THE MANY SHADES OF HAPPINESS –OUR REASON TO BE

Happiness covers many states which we tend to club together as happiness! But there are subtle and all-important differences, pointed out by many masters and I only reiterate:

Pleasure is physical – it is experienced externally - in the body - as taste, touch etc - through some external trigger –food, sex, objects etc. Thus not only does it run itself out, it is dependent on that some on or something outside you… and in the long run that becomes the problem rather than pleasure as one is unhappy without its availability.  Pleasure is experienced in the lower chakras.

Happiness is more psychological - it goes beyond the body … thus it’s shifting from the purely physical/outer to inner… but yet happiness needs an external trigger to feel it within. There is a shift to higher chakra's....

Joy is soul based. And different from pleasure& happiness…as it’s source is within. Yes it will reflect around you, but you will be the source, not the other or outer circumstances. Thus is it is not as transitory or fleeting or undulating…more a pervading sense of being. Indeed it can co-exist with states where everything is not what we would call 'happy' or 'perfect'! There is a shift to higher chakra's...

And beyond joy is bliss. It is neither physiological nor psychological nor spiritual. It is what I describe as a state of ‘it is it is’…or what Indian scriptures describe as ‘neti neti’…not this or that. Bliss is a ‘state of beingness’ for which we have no words – it is not some orgasmic state of being as we sometimes imagine it to be but a state of being where there is no opposite state - which we could call displeasure or unhappiness or lack of joy!  Indeed it is our natural state of being....and when all that stands in its way disappears....we are bliss! It knows no division, no other, no time....it is not union with Godself... it is not awareness of Godself...there is no self in bliss!

Enjoy... all states dearest beloveds! Pleasure, happiness joy and bliss are our reason to be. Through experiencing all, will we expand and transcend each …! Do not seek to suppress the former... do not seek to short circuit... we have chosen to experience them all and in that transcend each.. So think... what a beautiful blueprint? Its all about pleasure, happiness, joy and bliss!

At a deeper level there is the state beyond all these… OM … when we resonate as the Ah Oo Mmmm …. The bliss of awareness Itself… of being All That Is…! And even deeper, when we move beyond all identity, even I Am ness …. Into impersonal state of being and Its Sat Chit Ananda