Read Summary of '''[[Happiness Summary|Happiness]]'''
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=Why is Happiness Important?=
[I want to bring about, in the material world…] The gift of healing and giving happiness. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/13/the-mother#p44</ref>
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Happiness is as contagious as gloom―and nothing can be more useful than to pass on to people the contagion of a true and deep happiness.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/happiness#p6</ref>
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The best way to express one's gratitude to the Divine is to feel simply happy.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/gratitude#p9</ref>
==Positive Effects of Happiness==
...when you are full of peace, contentment and happiness, then there is no room for wrong feelings and desires; your heart is pure.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/purity#p22</ref>
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You must never forget that you are much more helpful when you are quietly happy than when you become dramatic. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/happiness#p2</ref>
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A perfect harmony in the proportions, suppleness and strength, grace and force, plasticity and endurance, and above all, an excellent health, unvarying and unchanging, which is the result of a pure soul, a happy trust in life and an unshakable faith in the Divine Grace. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/to-women-about-their-body#p55</ref>
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If there were a sufficient completeness in this transformation he would become capable of a life and a being at least half divine. For he would enjoy powers and a vision and perceptions beyond the scope of this ordinary life and body; he would govern all by the clarities of pure knowledge; he would be united to other beings by a sympathy of love and happiness... <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-ladder-of-self-transcendence#p9</ref>
==What is the Role of Happiness in Integral Yoga?==
===As Support on the Path===
Be simple,
Be happy,
Remain quiet,
Do your work as well as you can,
Keep yourself always open towards me -
That is all that is asked from you.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/13/relations-with-others#p103</ref>
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Try to be happy―immediately you will be closer to the Light.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/happiness#p8</ref>
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Be happy, my child, it is the surest way of progress.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/happiness#p4</ref>
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A quiet happy faith and confidence is the best foundation for sadhana...
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/patience-and-perseverance#p9</ref>
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Always seek to progress in quietude, happiness and confidence, that is the most helpful attitude. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/steps-towards-overcoming-difficulties#p37</ref>
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The quietude and silence which you feel and the sense of happiness in it are indeed the very basis of successful sadhana. When one has got that, then one may be sure that the sadhana is placing itself on a sound footing.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/peace#p5</ref>
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If only you could keep always your inner happiness, it would...help you very much on the way. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/17-august-1939#p2</ref>
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The peace settling in the system and with it a happy activity—that is the basis for your Yoga which I always wanted you to have—a sunny condition in which what has to come in will come in and expand like a bud into flower and what has to fall off will fall off in its time like a slough discarded. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/peace#p4</ref>
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...the first thing is to become conscious of all that as you have now become,—the next thing is to be firm in knocking it all down and making a tabula rasa, a foundation of calm, peace, happy openness for the true building.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-divine-grace-and-guidance#p23</ref>
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The first business of the sadhaka is to see whether he has the perfect equality… There are four things that he must have; first, equality in the most concrete practical sense of the word, ''samatā'', freedom from mental, vital, physical preferences, an even acceptance of all God's workings within and around him; secondly, a firm peace and absence of all disturbance and trouble, ''śānti''; thirdly, a positive inner spiritual happiness and spiritual ease of the natural being which nothing can lessen, ''sukham''; fourthly, a clear joy and laughter of the soul embracing life and existence.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-action-of-equality#p2</ref>
===As a Catalyst for Action===
Besides, if you truly wish to follow the path and to do the yoga, you should not do it so that people will appreciate and honour you; you should do it because it is an imperative need of your being and because you can be happy only in that way.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/undated-before-february-1960#p5</ref>
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You can surrender either through knowledge or through devotion. You may have a strong intuition that the Divine alone is the truth and a luminous conviction that without the Divine you cannot manage. Or you may have a spontaneous feeling that this line is the only way of being happy, a strong psychic desire to belong exclusively to the Divine:
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/surrender-self-offering-and-consecration#p1</ref>
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If you are happy to be unhappy, that's all right, it is your own affair; if you are content to be unhappy and to suffer and remain in the ignorance and inconscience you are in, stay there. But if this does not satisfy you, if you want to be conscious and you want suffering to cease, then you must make constant efforts to become conscious of the sacrifice and to make your sacrifice consciously instead of unconsciously.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/29-february-1956#p21</ref>
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To enjoy him [the One in our inner selves and outer nature] in all experience of passivity and activity, of peace and of power, of unity and of difference is the happiness which the Jiva, the individual soul manifested in the world, is obscurely seeking. This is the entire definition of the aim of integral Yoga; it is the rendering in personal experience of the truth which universal Nature has hidden in herself and which she travails to discover. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-four-aids#p21</ref>
