The search for happiness is basic to human life, and to the religious quest as well.
Union with the Ultimate Reality can bring transcendental joy. It is a state variously characterized as bliss (ananda), Nirvana, or even the mystic marriage with the divine Lover. In the monotheistic faiths, God created human beings for joy.
The unity of God and His creatures makes that joy complete. The section opens with passages that describe heavenly joy, when the human heart and God’s heart beat in unison.
Second are passages that contrast the greatness of heavenly joy with the paltry pleasures of the senses. This insight should not be overlooked in discussions of ethics; George Washington once asserted that there is “an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness.”
We conclude with passages describing the synergy between a joyous life and heavenly joy. A cheerful and optimistic attitude, accompanied by efforts to spread happiness to others, can attract the joy of the Holy Spirit.
This can be experienced in the mystic connection between conjugal love and divine love. (See Chapter 19: Conjugal Love).
1. Heavenly Joy
Thou dost show me the path of life; in Thy presence there is fullness of joy, in Thy right hand are pleasures for evermore. Psalm 16.11
I created you human beings because I desired to see you lead a joyous life. Ofudesaki 14.25 (Tenrikyo) Happiness is spiritual, born of Truth and Love. It is unselfish; therefore, it cannot exist alone, but requires all mankind to share it. Science and Health, 57 (Christian Science)
No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love Him. 1 Corinthians 2.9
No person knows what delights of the eye are kept hidden for them—as a reward for their good deeds. Qur’an 32.17
I am the Tathagata, The Most Honored among men; I appear in the world Like unto a great cloud, To pour enrichment on all Parched living beings, To free them from their misery To attain the joy of peace, Joy of the present world, And joy of Nirvana. Lotus Sutra 5 (Buddhism)
The soul which is free from the defect of karma gets to the highest point of the universe, knows all and perceives all, and obtains the transcen- dental bliss everlasting. Kundakunda, Pancastikaya 170 (Jainism)
Without doubt, in the remembrance of God do hearts find satisfaction.
Qur’an 13.28
Mother mine! Bliss have I attained in union with the Divine Master: Spontaneously has union with the Divine Master come about— In my mind resounds joyous music. Fairies of the family of jewel harmony have descended to sing holy songs; Sing all ye the Lord’s song, who have lodged it in heart!
Says Nanak, Bliss have I attained on union with the Divine Master. Adi Granth, Ramkali, Anandu, M.3, p. 917 (Sikhism)
And may the sovereign Good be ours! According as one desires bliss may one receive bliss
Through Thy most far-seeing Spirit, O Lord, The wonders of the Good Mind which Thou wilt give as righteousness, With the joy of long life all the days! Avesta, Yasna 43.2 (Zoroastrianism)
Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
Joy begins in the heart of God, and it is fulfilled in human beings. The heart of the invisible God is manifested in the hearts of visible human beings. (27:29, November 15, 1969)
Why are human beings born? It is to experience love with God and with all creation. Conversely, because human beings exist, God can love and be loved, and love can fill the universe. (81:334, December 29, 1975)
What is God’s purpose of creation? Is it analogous to what we human beings aspire? God created out of the desire to rejoice and be happy.
What brings God joy? Money? His creatures?
Certainly it is not the material things that people like to own. God created heaven and earth so that He could experience joy through love. Then, what do all creatures desire more than anything else?
Because God’s purpose of creation is to experience joy through love, all creatures likewise seek a relationship of love with God, to experience joy. Accordingly, all creatures interact with one another in order to be linked with God’s love. (114:63, May 16, 1981)
The meeting point of the human heart and God’s heart is the starting point of happiness. (Way of God’s Will 1.8)
When people feel good, they want to be with their parents, siblings, and relatives so they can share their joy. Happiness is eternal, and what is eternal is of the heart.
