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=How to Cultivate Happiness?=
 
 
To be always happy, with an unclouded, unfluctuating happiness—of all things this is the most difficult to accomplish. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/happiness#p30</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
As yet happiness and good health are not normal conditions in this world.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/illness-and-health#p9</ref>
 
 
==Prerequisites==
 
 
Each one carries his capacity of happiness in himself...<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/13/comfort-and-happiness#p1</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
The true freedom is to be free from desire
 
The true independence is to be independent from passion.
 
The true mastery is to be master of oneself.
 
That alone is the key to happiness; all the rest is passing illusion.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/13/nations-other-than-india#p15</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
For a happy and effective life, the essentials are sincerity, humility, perseverance and an insatiable thirst for progress. Above all, one must be convinced of a limitless possibility of progress. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/students#p18</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
If you want to be happy here, you must come with the will to do the yoga of self-perfection...<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/13/comfort-and-happiness#p15</ref>
 
 
==Process==
 
 
===Awakening of Inner Nature===
 
 
...you were happy and confident as a child or an animal is confident and happy without knowing why. Now you must learn to be happy and confident while knowing why and understanding the deeper cause of your happiness and confidence.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/1931-1#p1</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
It is only if our nature develops beyond itself, if it becomes a nature of self-knowledge, mutual understanding, unity, a nature of true being and true life that the result can be a perfection of ourselves and our existence... a life of true happiness, a harmonious and beautiful life. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/22/the-divine-life#p23</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
...it is to this that the emerging consciousness in Matter awakes, first, to its ignorance of the world in which it lives and which it has to know and master in order to be happy, secondly, to the ultimate barrenness and limitation of this knowledge, to the meagreness and insecurity of the power and happiness it brings and to the awareness of an infinite consciousness, knowledge, true being in which alone is to be found a victorious and infinite happiness. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/the-knot-of-matter#p9</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
You have a special aim, a special mission, a special realisation which is your very own, each one individually, and you carry in yourself all the obstacles necessary to make your realisation perfect… Once you have understood this, many worries come to an end and you are very happy, very happy. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/17-february-1951#p25</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
If our nature is fixed in what it is, what it has already become, then no perfection, no real and enduring happiness is possible in earthly life.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/22/the-divine-life#p23</ref>
 
 
===Mastering Desires===
 
 
… if you want to lead a happy life, you must be the master of your lower nature and control your desires and vital impulses; otherwise there is no end to the miseries and the troubles. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/desires-impulses-and-self-control#p28</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
[Real happiness is] when one no longer feels any attraction for the other, false happiness.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/17/18-november-1933#p3</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
Self-mastery is the greatest conquest, it is the basis of all enduring happiness.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/desires-impulses-and-self-control#p47</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
… for a divine living, desire must be abolished and replaced by a purer and firmer motive-power, the tormented soul of desire dissolved and in its stead there must emerge the calm, strength, happiness of a true vital being now concealed within us.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-ascent-of-the-sacrifice-ii#p22</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
To have neither vital joy nor vital grief is considered by the Yogins to be a very desirable release,—it makes it possible to pass from the ordinary human vital feelings to the true and constant inner peace, joy or happiness.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/emptiness-voidness-blankness-and-silence#p18</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
No one can easily get rid of desires. What has first to be done is to exteriorise them, to push them out on the surface and get the inner parts quiet and clear. Afterwards they can be thrown out and replaced by the true thing, a happy and luminous will one with the Divine's. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/desire#p57</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
To harmonise the vital is a psychological masterpiece. Happy is he who accomplishes it.
 
<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/the-vital#p31-p32</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
We must go farther on, we must advance, climb greater heights and go beyond the arid search for pleasure and personal welfare, not through fear of punishment, even punishment after death, but through the development of a new sense of beauty, a thirst for truth and light, through understanding that it is only by widening yourself, illumining yourself, setting yourself ablaze with the ardour for progress, that you can find both integral peace and enduring happiness.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/punishment#p24</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
Our true happiness lies in the true growth of our whole being, in a victory throughout the total range of our existence, in mastery of the inner as well as and more than the outer, the hidden as well as the overt nature...
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/22/out-of-the-sevenfold-ignorance-towards-the-sevenfold-knowledge#p4</ref>
 
