some people can't tell happiness from other feelings like satisfaction, or just being content. i think happiness is the one state where everything IS (doesn't seem) perfect in the place where you're happy. personally i make sure i express my feelings in different words then happy or sad because there are many many more emotions then that.
The idea that it's an illusion is itself as likely to be illusory. Margret Thatcher (not someone I'd generally quote) once said 'happiness is a ticked off list.' Personally I go with the idea that it's some kind of reflection here of the divine ananda.
Happiness, the state of being happy, is different things to different people. Most of us have some sort of state that we can imagine that if we could only reach, we would be happy. However, most of us aren't willing to put in the work to make that state exist. So, we are usually more apt to find happiness in the now moments that meet some subset of the ideal state we have in mind. Sometimes it catches us unawares. Sometimes it leads to contentedness which I think is as close as we can come to a continuous state of happiness in our material existence. Now bliss and ecstasy are a different matter. I think happiness is something we can settle for such as in the statement, "I'd be happy with that" where ecstasy, joy, and bliss are sublime states of being that occur somewhat independently of our material existence and are stimulated from within rather than from something perceived to be external to our self.
That feeling where you're totally content with life, where you don't want anything more than what you have at that moment and where you can see nothing wrong with your life or anything around you. No worries, no stress just calm peaceful content. Peace Akai-Chan
My materialistic reality can always be relative, and when I see the absurd play. My devil is as good as yours; better, I have no devil, he has one, or nothing but goodness for His body. See. I can learn things for the youth of It too.
Hare Krishna! 'Me and Mine' sense is the source of all unhappiness and 'Thee and Thine' sense is the source of all happiness. That happiness has to be felt by one and cannot be described. Love, Kumar.
Sweet Mother, what is the difference between pleasure, joy, ecstacy and ananda? Ananda belongs to the Supreme Lord. Ecstacy belongs to the perfected yogi. Joy belongs to the desireless man. Pleasure is within the reach of all living beings, but with its inevitable accompaniment of suffering.
'He who binds himself to a joy doth the winged life destroy. But he who catches a joy as it flies lives in eternity's sunrise' William Blake.