===As Inner Guidance===
Certainly there is a moment in the course of the inner growth when far from having to make an effort to concentrate, to become absorbed in the contemplation and the seeking of the truth and its best expression—what the Buddhists call meditation—you feel, on the contrary, a kind of relief, ease, rest, joy, and to have to come out of that in order to deal with things that are not essential, everything that may seem like a waste of time, becomes terribly painful. External activities get reduced to what is absolutely necessary, to those that are done as service to the Divine. All that is futile, useless, precisely those things which seem like a waste of time and effort, all that, far from giving the least satisfaction, creates a kind of discomfort and fatigue; you feel happy only when you are concentrated on your goal.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/vigilance#p47</ref>
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When one has taken a decision, has decided to stop something in oneself, just not to repeat a stupidity one has committed, or to do something which one finds impossible or difficult to do and which, one knows, should be done, and when one has taken the decision and has put in the full sincerity of one's will, well, then if a terrible blow comes to compel you to do what you have decided to do, it is a blow, but you feel glorified, you are quite happy, it is magnificent, you see, you feel something magnificent here (Mother points to the heart). <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/15-september-1954#p49</ref>
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In sadhana emptiness is very usually a necessary transition from one state to another….This is at first often a neutral emptiness with nothing in it, nothing in it either good or bad, happy or unhappy, no impulse or movement...There is also a happy emptiness with the sense of something close or drawing near which is not yet there, e.g. the closeness of the Mother or some other preparing experience.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/emptiness-voidness-blankness-and-silence#p17</ref>
===As a Sign of Progress===
Peace, happiness, strength, lightness in the whole physical system. These are the more obvious and normal results which grow as the consciousness grows.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/descent-and-the-lower-nature#p29</ref>
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If you are identified with the forces from below, you suffer; if you are identified with the forces from above, you are happy. And I am not speaking about feeling pleasure… I am speaking of the divine Joy, the inner Joy which is unalloyed.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/7-march-1956#p31</ref>
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This concentration and silence should not only be full of a great peace but also of a very intense happiness. Then one knows that the movement is true and unmixed.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/17/24-july-1934-2#p3</ref>
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Let the sweetness and the happy feeling increase, for they are the strongest sign of the soul, the psychic being awake and in touch with us.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/the-psychic-being-and-its-role-in-sadhana#p35</ref>
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[Signs that the psychic being has come to the surface are that] One feels peaceful and happy, full of trust, full of a deep and true benevolence, and very close to the divine presence. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/17/20-december-1934#p2</ref>
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It is the happiness of the psychic that has found its way and, whatever difficulties come, is sure that it will be led forward and reach the goal.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/cheerfulness-and-happiness#p5</ref>
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The more the calm, peace, joy and happiness descend and take possession, the stronger the foundation. It is the sign of the contact.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/bhakti-devotion-worship#p57</ref>
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...what the psychic being brings with it always is light and happiness, an inner understanding and relief and solace. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/the-psychic-opening#p13</ref>
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The sense of release as if from jail always accompanies the emergence of the psychic being or the realisation of the self above… It is a release into peace, happiness, the soul's freedom not tied down by the thousand ties and cares of the outward ignorant existence. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/the-inward-movement#p48</ref>
===But not as a Reward===
Happiness and love do not accompany all [good] experiences.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/17/27-march-1935#p4</ref>
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It [Divine Grace] is not and cannot be...a guidance which brings us solely and always nothing but happiness, success and good fortune. Its main concern is with the growth of our being and consciousness, the growth towards a higher self, towards the Divine, eventually towards a highest Light, Truth and Bliss; the rest is secondary, sometimes a means, sometimes a result, not a primary purpose.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-divine-grace-and-guidance#p39</ref>
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...any mechanical law of Karma,—cannot be accepted as the sole determinant of circumstances and the whole machinery of rebirth and of our future evolution...If it is true... An energy put out in the pursuit of ethical good must have as its outcome or reward or recompense an increase in virtue, the happiness of ethical growth or the sunny felicity and poise and purity of a simple and natural goodness...so that the good man may be given as a natural reward for his virtue a high post or a large bank balance or a happy, easy and well-appointed life.... But the truly ethical being does not need a system of rewards and punishments to follow the path of good and shun the path of evil;
<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/22/rebirth-and-other-worlds-karma-the-soul-and-immortality#p19-p21</ref>
==What is the Role of Unhappiness?==
===As an Inner Barometer===
… the moment they [aspiration and surrender] are not total, you are no longer happy. You feel uneasy, very miserable, dejected, a bit unhappy… This is the barometer! You may immediately tell yourself that an insincerity has crept in somewhere. It is very easy to know, you don't need to be very learned, for, as Sri Aurobindo has said...: One knows whether one is happy or unhappy, one knows whether one is content or discontented, one doesn't need to ask oneself, put complicated questions for this, one knows it!