 
===Opening of Inner Consciousness===
 
 
One can obtain true happiness and keep it constantly only by discovering one's psychic being and uniting with it.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/22-september-1963#p3</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
...what has to be done is not to stay on the surface but go deep within. For the psychic is there behind the emotional surface, deep behind the heart centre...what will be there is the inner peace and happiness, the untroubled aspiration, the presence or nearness of the Mother.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/bhakti-devotion-worship#p10</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
...a descent [of the divine force into the body] brings naturally a deep inward condition and a silence of the mind, and it may bring much more—peace, a sense of liberation, happiness, Ananda.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/the-descent-of-the-higher-powers#p43</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
When one does sadhana, the inner consciousness begins to open and one is able to go inside and have all kinds of experiences there. As the sadhana progresses, one begins to live more and more in this inner being and the outer becomes more and more superficial. At first the inner consciousness seems to be the dream and the outer the waking reality. Afterwards the inner consciousness becomes the reality and the outer is felt by many as a dream or delusion, or else as something superficial and external. The inner consciousness begins to be a place of deep peace, light, happiness, love, closeness to the Divine or the presence of the Divine, the Mother.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-outer-being-and-the-inner-being#p2</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
When you meditate you open to the psychic, become aware of your psychic consciousness deep within and feel these things. In order that this ease and peace and happiness may become strong and stable and felt in all the being and in the body, you have to go still deeper within and bring out the full force of the psychic into the physical. This can most easily be done by regular concentration and meditation with the aspiration for this true consciousness. It can be done by work also, by dedication, by doing the work for the Divine only without thought of self and keeping the idea of consecration to the Mother always in the heart.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/concentration-and-meditation#p15</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
When a sadhak has that [happiness of the psychic] constantly, we know that he has got over the worst difficulty and that he is now firmly on the safe path.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/cheerfulness-and-happiness#p5</ref>
 
 
...if the equality and the psychic light and will are already there, then this process, though it cannot be dispensed with, can still be much lightened and facilitated: it will be rid of its worst dangers; an inner calm, happiness, confidence will support the steps through all the difficulties and trials of the transformation and the growing Force profiting by the full assent of the nature will rapidly diminish and eliminate the power of the opposing forces. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-ascent-of-the-sacrifice-ii#p25</ref>
 
 
===Surrender to the Divine===
 
 
Let us seek our happiness only in the Divine.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/happiness#p19</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
...in the present conditions of terrestrial life happiness is an impossibility.We are upon earth to find and realise the Divine, for the Divine Consciousness alone can give true happiness. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/the-true-aim-of-life#p53</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
It is only the Divine's Grace that can give peace, happiness, power, light, knowledge, beatitude and love in their essence and their truth.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/the-divine-grace#p21</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
The Divine's Presence gives us peace in strength, serenity in action and an unchanging happiness in the midst of all circumstances.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/the-divine-is-with-you#p59</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
The Divine Consciousness is the only true help, the only true happiness.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/the-divine-is-with-you#p25</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
When the Divine grants the true inner happiness nothing in the world has the power to snatch it away. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/happiness#p21</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
The supreme happiness is to be true servitors of the Divine.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/14-february-1972#p3</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
For it is to the Divine Work that one must exclusively belong because it alone can, in our life, give us true happiness. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/longer-letters#p37</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
...to open ourselves to [the Divine] is what we feel to be the one true happiness, to live into it the sole real perfection. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-ananda-brahman#p2</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
One must give himself entirely, totally, exclusively, reserve nothing, keep nothing for himself and not keep back anything, not disperse anything also: the least little thing in your being which is not given to the Divine is a waste; it is the wasting of your joy, something that lessens your happiness by that much, and all that you don't give to the Divine is as though you were holding it in the way of the possibility of the Divine's giving Himself to you. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/20-july-1955#p12</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
This is the supreme period and the passage to it is through the joy of a total self-giving to the Divine and to the universal Mother… Then we are at last capable of receiving all contacts with a blissful equality, because we feel in them the touch of the imperishable Love and Delight, the happiness absolute that hides ever in the heart of things. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/equality-and-the-annihilation-of-ego#p10</ref>
 
