What is happiness?

We all strive for happiness, but not everyone understands what it is, what opens the path to happiness, and what blocks it.

Although we intuitively understand when we feel it. But we often confuse it with baser pleasures. And unfortunately, happiness in adults usually doesn't last long, and after a happy day or several days, we return to the routine of spinning our wheel in hopes of feeling happiness again someday.

We think that happiness must be earned, that we need to work long towards our goals, earn lots of money, become rich, successful, buy a house, a car, achieve success with women, and only then will we be happy.

Though, remember in childhood happiness simply appeared, it didn't require any conditions — it just appeared and we were in it, and it lasted for a long time. Happiness in childhood simply existed, without any conditions and didn't require any investment of effort or resources.

And now it seems to us that adults aren't entitled to happiness, that it only belongs to the period of childhood and growing up. But this isn't true.

In fact, happiness can be not somewhere far away when I earn tons of money, but right now. Moreover, happiness isn't connected with big money, the amount that any person can earn is enough.

In fact, happiness is actually normal, it's not something rare that's granted to a select few — it's a norm that can become the norm of your life. But of course, you'll have to work for it — but not in the direction that the system dictates to you, but in the direction of yourself and gaining personal freedom.

Because freedom goes hand in hand with happiness. You felt happiness in childhood because you were free, because your soul was free, and your mind hadn't yet matured to cage it. Freedom opens access to happiness; without it, happiness cannot be prolonged and frequent — without freedom, happiness is a rarity that doesn't happen even every year.

So let's start with ourselves.

We are multidimensional beings ​

Earlier we talked about how humans are multidimensional beings, represented simultaneously at all levels of existence?

• Our body exists at the physical level
• Mind at the mental level
• Our energy-information body at the energy-information level, from which the soul begins, extending to higher levels
• And at the highest levels is our spirit

So each part of our being has its own goals and rewards us with pleasure for achieving these goals. It is felt differently from the coarsest high to the most subtle and elevated pleasures depending on the level at which we receive them.

Physical pleasure ​

This type of pleasure is the most understandable to us, it's well studied by scientists. We receive pleasure through the release of certain hormones.

Our body rewards us with base pleasures for fulfilling biological programs — eating, having sex, and similar activities.

We also get pleasure from taking care of our body - exercising, making it beautiful and healthy, resting, nourishing the body with healthy food. But, interestingly, even when devouring fast food and sweets, the body also rewards us with pleasure - the body doesn't really understand these nuances.

Mind's pleasure ​

The mind's pleasure is already more subtle, but well understood by many people.

Our mind loves to study something, dig deep, delve into information, figure things out. It loves to follow a plan and achieve the stages of this plan. It loves to find ready-made solutions thought out by someone else and follow them - find a ready-made diet, ready-made workout program, ready-made travel route, etc. In general, the mind isn't a creative fellow.

The mind views communication with people more from a practical side — building its convenient environment of people it can turn to when necessary. It gets pleasure from how well it thought everything through, did everything, and how great everything turns out.

When traveling, it mostly notices good places for picnics, good beaches to return to, and loves when everything is thought out and convenient.

The mind enjoys art, but it's more interested in the virtuosity and skill of the master than the deep meaning of the work.

For all this, it rewards us with pleasures of the mind, which differ from bodily pleasures; they're also pleasant but more subtle.

Soul's pleasure ​

But the soul enjoys somewhat higher things. It's detached from the physical world. It needs things that seem impractical and unnecessary to the body and even the mind.

It enjoys art, it's interested in hidden meanings, allegories, the embedded piece of soul, and the author's deep thought. It reads between the lines and sees the full depth of the work.

It communicates with people simply for pleasure without the aim of somehow using these people; it loves philosophical and deep conversations.

It sings, it creates, it wants to drop everything and go to the sea or climb a mountain, it rushes to unthinkable heights, or conversely, it wants to create its own small cozy world where it will feel very good. It blooms and flourishes abundantly when there's a passion, a personal mission, a life's work, and when you engage in charity and other good deeds.

And for all this, it rewards us. What do you think with? Correct — happiness. This is what we call happiness. Happiness is the reward of our soul for fulfilling its goals, for listening to it.

Happiness is a high-level pleasure, more subtle than bodily pleasure, but more all-encompassing; it gently envelops our entire being, filling it with warm light. It can last much longer than a few minutes of base pleasure. Happiness can last for weeks, years, or even be a background throughout life if, of course, it's not interfered with.

Spirit's pleasure ​

The spirit is the most subtle matter of our being, barely felt by us, but for spiritually developed people — it's completely real, they feel it well.

Spirit is a completely different level, completely different matter, and it's detached from all other levels. Perhaps the spirit doesn't even realize that down there there's also a mind and especially a physical body.

The path of spirit is not for everyone, but for special people who feel a strong need to follow this path. And the reward will be nirvana, spiritual enlightenment and transformation, which opens the door to endless bliss and inner light.

This is the path of deep spiritual knowledge and spiritual practices or unique highly spiritual people engaged in beneficial altruistic deeds.