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/7-july-1954#p77</ref>
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If [our surrender] is truly sincere, it becomes happy. So long as it is not—you may reverse the thing—so long as it is not happy, you may be sure it is not perfectly sincere; for if it is perfectly sincere, it is always happy. If it is not happy, it means that there is something which holds back, something which would like things to be otherwise, something that has a will of its own, a desire of its own, its own purpose and is not satisfied, and therefore is not completely surrendered, not sincere in its surrender. But if one is sincere in one's surrender, one is perfectly happy, automatically; rather, one automatically enjoys an ineffable happiness. Therefore, as long as this ineffable happiness is not there, it is a sure indication that you are not sincere, that there is something, some part of the being, larger or smaller, which is not sincere. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/7-july-1954#p57</ref>
===An Opportunity for Progress===
...men grow by all kinds of experience, pain and suffering as well as their opposites, joy and happiness and ecstasy. One can get strength from them if one meets them in the right way. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/depression-and-despondency#p66</ref>
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...the experience of the Vedantic realisation is that behind the confused mixture of good and evil something is working that he realises as the Divine and in his own life he can look back and see what each step, happy or unhappy, meant for his progress and how it led towards the growth of his spirit. Naturally this comes fully as the realisation progresses; before that he had to walk by faith and may have often felt his faith fail and yielded to grief, doubt and despair for a time.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-teachings-of-some-modern-indian-yogis#p11</ref>
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Each time one sees in oneself something which seems really nasty, well, that proves that one has made progress. So, instead of lamenting and falling into despair, one should be happy; one says, "Ah! that's good. I am getting on."
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/4-january-1956#p36</ref>
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So then the first thing is to be perfectly happy when someone or some circumstance puts you in the conscious presence of a fault in yourself which you did not know. Instead of lamenting, you must rejoice and in this joy must find the strength to get rid of the thing which should not be. [The Mother’s commentary on the Dhammapada].
<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/the-sage#p21</ref>
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The other feelings, the wanting to be sad, the fear of being happy, the suggestion of incapacity or unfitness are the usual movements of the vital formation which is not yourself and they come up to try and prevent the change in you.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/sorrow-and-suffering#p20</ref>
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When one comes out of the depression and one's bad will, well, then one realises that there was an attack and that some progress had to be made, and that in spite of everything something within has made progress, that one has taken a step forward. Usually, hardly consciously, it is something which needs to progress but doesn't want to, and so takes this way; like a child who sulks, becomes low-spirited, sad, unhappy, misunderstood, abandoned, helpless; and then, refusing to collaborate… It is specially in order to show that one is not satisfied that one becomes depressed...a kind of way of expressing one's dissatisfaction. "I am not happy about what you demand", but this means, "I am not happy. And I shall make you too see it, that I am not happy."
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/12-january-1955#p18</ref>
==Role of Happiness in Education==
An ideal child is cheerful. He knows how to smile and keep a happy heart in all circumstances. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/conduct#p23</ref>
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The children must be happy to go to school, happy to learn, and the teacher must be their best friend who gives them the example of the qualities they must acquire.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/discipline#p26</ref>
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My dear children, love work and you will be happy.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/mothers-action-in-a-class-of-children-aged-seven-to-nine#p58</ref>
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When one is very young and...born with a conscious psychic being within, there is always, in the dreams of the child, a kind of aspiration... one wants all wickedness to disappear, everything to be always luminous, beautiful, happy, one likes stories which end happily… Usually parents or teachers pass their time throwing cold water on it, telling you, "Oh! it's a dream, it is not a reality." They should do the very opposite! Children should be taught, "Yes, this is what you must try to realise and not only is it possible but it is certain if you come in contact with the part in you which is capable of doing this thing. This is what should guide your life, organise it, make you develop in the direction of the true reality which the ordinary world calls illusion."
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/31-july-1957#p6</ref>
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In children the psychic is often very much on the surface and it makes them peaceful and happy. As one grows up, the vital and the mind develop and take on more importance—and then the troubles and sorrows begin. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/17/30-august-1935#p2</ref>
=How to Cultivate Happiness?=