Happiness... An overflowing phrase, isn't it? So much there is to say, to write, to be told, not to be told about it. In the end, it is one of the most fundamental wants of the enigma called Human. However, here we will take only few aspects up.

There, we told the first aspect already. One of our most fundamental wants. On the conscious level, every human being inclines towards joy and flees from pain. Yet, not all our acts and choices are on this level. Thus, the Great Responder - alias the Life - does not always present us the happiness we seek. Here, our spiritual discipline says that this also is alright, that pain also is necessary, that the white cannot be known without the black. Okey, true. We play in a dual world and the Law of Pendulum operates : the energy begins oscillating to the other pole after experiencing one pole. Because, our existence is circular, not linear ! Namely, joy and pain are on the same route. As we stand on the circle and start running towards the direction we see as happiness, pain naturally chases after us. And as we start running towards pain - out of psychopaty - the happiness of achieving a goal does not cease following us ! This, somehow, reminded me of a dilemma I lived at my primary school ages. I was perplexed to learn that the first Native Americans might have passed from Asia to America over a strait. One is the most East, one is the most West ! People could not even have traversed the ocean and reach American coasts, how can Yakuts pass so readily? God bless, my mother - a teacher of geography - kept her patience again, as she used to do against my “sharp” itelligence prowess, and retold me that the world actually is round and that the map on the world atlas is a fabricated adaptation...

So, we told the second aspect of happiness. It's like a cat's tail, it escapes as one runs after. What is another alternative? To say "To hell with happiness, your days are numbered ! Anyway, how much time is left there to go before the Second Ice Age?". Yet one other alternative is to anchor not on the circle but in to the center. That is, not to involve in the cat's tail game. For pursuing something implies that we lack that thing. As a matter of course, the Great Responder, responds to this properly :

- I want to be happy.

- So be it.

- Yippee !! Now I'll be happy, eh?.. Not?.. Then what about so-be-it??

- You said you want to be happy and we said okey. There you want...

- ...!

Casting anchor in the circle-center is not an easy task at all. Diverters continually pop up, you continually have to take control of where your identity perception stands. You continuously have to be "aware". In fact, this too has been a wrong orientation. We again set requisites in order to be happy ! Damn duality..

Adding a little to the second aspect of happiness, we derive the third aspect. In order to be happy, it is necessary not to "need" anything, along with not to "need" happiness itself. Do not let this verse daunt you, we can assess our status through a very simple ciriterion : Am I thinking / feeling /doing what I am thinking / feeling /doing out of choice or out of need? One question, repeated question - and genuine answer... Being aware of oneself and one's direction at each step, is the key to happiness. Here you will say "We call your happiness recipe to become 'saint' !". And I'll say, there is a difference between a saint and a wise man. I talk about just being aware of these truths about the dynamics of happiness and living as a sane and determined man, i.e. living wisely. I talk about not falling into self-agonizing traps like "No, I've missed the happiness-fish again ! ". I talk about being at peace with your happiness process as it is...

Here we arrive - the fourth aspect. Being happy is not a matter of conclusion, but a matter of process. Sure, there will be the celebration of success, of achievment, or of the fulfillment of desires. Yet, one should keep in mind that the joy felt over an achievement is merely an expression of happiness and not the happiness itself. As a matter of fact, we call one who manages this a Wise Man.

There is a scene I never forget, from my childhood memory, from the anime TV serial Clementine. Our French girl Clementine is in Japan. She becomes friend with a little Japanese boy who lives with his grandpa. This grandpa exhibited legendary behaviours and wisdom throughout the film and the one mostly engraved in my memory is like that : The grandpa (probably a Kojiko San, etc.) takes his longbow and arrows and walks to the edge of the forest and sits there. He asks the kids to take the target board into the forest and lean the wooden plate to a tree. When the kids come back, he draws the bow and directs the arrow into the forest. For a while, he just remains silent (he usually is) and breathes. And releases the arrow. Then, he begins gathering his stuff serenely. When he sets off back to the house, the kids ask "Pa, won't you look at the target? Don't you wonder if it hit??" And comes the reply, " I only draw and release the arrow. Arrow knows where to go..." And Kojiko San returns merrily to his hut.

A knowledge alike emerges in the SF novel Dune, as words of a Bene Gesserit elder : "The mystery of life is not a problem to solve, but a reality to experience". Again we hear similar words from Osho, "The Life has not a meaning on its own. It is an opportunity to create a meaning." Since living meaningfully and living joyfully is an indivisible duo, much like “meaning” happiness is not a loot to search and find. It is a style of living, a style of creating.

Thus, we come to the fifth aspect of happiness. It is not something to search and find. In fact, we are searching in the wrong place ! We are searching it in what we are not. We are searching it in what we do not. We are searching it in what we have not. Lacking or not being are already sufficiently boring perception forms. Yet, we add to this by being unhappy. But as we grow, as we evolve, we discover an aspect of ours – Void. We discover that Void is a space pregnant to everything, that it is pure potential in fact. Moreover, we notice that even 98% of an atom is void, so almost all our existence is in fact void. This opinion, that belief, that choice,... We notice how we have clouded our minds so that we are even unable to see our Void side. And we get to put an end to this. Namley, we are being purified – we are being freed. Gradually the journey grows merrier as we gradually get rid of our excess loads and seing that the journey factually has no arrival point, we decide enjoying the inevitable. And gradually, in the progress of becoming everything/nothing, not being/not doing/not having grows meaningless and then we begin searching happiness in the right place : In our contributions to the Now... Thus turns the struggle of searching into a strival for creating...