The center of the universe is the parent-child relationship, that is, between God the Father and each one of us as His sons and daughters. The ultimate purpose of human life is to find our Father, form an unbreakable bond with Him, and experience joy. (12:104, December 16, 1962)
When God sees you loving His creatures, He says, “Wonderful! You are doing something that I cannot do”; and He loves you. God will want to show His love to you. Maybe He will stretch out His arms and hug you from behind, whispering, “Yes, you are great!” This happens. God will hug you out of joy.
Suppose that while God is embracing you from behind, you turn around and hug Him. Would God say, “You shouldn’t do that”? What do you think? What if you give God a long, long bear hug? God would say, “It’s good! I like it! I like it!”
God cannot but like it. He and everyone, everything, will like it. You would be in ecstasy. After that experience, what if you just lie around aimlessly, smitten with love-sickness?
Would God be displeased? No, He would burst into laughter, saying, “Ah, My love must be really good! Ha, Ha, Ha!” Then He would say, “Amen.”
What might happen the next time you meet God? God is as smitten with you as you are with Him, so you can do anything together; it doesn’t matter. You and God might hug each other, or ride around on each other’s back, or wrestle on the floor one on top of the other.
If you took God out somewhere, He might attach Himself to your hip like a tail. Wouldn’t that be the ultimate state of bliss? God, humanity and all things of creation want to experience it. (111:170, February 15, 1981)
2. Divine Joy Surpassing the Pleasures of the Senses
The kingdom of God is not food and drink but righ- teousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Romans 14.17
The Infinite is the source of joy. There is no joy in the finite. Only in the Infinite is there joy. Ask to know the Infinite. Chandogya Upanishad 7.23 (Hinduism)
God has promised to believers… beautiful mansions in Gardens of everlasting bliss. But the greatest bliss is the good pleasure of God: that is the supreme felicity. Qur’an 9.72
The bliss of lusts and heaven-world equal not One sixteenth of the bliss of craving’s ending. Udana 11 (Buddhism)
Having tasted the flavor of seclusion and the flavor of pacifying the passions, he becomes free from anguish and stain, imbibing the taste of the joy of the Dhamma. Dhammapada 205 (Buddhism)
Anybody can enjoy the pleasures of the body, a slave no less than the noblest of mankind; but no one allows a slave any measure of happiness, any more than a life of his own. Therefore, happiness does not consist in pastimes and amusements, but in activities following virtue.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 10.6 (Hellenism)
When totally free from outer contacts a man finds happiness in himself, He is fully trained in God’s discipline and reaches unending bliss. The experiences we owe to our sense of touch are only sources of unpleasantness. They have a beginning and an end. A wise man takes no pleasure in them. Bhagavad-Gita 5.21-22 (Hinduism)
The Self-existent is the essence of all felicity… Who could live, who could breathe, if that blissful Self dwelt not within the lotus of the heart? He it is that gives joy. Of what is the nature of joy?
Consider the lot of a young man, noble, well-read, intelligent, strong, healthy, with all the wealth of the world at his command. Assume that he is happy, and measure his joy as one unit.
One hundred times that joy is one unit of the gandharvas; but no less joy than gandharvas has the seer to whom the Self has been revealed, and who is without craving. One hundred times the joy of the gandharvas is one unit of the joy of celestial gandharvas [angels]…
One hundred times the joy of the celestial gandharvas is one unit of the joy of the pitris… joy of the devas… of Indra… of Brihaspati… of Prajapati… of Brahma, but no less joy than Brahma has the seer to whom the Self has been revealed, and who is without craving.
It is written: He who knows the joy of Brahman, which words cannot express and the mind cannot reach, is free from fear. He is not distressed by the thought, “Why did I not do what is right? Why did I do what is wrong?” He who knows the joy of Brahman, knowing both good and evil, transcends them both. Taittiriya Upanishad 2.7-9 (Hinduism)
Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
What is the way to live in joy and ecstasy? Most people’s eyes are too dim to see, their ears are too dull to hear, their noses are too numb to smell, their tongue too numb to taste, and their limbs too heavy to move.