 
===Common Problems that may Arise===
 
 
If the quietness and cheerfulness are not constant yet, that is to be expected; it is always like that at first when there is the working in the physical consciousness and its obstructions. If you persevere, they will become more and more frequent and last for a longer time, until you have a basis of peace and happiness and whatever disturbances come on the surface will no longer be able to penetrate or shake this basis or even cover it over except perhaps for a moment. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-transformation-of-the-physical#p40</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
When the sadhana was going on in you, you had periods when you had this right attitude and could get glimpses of the true happiness and dedication. But the physical mind became active and with it there began the period of obscuration and trouble. The physical mind must become quiet and the heart open and the psychic become again active.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/interactions-with-others-and-the-practice-of-yoga#p21</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
The psychic being emerges slowly in most men, even after taking up sadhana. There is so much in the mind and vital that has to change and readjust itself before the psychic can be entirely free. One has to wait till the necessary process has gone far enough before it can burst its agelong veil and come in front to control the nature. It is true that nothing can give so much inner happiness and joy.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/the-emergence-or-coming-forward-of-the-psychic#p43</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
A human being is made of many different parts and it takes time and conscious effort to harmonise and unify all these parts. When you surrendered, it is not the whole of your being that did so. Little by little some other part that had not surrendered came to the surface and the joy of the surrender vanished and was replaced by dullness and indifference. But after some time this part also gets converted and thus the happy condition comes back. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/the-soul-the-psychic#p42</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
Do not listen to the clamour of the adverse vital Force which has been attacking you, its reasonings or its wrong emotional suggestions—it only wants you to fall from happiness, to suffer and to descend into a lower consciousness and lose your progress.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/dealing-with-hostile-attacks#p48</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
You should realise that these periods of clouding are not due to any special incapacity or perversity in you—even the best sadhaks have them. It is the difficulty of the human nature in getting transformed. This difficulty sometimes takes the form of a bad will in the vital somewhere or a tendency in the physical to cling to old mistakes and old habits or to shrink from the trouble of transformation—but in these respects you have made a great progress. What is there, is the mechanical habit of the lower nature in general—mechanical, not voluntary—to repeat the old movements to which it has been or was quite recently accustomed when any strong wave of them comes in from the surrounding universal Nature. This creates a kind of recurrence of relapse into the states which the spiritual progress is pushing out and it is not easy to get rid of this recurrence altogether. The one thing when they come is not to get distressed or upset, to realise what it is and to remain very quiet calling for the Mother's Force to push it away. In this way the habit of these recurrences diminishes, the strength and intensity also, and on the other side one is able to recall the true consciousness and the true force, the bright, happy, peaceful, open condition more and more easily and quicker.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/imperfections-and-periods-of-arrest#p27</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
...the light of the true consciousness turned steadily on them [ignorant forces] ought to so much enlighten your own vital that it will no longer lend itself to the things that seek to disturb it and be ready to take its stand on the calm and happiness of surrender to the Divine. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-vital-and-other-levels-of-being#p13</ref>
 
 
==Useful Practices to Cultivate Happiness==
 
 
===Aspiration===
 
 
Remain fixed in the sunlight of the true consciousness—for only there is happiness and peace. They do not depend upon outside happenings, but on this alone.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/vigilance-resolution-will-and-the-divine-help#p10</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
If one is physically very tired, it is better not to go to sleep immediately, otherwise one falls into the inconscient. If one is very tired, one must stretch out on the bed, relax, loosen all the nerves one after another until one becomes like a rumpled cloth in one's bed, as though one had neither bones nor muscles. When one has done that, the same thing must be done in the mind. Relax, do not concentrate on any idea or try to solve a problem or ruminate on impressions, sensations or emotions you had during the day. All that must be allowed to drop off quietly: one gives oneself up, one is indeed like a rag. When you have succeeded in doing this, there is always a little flame, there—that flame never goes out and you become conscious of it when you have managed this relaxation. And all of a sudden this little flame rises slowly into an aspiration for the divine life, the truth, the consciousness of the Divine, the union with the inner being, it goes higher and higher, it rises, rises, like that, very gently. Then everything gathers there, and if at that moment you fall asleep, you have the best sleep you could possibly have. I guarantee that if you do this carefully, you are sure to sleep, and also sure that instead of falling into a dark hole you will sleep in light, and when you get up in the morning you will be fresh, fit, content, happy and full of energy for the day. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/23-april-1951#p13</ref>
 
 
===Generosity and Love===
 
 
The happiness you give makes you more happy than the happiness you receive.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/happiness#p26</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
Indeed the very act of genuine self-giving is its own immediate reward—it brings with it such happiness, such confidence, such security as nothing else can give.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/the-ordinary-life-and-the-true-soul#p3</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
To love for the joy of loving is the best condition for a peaceful and happy life; it amounts, in other words, to loving the Divine in all things.
 
