Why can't we all just be happy?

Hi, this is a very personal thread here but hey, we can all be personal along with our impersonal screen names here heh. Anyway, the question posed here is why can't everyone just be happy? I mean, we all have our differences and we may not agree with everyone and everything but that is perfectly natural, and such differences do not have to ruin the happiness in our lives. I guess i have been having this feeling for over a week now and I see that so many people just get hung up over little things and don't really know what they want at the end. They just keep fighting and don't realize how much peace they can get if they just let go of little things. From the spiritual perspective, God is in everyone, God is everywhere, why don't we all just realize this and just be happy!.

 

Agree...we tend to forget the big picture in discussing philosophical points...if we were all self-realized souls we would be in samadhi and not speaking, or if speaking, discussing Krishna-lila.

 

Hmm...discussing Krishna-lila is ok with me! lol....heheheh

I know what you mean though Jedi...that's what we need to strive for...letting go of the little things....but you know, its hard because change comes from within...and so people cannot change until they decide to do so themselves...I guess the best we can do is try and change ourselves and radiate the light and love within us and perhaps we will influence others...

 

What about the fuckin gangsters man? There's more to life than some limited spiritual perspective that ignores the bounties of life. Don't go down that path of happy happy- you miss out on the fullness of life.

Have you ever seen a child with the thousand yard stare? Those who have felt the pain of life, already been through a spiritual warzone, still in it, and still tickin, not stopping for anyone. They have spirit, the motherfucker...

Anyway, you give up what you are and you'll never be happy. You'll have some shitty half happy instead of the happiness of those who have walked through hell and emerged unscathed, but wiser. Like me.

 

What is happiness? That's the question. Can it exist without it's opposite? Isn't it a bit like wanting it to be always summer and never winter?

Some of the 'little things' may actaully be quite big. Take for example the question of different conceptions of God and the ultimate destiny of the soul. For a person who believes in an illusory universe, happiness itself could only be more illusion.

Why don't we just realize God is everywhere? Well, I guess many are trying to do so, but it's not actually so easy. And even if we did realize that, even Jesus Christ, the son of God, is often refered to as 'a man of sorrows'.

Thing is, one's personal realization leaves the rest of the world pretty much unaffected. So one might be happy to have found God, but you'd still have to look at the very great amount of suffering that exists in this world.
And look at the nature of the world. People, innocents even, suffer from all manner of natural disasters etc. It's not much use to a child that's just been injured and lost both parents in an earthquake to talk about God realization.

BTW Jedi, do you know what you want in the end?

 

I'll guess that Jedi is just referring to the regulars on this forum and the philosophical differences that get hashed and rehashed and maybe get blown out of proportion or overanalyzed...he's not commenting on the human condition in general.

In the Christianity forum, the believers agree about Jesus, more or less, but can find an infinite number of positions to argue from; here, we all basically see things in terms of sanatana-dharma but that's where the similarity ends many times.

If we all agreed 100%, there would be nothing to talk about.

 

Why can't we all just be happy?

There is no reason why not.

 

I disagree. I am interested in your thoughts...

 

I'm not sure that things do get blown out of proportion. Maybe some do. It seems to me that the differences in conception of spiritual philosophy are important.
Even within Sanatana Dharma there are quite opposite views on some matters - the nature of God, and the destiny of the individual mainly. I think a person who believes in a particular philosophy will tend to see happiness in that context.
As for Jesus - I don't bother much with the christianity forum, as in my experience any deep or meaningful discussion tends to get rapidly drowned out over there, and a lot of threads seem to turn into an argument for the existence or non-existence of God - something which I don't have much interest in discussing. My view is that in the wider sense Jesus is part of Sanatana Dharma. Although the methods etc may be different, and Christianity in general is supposed to be more focused on the redemption of the physical world (a concept which is present too in Vaishnavism, although not so much in other lines of Indian philosophy).

As I'm familiar with the teachings of the gospels I use it as an example perhaps to try to get a point over. Many followers of Sanatana Dharma say they accept Jesus as an avatar - so by looking at what He did and said, it may help get things into perspective.
What gets me to be honest is the 'happy happy happy' type of attitude which is often blind to reality. Or denies reality to that which is unpleasant to behold. In the story of Jesus, there are many occaisions on which he displayed displeasure with the ways of the world, condemned religious 'authorities' of the day, and even became angry and violent when throwing the money changers out of the temple. Myself I take this to indicate that this means we too have a right to 'righteous indignation' - whether with the perpetrators of abuses or with those whose spirituality is often little more than a way of burying their heads in the sand. Jesus surely had the divine consciousness - but it didn't manifest as happiness only. At least in the commonly accepted sense of the word.

I don't mean we should not be happy, blissful, ecstatic even in the right context. But I think it is an illusion to imagine that we can be happy all the time. It's hard to be happy whilst watching the news for example, or when faced with suffering of others which one can do nothing to alleviate. Even a trauma, injury, illness or loss can in fact be enough to destroy a person's happiness in this life.
If we are happy, it's really by God's grace.

I know that there tends to be some repitition here of the same arguments - a real vs. an illusory universe etc, but I also think these are extremely important questions, which have major implications for us all if we want to live happily in this world. (or the next come to that).

 

Actually i am not talking about this forum at all, I am talking about people in my life in general. I see people whom i know very well get hung up over on gold, but they don't see how much suffering is being caused in their lives because of a piece of rock!. Little things like who does what, who wears what and who wants the car, or who turns off the light...can you believe it?

........never mind, I was going to give a meaningless example... i guess what i am trying to get at is suffering is just a phase of irritation at one level. I don't mean there is no real suffering but suffering is on large part an illusion.

 

Mr. Karakov, what i am trying to get at here is that suffering is something like a hole that we have dug for ourselves , maybe just changing our habits and detaching ourselves from little things in life may bring us lasting peace. Suffering may very well be just an illusion.

 

If suffering is an illusion, then the corollary would seem to be that happiness is too.

 

Hare Krishna!


Dream is true, the matters in a dream are all illusions.

Somebody had said, " Pain is inevitable but suffering is optional. Sorrows are inevitable but unhappiness is optional."

Love,

Kumar.

 

what the world needs now is love sweet love .........you are a wise man jedi

 

That was the Dalai Lama.

 

Unhappiness may well be an illusion but suffering (pain) is not...it is inevitable.

 

Suffering and pain are the qualities of body and mind. Only so long as you are identified with them do you suffer from their ups and downs. Seaparate yourself and be the witness. Pain will be there, but you dont suffer, you only observe.

 

I guess I am saying suffering is being upset or depressed and happiness as the state of not being upset, but I guess on the other extreme is too much elation.
The peacefulness is what i was referring to as real, but that really only lasts for a moment for most-including me, but then again i don't know , when you really observe things as they are, like buddhists do, you see that you and others are like robots, just going after one thing and after another, and after another etc.

 

Yes, one can get carried away by elation just as much as by unhappiness.
Also agree on the robotic nature of the average person. The trouble is that people are asleep. They simply react to external and internal stimuli, but the modes of reaction are not inate in the human being, they've been put in through education, up-bringing etc.
However, I don't really agree with the Buddhists who seem to say that to get rid of suffering you need to get rid of the individual. I think 'reprogramming' is a real possibility.

It does seem to me though that detachment has its limits. As long as we have these physical bodies we will always be subject to pain. Mild pain can be overcome, but severe pain is not so easy to deal with.
And another point is that detachment can in some cases lead to a kind of coldness, a lack of empathy with the suffering of others.

 

In the case of most dreams I agree. However, there can also be dreams of another order - 'visionary' dreams if you like - and these can be quite valuable.