What is the way to live in unity—my eyes, my ears, and all my sense organs all knit together with my nervous system, all united into one? What is the shining way that will not only satisfy me in my personal life, but will also satisfy my family, clan, country, world, and even God? (95:181, November 13, 1977)
People living ordinary, self-centered lives lack stimulation. But if your life is filled with God’s grace, you will feel newness in your spirit every day and experience your surroundings as ever new and fresh.
Every morning there is something new; every evening there is something new. When God’s grace is rolling in like waves, you can feel the mystery in three dimensions. Anyone who experiences life like this is a happy person. (30:134, March 21, 1970)
When you become a child of God and dwell in His love, your joy has no limit. You breathe in and out with the entire universe. We are meant to be intoxicated by the love of God. Can the artificial intoxication provided by drugs or alcohol even remotely compare? In the realm of God’s love, every need is satisfied.
All your body’s forty trillion cells are dancing together. Your eyes and ears, your hands, and all the parts of your body revel in the rapture of joy. Nothing else can ever match it. God’s love is real, and it is our highest aspiration to pursue this love. We must have it. (69:79-80, October 20, 1973)
The fact that we can rejoice this day is something to be grateful for. But we must understand: If we cannot link today’s joy with the joy of tomorrow, today’s joy becomes for us an enemy, a condition for sorrow, difficulty, and lamentation.
Joy, we know, is not only good, and sorrow is not only bad; the question is our investment of inner effort to link joy and sorrow to the accomplishment of our purpose, and how much our joy and sorrow connect with the values of God’s Will. (43:10, April 18, 1971)
3. Leading a Joyous Life
The Holy Spirit rests on him only who has a joyous heart. Jerusalem Talmud, Sukkot 5.1 (Judaism)
Let us live happily, without hate amongst those who hate. Let us dwell unhating amidst hateful men Let us live happily, in good health amongst those who are sick. Let us dwell in good health amidst ailing men. Let us live happily, without yearning for sensual pleasures amongst those who yearn for them. Let us dwell without yearning amidst those who yearn. Let us live happily, we who have no impediments. We shall subsist on joy even as the radiant gods.
Dhammapada 197-200 (Buddhism)
Awake, O north wind, and come, O south wind! Blow upon my garden, let its fragrance be wafted abroad. Let my beloved come to his garden, and eat its choicest fruits.
I come to my garden, my sister, my bride, I gather my myrrh with my spice, I eat my honeycomb with my honey, I drink my wine with my milk. Eat, O friends, and drink: drink deeply, O lovers! Song of Solomon 4:16-5
Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
God comes and extends His blessing to whatever thing you do with pleasure. (308:214, January 5, 1999)
If two-thirds of your life of seventy or eighty years was sorrowful, to compensate for the sorrow of those years, why don’t you make the remainder of your life a joyful time, centering on God? Live your life as you would in the Kingdom of God.
The Kingdom of God is where one gives, and gives again. God is giving. Parents give to their children. The parental heart is such that even after giving, it wants to give and give again when there is something better to give. (34:141, August 30, 1970)
Why does a man need a woman, and a woman need a man? It is so they can resonate with God’s love. It is to reach a state of ecstasy where they exclaim, “Wow, it is wonderful!”
They are too happy even to eat or sleep. A man and woman need each other because only in the fullness of conjugal love can they resonate in full consonance with God’s love. (102:21, November 19, 1978)
The horizontal love between a husband and wife blossoms with God’s ideal love, and the fragrance of their love resonates throughout the universe even as God adds His love to their love. This is the perfection of the parent-child relationship between God and human beings.
The heavenly Parent sings of His children’s happiness, their hopes, and everything about them. Together, the Parent and His son and daughter sing of love. It does not end there. To that precious gift, the love they possess, God adds a third dimension of love.
Then their universe expands like a balloon when air is blown into it. Their world used to be flat, but now it is big enough to hold all the created beings in the world with room to spare. It materializes with the power of their love, permeating the whole. (101:35, October 28, 1978)