<ref>ttp://incarnateword.in/cwm/17/5-january-1972#p2</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
It is not the love that someone feels for you that can make you happy, it is the love you feel for others that makes you happy: for you receive the love that you give from the Divine, who loves eternally and unfailingly.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/divine-love-and-human-love#p38</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
...nothing brings more happiness than a pure and disinterested love.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/letters-to-a-young-sadhak-iv#p21</ref>
 
 
===Gratitude===
 
 
To feel deeply, intensely and constantly a total gratitude towards the Divine is the best way to be happy and peaceful. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/3-march-1965#p6</ref>
 
 
===Goodness===
 
 
Always be good and you will always be happy.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/happiness#p15</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
Let us always do the right thing and we shall always be quiet and happy.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/happiness#p17</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
Always be kind and you will be free from suffering, always be contented and happy, and you will radiate your quiet happiness. [The Mother’s comment on Dhammapada]
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/the-bhikkhu#p24</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
One should not do good in the hope of getting a reward, but for the pleasure of doing good. Then one is always happy, whatever happens.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/17/23-september-1936#p2</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
...when you are good, when you are generous, noble, disinterested, kind, you create in you, around you, a particular atmosphere and this atmosphere is a sort of luminous release. You breathe, you blossom like a flower in the sun; there is no painful recoil on yourself, no bitterness, no revolt, no miseries. Spontaneously, naturally, the atmosphere becomes luminous and the air you breathe is full of happiness.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/conjugate-verses#p117</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
In reality, even for a purely egoistic reason, to do good, to be just, straight, honest is the best means to be quiet and peaceful, to reduce one's anxiety to a minimum. And if, besides, one could be disinterested, free from personal motives and egoism, then it would be possible to become truly happy. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/conjugate-verses#p105</ref>
 
 
===Equality===
 
 
Keep this attitude—never side with anybody nor take up any personal quarrel—think only of the Divine Peace, Harmony, Light and Happiness and become more and more their purified and quiet instrument. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/quarrels#p4</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
To do at each moment the best we can and leave the result to the Divine's decision, is the surest way to peace, happiness, strength, progress and final perfection.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/to-will-what-the-divine-wills#p33</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
It is so good to be simple, simply good-willed, to do the best one can, and in the best way possible; not to build anything very considerable but only to aspire for progress, for light, a peace full of goodwill, and let That which knows in the world decide for you what you will become, and what you will have to do. One no longer has any cares, and one is perfectly happy! <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/21-july-1954#p70</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
Keep yourself free from all human attachment and you will be happy.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/attachment-to-others#p15</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
By equality of the heart we get away from the troubled desire-soul on the surface, open the gates of this profounder being, bring out its responses and impose their true divine values on all that solicits our emotional being. A free, happy, equal and all-embracing heart of spiritual feeling is the outcome of this perfection.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-perfection-of-equality#p7</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
As the equality becomes more intense, it takes on a fuller substance of positive happiness and spiritual ease. This is the joy of the spirit in itself, dependent on nothing external for its absolute existence.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-action-of-equality#p7</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
… when you give up this bad habit of revolt, you will see that suffering too will go away and be replaced by an unvarying happiness.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/10-june-1934#p2</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
"Happy is he who possesses nothing": he is someone who has no sense of possession, who can make use of things when they come to him, knowing that they are not his, that they belong to the Supreme, and who, for the same reason, does not regret it when things leave him; he finds it quite natural that the Lord who gave him these things should take them away from him for others to enjoy. Such a man finds equal joy in the use of things as in the absence of things. When you have them at your disposal, you receive them as a gift of Grace and when they leave you, when they have been taken away from you, you live in the joy of destitution. [The Mother’s comment on Dhammapada]
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/happiness#p13</ref>
 
 
===Progress===
 
 
Indeed, making progress, overcoming a difficulty, learning something, seeing clearly into an element of unconsciousness—these are the things that make one truly happy.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/22-september-1933#p3</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
It is so good to be simple, simply good-willed, to do the best one can, and in the best way possible; not to build anything very considerable but only to aspire for progress, for light, a peace full of goodwill, and let That which knows in the world decide for you what you will become, and what you will have to do. One no longer has any cares, and one is perfectly happy! <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/21-july-1954#p70</ref>
 
