for our ego is first of all to seek for something that separated from us. In other words, our ego tends to think that happiness must be outside us just as our ego believes that God must be outside us – to reach God, we have to do this and do that, etc.
Ego believes that God is conditional – you believe that you can not see God unless you master this or that, etc. and in the same way, for such ego, love is also conditional. Such love or God is rested in the world of polarity. Sometimes God loves you depending on your conditions; therefore, sometimes God also punishes you because of your faults. For our ego, God is still in the love/hate polarity. Thus, as long as we listen to our ego identity alone, we can never realize the truth that God is unconditional – there is such a thing as unconditional love. Probably we can understand it as our knowledge, but we cannot feel the very reality of such unconditional God and unconditional love that can only come from our inside.
When we were just like other animals, we knew God unconsciously. Just like the peace of the Garden of Eden, it must be a kind of homeostasis. It is an ideal condition in a sense. But in this condition we have to be like other animals forever. Though I am not sure, one day God thought that He wanted us to be more like Him -- the ability to have self-recognition (consciousness) and to perceive the concept of time, so that we can see the so-called evolutional dynamism.
The eternal homeostasis means that nothing changes forever -- it seems that this is almost the equivalent of death. The essential factor of life is "change" -- the spiral repetition of birth and death, which is the evolution of life itself. Thus, to be born you have to die; to return to the source you have to go away. This means that we have to die in order to be born; we have to leave the Garden of Eden in order to return there; and we have to lose God in order to see Him again.
Because of the birth of consciousness we can no longer see God unconsciously as we are no longer the residents of the Garden of Eden. Because of our ego identity, we tend to seek for God and our happiness always outside since our ego believes that everything is outside – the world is outside us. We lost God because of our ego and our consciousness. However, we have not totally forgotten the time when we could unconsciously know that we were part of God.
Our great teachers in the human history have realized that what we seek for is not outside and also they have realized that we can never reach what we seek for as long as we rely on our ego identity. Such great teachers told us that God was not outside us; God was not conditional but always unconditional; our ego cannot see Him. Thus, the great teachers taught us that "happiness" is not outside but always what we can find inside us; such "happiness" has never been the external conditions, but what has been unconditionally rested inside us ever since, which can be probably called joy.
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