What Is Happiness?

By Dr. Robert Henry Schwenk

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People will have multiple definitions of happiness. Here are my ideas.

I believe that to be happy is the meaning of life. I am not lonely in this idea, of course. Many gurus and oracles through the ages have said something interchangeable.

How do you find and keep happiness? Here are the three ideas:

1. Make and keep a link with The All There Is (Tathis). Some will name this “God.” You can name it nothing at all, or name it what you wish. I just ask that you let go of any luggage that the name “God” might have held for you.

2. Experience your life as if it was purposeful - for it is. In other words, seek as many positive experiences as you can hold. This is the purpose of your life.

3. Beam your bliss into the world through sharing and experiencing. When you know meaning and happiness and purpose, this beaming will feel like there is great necessaity in doing that beaming.

Here’s expanded detail.

In order to be happy, I believe, you need make a genuine connection to Tathis.

(Tathis is a word I invented. It is a combination of the first letter of “The,” the first letter of “All,” the first two letters of “There,” and the entire word “Is.” Hopefully it is sufficiently empty of leftover ideas from your youth or other times of your life to be neutral.)

Why do you need a connection to Tathis? For the simple reason that material life, and life in general, cannot give you happiness. You cannot discover genuine happiness in stuff because it is not there.

Happiness resides not in the world because all things and even people in the world eventually vanish. There is nothing permanent in the sensual world. It aggrieves us all that this is the way things are. It must be faced, however, for it is something that all of us will encounter soon or late.

What is permanent, if anything? The Universe is permanent. The Universe is The All There Is - Tathis. The energy of the Universe is never lost, never goes.

Everything comes from this Source - the Universe. You live and move and have your being in the Universe. Without It you could not be.

Why make a connection to It? In It you will find complete and utter unconditional acceptance. In that acceptance you will find meaning. The meaning of life is to be happy. You find happiness because you are completely accepted just as you are.

There is no more formidable feeling than to be absolutely, totally accepted - no preconditions or qualifications.

Finding complete acceptance is to discover the meaning of life which is to be happy. But what do you do with your life? What’s your purpose?

Because Tathis is the Complete Entity, it cannot be in relationship to anything else. Tathis is whole. Yet it needs to feel actual, vibrant, alive. How does anything know what it feels like to be alive?

Something feels alive by interacting with other things. One simple definition of life is to be irritable. One can only be irritated by something else.

You get to be the interacting agent on behalf of Tathis. You can experience yourself as experiencing.

What do you need to experience? Everything positive that you can hold or encounter. No one, including Tathis, tells you what you must use as experience. You are free to choose. You choose from many, many opportunities over a lifetime.

When you do this choosing, you are living on behalf of Tathis. That is your purpose.

When you know the meaning of life, which is to be happy, and when you are experiencing - fulfilling your purpose - you will feel impelled to beam your bliss into the world.

You will feel like sharing what you know about meaning, happiness, purpose. As if you won the lottery and you want to share your good news with everyone (if not your money). In the same way you want to share so you will feel true, real happiness.

You beam your bliss by giving back through the agency of yourself. That can be done in countless of ways. Donate. Build. Teach. Comfort. Encourage. Sing. And more.

As you are beaming your bliss, you will be backing up your own happiness by distributing that happiness and realizing the effects in other people’s lives. You will be evolving a cheery circle (as opposed to a vicious circle).

There you have it: an answer to the question, “What is happiness?” Get to acquiring within yourself those three ideas right now.