If you've seen Buddhist or Christian monks, you've probably noticed that some of them have a very bright face, as if light comes from inside this person — this person has just achieved the goals of their spirit and this is with them forever.

Hero's path ​

There's also a special path between soul and spirit — it's the hero's path. Your humble servant follows this one. This is a completely special path, a completely different life, and unfortunately or fortunately, it doesn't combine well with the body level, and even partly with the mind.

These are geniuses, scientists immersed in their research, open source project developers and free knowledge sources creators, social and political activists who have devoted their lives to good projects, human rights defenders, philosophers, science popularizers, those who fight against war and totalitarianism through creativity, those who fight evil: feminism, fascism, and dictatorship.

In general, those who have found their mission. Mission is a good deed aimed at developing humanity, or protecting humanity and human values. These people have their own special path — the hero's path, and there is no other path for them. They completely merge with their path and cannot walk another path. Living not their own life, heroes will not be happy.

They are so passionate about their mission that they often forget about their body, they can be untidy, not athletic, and can take very big risks.

This is the path of both soul and spirit, and despite its incredible complexity and danger, heroes fully receive their reward from both spirit and soul.

What blocks happiness ​

It might seem that everything is simple - just choose one of the directions and that's it, I'm happy. But everything is somewhat more complicated.

Besides understanding happiness itself, understanding where to go, you also need to eliminate what blocks happiness. First of all, these are anxiety, anger, irritability and other negative emotions, depression, mental problems, insufficient understanding of the real world, non-acceptance of the world and inability to enjoy it, not understanding your true goals, yourself, overestimated importance of anything, presence of manipulators and negative people in your environment, lack of personal and civil freedom, and everything in that spirit.

In general, you got the principle — everything that you wanted to change or exclude from your life, but somehow didn't do it, and it blocks happiness.

Harmony ​

It's not absolutely necessary to follow the hero's path or deep spiritual knowledge, even though they seem so attractive. We admire heroes, empathize with them, but we ourselves can live an ordinary life and be happy at the same time. And for this, we need to find harmony between body, mind, and soul.

If you haven't thought about happiness before, you're probably in a disharmonious state, as harmony, as a rule, doesn't come by itself; efforts need to be made to achieve it.

Most likely, your body and mind desires prevail over soul desires. Moreover, the system has imposed false goals on you and overestimated the importance of many things that are actually completely unimportant, and all this, unfortunately, doesn't lead to happiness.

I emphasize that harmony is important, not just the soul alone, as many esoteric teachings claim, which present the mind as something bad and unnecessary. In fact, we certainly need the mind; it needs to be developed and befriended with the soul.

Happiness strategies ​

To achieve harmony, I've identified several paths and strategies. Briefly about them:

I've already mentioned the hero's path and the path of deep spiritual knowledge — these are completely full-fledged paths. But for all other people, there's a path of "simple human happiness," which is achieved by choosing one of the happiness strategies depending on personal preferences. The first is "my small cozy world," the name speaks for itself. And the second is "personal happiness in the big world" - it's usually chosen by loners. Here it's not obvious to many that loners can also be happy — this is absolutely certain, and for happiness, you don't necessarily need someone, and it's certainly not necessary to look for a soulmate.

Villain's path ​

Speaking of happiness, we can't not mention the villain's path.

I think you know perfectly well that villainy and the villain's path in general is a path in the opposite direction from happiness. This doesn't mean that villains have no chance to return to happiness, but chances, honestly, are few if a person has gone too far.

Villains revel in the pleasures of the mind, which doesn't see much difference between good and evil. For the mind, profit is more important than any moral concepts.

Therefore, villains are usually very rational people, and those who commit immoral acts out of stupidity are essentially not villains, they are just fools.

A villain and any person committing villainous acts locks their soul in the mind's cage under a heavy lock. And this doesn't necessarily mean the most terrible villainies like murders and robberies, for which punishment is provided in society.

But what's not obvious is that villainies for which no punishment is provided also lock the soul under lock and key.

For example:

• Marital infidelity that harms the spouse
• Sex with someone else's wife or husband, causing harm to their spouse
• Everyday deception and petty fraud for personal gain
• This also includes the concept of female capital, when a woman regularly extorts money from her husband through deception and secretly saves it in her account or secret mortgage — in fact, this is fraud, although there's no punishment for it

All these villains, regardless of legal punishment, lock their soul under a heavy lock and block their access to happiness.

Villainies are not always obvious, and sometimes villains are even considered heroes, for example, participants in the war with Ukraine on Russia's side - fascists, Nazis, murderers, rapists, and robbers are officially considered heroes of Russia and are even brought to schools for children to take example from. But essentially, this public recognition means nothing; for these pseudo-heroes, access to happiness is blocked forever. And they are certainly not heroes at all.

The same applies to police officers who knew what they were getting into when depriving their compatriots and all citizens of their country of freedom, dispersing rallies in Russia and Belarus. They covered their badges with tape and beat people with impunity, used electric shockers on them, tortured them in prisons, and subjected them to brutal repression. They can say they were ordered to, they are subordinate people, but they can't deceive their soul. Their soul is not only locked forever but has also darkened. Their soul has become as black as that of the most vile criminals.