 
===Service and Work===
 
 
It is through work and self-mastery that one can find happiness and peace.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/23-march-1935#p5</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
...make your brain work by studying regularly and systematically; then during the hours when you are not studying, your brain, having worked enough, will be able to rest and it will be possible for you to concentrate in the depths of your heart and find there the psychic source; with it you will become conscious both of gratitude and true happiness.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/17/23-may-1935#p2</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
When one does the best one can, one is happy. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/13-may-1953#p20</ref>
 
 
===Devotion===
 
Lord, give me the real happiness, that which depends only upon Thee.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/prayers#p55</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
Indeed he is happy who loves the Divine because the Divine is always with him.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/happiness#p10</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
I am taking you into my arms and cradling you to my heart so that you may have true happiness and unalloyed peace. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/15-march-1934-1#p3</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
I am in your heart that it may be happy, in your head that it may be peaceful, and in your hand that it may be skilful. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/21-august-1934#p4</ref>
 
 
===A Quiet Mind===
 
 
If we want to keep our happiness intact and pure, we must do our best not to attract upon it the attention of unfriendly thoughts.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/happiness#p29</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
Instead of asking yourself such questions [about whether one’s happiness is spiritual or not], it would be better to remain very quiet, concentrated and calm, so that the happiness may last. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/17/3-july-1934#p2</ref>
 
 
==How Not to Cultivate Happiness - Common Errors==
 
 
===Seeking Personal Happiness and Desires===
 
 
Give up all personal seeking for comfort, satisfaction, enjoyment or happiness. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/psychic-education-and-spiritual-education#p7
 
<center>~</center>
 
To be concerned for one's happiness is the surest way of becoming unhappy.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/happiness#p28</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
When one's attention is always turned towards oneself, one is never happy. When one allows oneself to be ruled by every passing impulse, one is never peaceful.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/23-march-1935#p4</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
It is only those who have come for sadhana and really do sadhana who can be happy and satisfied here. The others have constant trouble because their desires are not satisfied. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/13/comfort-and-happiness#p13</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
Do not live to be happy, live to serve the Divine, and the happiness you enjoy will exceed all expectation. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/28-december-1971#p1</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
There is no happiness in smallness of the being, says the Scripture, it is with the large being that happiness comes. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-release-from-the-ego#p2</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
...if your desire is inconscient, obscure, egoistic, you increase the unconsciousness, the darkness and egoism within yourself; that is to say, this takes you farther and farther away from the truth, from consciousness and happiness.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/21-july-1954#p21</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
...delight of being, which is a quality of the Divine and therefore unconditioned, must not be confused with the pursuit of pleasure in life, which depends largely upon circumstances. The conviction that one has the right to be happy leads, as a matter of course, to the will to "live one's own life" at any cost. This attitude, by its obscure and aggressive egoism, leads to every kind of conflict and misery, disappointment and discouragement, and very often ends in catastrophe.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/vital-education#p3</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
"I have come to the world, I must help others." One tells oneself: "How disinterested I am! I am going to help humanity." All this is nothing but egoism. In fact, the first human being that concerns you is yourself. You want to diminish suffering, but unless you can change the capacity of suffering into a certitude of being happy, the world will not change. It will always be the same, we turn in a circle—one civilisation follows another, one catastrophe another; but the thing does not change, for there is something missing, something not there, that is the consciousness. That's all.
 
<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/8-april-1953#p17-p18</ref>
 
 
===Materialism and Physical Pleasures===
 
 
Money does not bring happiness. The Sannyasi who possesses nothing and usually eats only one meal a day is perfectly happy if he is sincere. Whereas a rich man may be thoroughly unhappy if he has ruined his health by all sorts of excess and over-indulgence.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/13/paid-workers#p47</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
Do not dream that when thou hast got rid of material poverty, men will even so be happy or satisfied or society freed from ills, troubles and problems. This is only the first and lowest necessity…
 