Fools know not happiness ​

From my stories about happiness comes a not-so-obvious conclusion that happiness is actually available to developed people or those who strive to become such, but fools know not happiness.

Although we are convinced that only fools can be happy, that knowledge brings only suffering - this is an absolute lie and an attempt by fools to appear better than the intelligent. They love this very much and use any opportunity to mock the intelligent, belittle them, and accordingly elevate themselves.

Fools, namely people living by body desires, rarely even feel the pleasure of the mind, and soul pleasure for them is generally a once-in-a-lifetime event.

They don't keep their soul in a cage like people who have gone into reason head-first. Their soul just dangles like a dog's tail. They certainly have it, but they don't worry about it and don't care for it — it's there and that's it. Got drunk, turned on their favorite song loudly, felt melancholy, drove drunk in a car — well, that's it. Teased the soul and the level of melancholy decreased to an acceptable level. As soon as it rises again, then everything starts anew.

If you think fools don't suffer — they do suffer, just like everyone else in the system. But they don't understand why they suffer and don't even try to find out.

They have a very weak level of sensitivity and can't distinguish pleasures from different levels at all. They know that the body definitely gives them pleasure and know how to get it, but everything else is complicated, unpredictable, not guaranteed, and therefore not interesting to fools.

The road to happiness is for developed people ​

Therefore, it is precisely developed people who have found their path and harmony that have the road to happiness open to them. And all you need is to remove blocks and gain freedom to create a base for happiness.

Protect your happiness ​

Happiness needs to be protected and not allowed to be destroyed by anyone. This is your personal happiness, you've walked towards it for so long, you've tried so hard and learned so much. No one has the right to destroy your happiness, neither a manipulative colleague, nor a foolish neighbor,

nor even a dictator who has gone mad from stolen trillions deciding to start a war and wanting to throw you into trenches to hold onto power as long as possible.

Your happiness is in your hands, it is entirely and completely your achievement - value it, grow it, let it bloom in full flower, and protect its beautiful flowers. And your efforts will return to you in full, and your soul will be grateful to you.

Happiness is your achievement ​

I want to specifically point out that your personal happiness is entirely and completely in your hands, this isn't obvious to everyone. It doesn't depend on other people, don't wait for someone to come and make you happy, it doesn't even depend on your soulmate and doesn't depend on children as much as it's commonly believed.

All-consuming emptiness ​

It turns out that the soul, its goals and desires are the main components of happiness.

Without pleasing the soul, an all-consuming emptiness will grow, even if you are rich, have a big house, an expensive car, a model-looking wife, still this emptiness won't go anywhere and will consume from within.

Many think that alcohol does a good job of filling this emptiness, but this is only temporary and generally just an illusion, and you know perfectly well the consequences of libations.

The sharpness of happiness perception decreases over time ​

When I say that happiness is with you forever, I don't mean that you'll live high like a drug addict. When happiness appears, of course you'll feel it vividly, but then it will just transition into a background that you may not even notice. You'll definitely notice this when changing environments or moving, remembering the recent past you'll exclaim — yes, I was happy all this time! Every single day!

Where do these goals come from? ​

You probably wonder where these goals of body, mind, soul, and spirit come from? Body goals are clear — survival and reproduction. But many mind goals aren't particularly needed for survival, not to mention soul goals, which seems to not even know there's a body. And spirit goals? Where did they come from?! And why do we suffer when we don't achieve these goals? Unfortunately, I don't have an answer to these questions. I personally look for answers to such questions in philosophy, other people look in religion or esoterics.

I like the esoteric theory that the goals of our soul and spirit are given to us so that we evolve into completely new light beings. But this is just a beautiful theory and, obviously, not scientific.

Let's summarize ​

We've figured out that we are multidimensional beings, existing simultaneously at all levels of creation, and each part of our being has its own goals and rewards us with pleasure for achieving these goals.

The goals of the body are clear and easily achievable, which means that pleasure is just as easily achievable. But he alone is missing, the pleasure of the body is too cloying, like the most cloying sweets. After a while, I'm still attracted to olives, vegetables and healthy eating. Similarly, we are drawn to higher pleasures.

If it is more or less clear with the body and even with the mind, then everything is more difficult with the soul. Her desires often do not fit at all with your life strategy, with your goals, plans and turn everything upside down. It is not easy to make friends with the mind, but it must be done, because it is in this direction that the path to happiness lies.

We have destroyed some stereotypes about happiness. We found out that happiness is also possible for singles and that happiness is entirely your merit and depends only on you. And we also found out that for happiness you need soil - you need to get rid of worries and everything that blocks it, and you also need to protect happiness.

And it is also important not to be a villain, you need to free your soul from the cage of the mind and pamper it more often - go to a classical music concert, chat with people just for the soul without using them, find hobbies for the soul, do charity or environmental activism and all that sort of thing.