 
A safe and quiet life is not enough to make people happy. Inner development is necessary, and the peace that comes from a conscious contact with the Divine.[Based on aphorism 198]
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/10/aphorism-197-198#p2</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
This insistence on the exclusive reality of the physical world, of physical pleasures, physical joys, physical possessions, is the result of the whole materialistic tendency of human civilisation. It was unthinkable in ancient times. On the contrary, withdrawal, concentration, liberation from all material cares, consecration to the spiritual joy, that was happiness indeed. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/vigilance#p14</ref>
 
 
==Falsehood and Ignorance==
 
 
...men cling to their falsehood as if it were a treasure, cherishing it more than even the most beautiful things of life… they take care to bury it deep down in themselves; but unless they take it out and surrender it to the Divine they will never find true happiness. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/victory-over-falsehood#p1</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
...they receive a kind of drop of that within their consciousness, and this produces in them the illumination of a revelation, and they feel that they have grasped the truth. They have a revelation and so naturally are very happy and immediately think, "My happiness I am going to pass on to others"; for they are very fine people, they have very good intentions. Then, to pass on their happiness to others they begin by making a construction around their revelation; they must make it into a system; otherwise how to preach to others? So they make a system, ... Unfortunately it was only a spark of light, and their construction was purely mental and not free from the ordinary laws of life. And so the people in the groups who were to have preached to the world harmony, beauty, happiness, joy and peace, etc., quarrelled among themselves.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/1-june-1955#p31</ref>
 
 
==What to do When Unhappiness Arises?==
 
 
You have only to refuse to accept these suggestions [of sadness and fear of happiness] and put yourself persistently on the side of the Truth in you which will make you free and happy, and all will be well.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/sorrow-and-suffering#p20</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
...do not open the door to depression, discouragement and revolt—this leads far, far away from consciousness and makes you sink into the depths of obscurity where happiness can no longer enter…. in this condition, if all the divine forces were to concentrate on you, it would be in vain—you would refuse to receive them.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/16-december-1932#p8</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
The vital gets disturbed and filled with these thoughts whenever something happens that hurts or displeases it strongly. To get rid of it one must have always a sense of complete reliance on the Mother, of surrender; that brings a calm which refuses to be moved by any outward happening or by what people do or say, a happiness which is not disturbed by any occurrence. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/wrong-movements-of-the-vital#p80</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
To be miserable may remind you of the defects of your external nature, but I do not see how it is going to cure them. I am not asking you to be frivolously happy, but to be quiet and quietly confident, rejecting these old movements, but for the rest trusting not in a restless self-torturing personal effort but to the Divine Force to change the external nature. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/dealing-with-depression-and-despondency#p15</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
...the centre of your difficulties has been there [in the chest and stomach]. The chest = the emotional nature exposed to wrong feelings; the stomach = the dynamic vital centre, exposed to wrong desires, ambitions, sense of possession and vital ego etc. But all that will progressively become things of the past, when the Peace, the Presence, the inner happiness increase and take possession of the external nature.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-parts-of-the-body-and-the-centres#p12</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
It is the usual experience that if the humility and resignation are firmly founded in the heart, other things like trust come naturally afterwards. If once the psychic light and happiness which is born of these things is founded, it is not easy for other forces to cloud that state and not possible for them to destroy it.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/depression-and-despondency#p15</ref>
 
 
==What is Needed for Collective Happiness?==
 
 
If everyone were happy the world would be happy.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/7-april-1951#p22</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
The greatest service to humanity, the surest foundation for its true progress, happiness and perfection is to prepare or find the way by which the individual and the collective man can transcend the ego and live in its true self, no longer bound to ignorance, incapacity, disharmony and sorrow.
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-release-from-the-ego#p4</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
But for the community to be happy it is necessary that this discipline should be determined by someone or by those who have the greatest broadness of mind and, if possible, by him or by those who are conscious of the Divine Presence and are surrendered to that. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/13/organisation-and-work#p110</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
Only when egoism dies and God in man governs his own human universality, can this earth support a happy and contented race of beings. [Based on aphorism 357]
 
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/10/aphorism-357#p1</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
For the earth to be happy, power should be in the hands of those alone who are conscious of the Divine Will. But this is impossible at the moment because the number of those who are truly conscious of the Divine Will is negligible and these have necessarily no ambition. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/13/organisation-and-work#p111</ref>
 
<center>~</center>
 
All my effort is towards realising in the world as much truth as actual circumstances will allow; and with the increase of truth, the welfare and happiness of all will necessarily increase. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/13/paid-workers#p54</ref>
 
  
 
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