A New Identity of Happiness and Its Implications
By Jay K. Ghosh
During our period of time called life, we perform certain activities, enjoy our senses through good feelings called “happiness,” and then die, and a new living being takes our place, and repeats the same cycle. If we go a bit deeper, we can find a more urgent identity of happiness, with a much more profound purpose for us than we normally believe!
We know through science that a supreme activity, called the process of evolution has been taking place on our planet since the start of life, and has transformed life forms from the lowly amoeba to today’s human, slowly but definitely, in small steps of positive changes. If we think a bit deeper, we can see that a reward of happiness or feeling good may have been the incentive for the continuation of this supreme process. The evolving ape was putting in some extra effort to get more feeling of happiness or pleasure out of life in trying harder to get more food than others, which provided more pleasure of eating. Or, he was trying a bit harder than others to protect his own life, because life was delivering pleasure to him. Some forms of “feeling good” or happiness seem to have been the reward for promoting the process of evolution!
A new and original analysis of happiness using scientific logic
We already know from science that there is a force behind every activity. So, there has to be a supreme force behind this ultimate activity of evolution, and we live in the force-field of this force. Science also says that in an environment of a force, all activities in sync, or flowing in the same direction of the force are peaceful (or happy), while those opposing the force are turbulent (or miserable). So, activities in sync with this force would be happy, or may bring happiness, while those against the force may bring turbulence or misery.
The natural questions we may ask are, what the direction of this force is and how to stay in sync with it! To find this direction, we have to analyze what it has been doing in the past. Looking at its past activities, we can see that the process of evolution has transformed life from the amoeba to today’s human–a clear and absolute trend of positive changes!
Evolution is happening in very small but definite steps of positive changes. And this trend defines the nature of this supreme force. So, staying in tune, or in the same direction with this force may simply mean staying positive by promoting positive changes through our activities. Those positive changes, however extremely minute they may be, may promote the process of evolution. And we may get the reward of happiness in return! So, happiness is used as the reward in the process of evolution.
Lower animals may be staying in sync with this force, and promote the process of evolution almost automatically with their activities. In turn, they must be receiving the rewards of feeling good or happiness in many different ways, and so they keep on repeating the same activities. For us, the humans, the same theory seems to hold true; but it is obvious only for our basic activities, which include eating, reproductive activities, etc., all of which give us tremendous pleasure.
Beyond the basic, it becomes a bit more difficult to establish a direct relationship between each activity and happiness, because of the complex nature of our activities. But in most cases, the connection between stable happiness and evolution can still be shown. Using similar logic, many different forms and complexities still hold the incentive to promote evolution. In other words, when we get involved in activities that promote evolution by creating positive changes, we increase our chances of finding happiness.
Here we find proof that there is a direct link between happiness and activities which create positive changes in our world. These activities increase our chances of finding happiness. On the other hand, activities which generate negative changes increase our chances of finding misery. This theory may have a lot of implications, and if followed, may influence our activities in many areas of our lives.
Religion has been trying to preach the same advice for ages, but it tells us to assume those guidelines by belief, without any logical proof. As a result, we tend to lose conviction in it. Also, often the true meanings of those guidelines may get distorted in the interpretations of different preachers. This theory of happiness can also help religion by adding logic in its preaching. It can also act as a filter–the proper guidelines should always help us create positive changes in our world. They, in turn, would promote the process of evolution. Thus, this theory may be able to reduce the conflicts between science and religion.
Happiness is the ultimate prize of life, and we all are chasing it. But we are not sure about the best ways to find it, and mistakenly presume that we will be able to buy it with money! So, we try hard to get wealthy, and in the process, often create a lot of negative changes in our world. This theory on happiness may be able to provide us a guideline to follow while we are in the pursuit of money and profit. In this way, we can choose the right kind of activities, maximizing generation of positive changes, and minimizing the production of negative changes. There are numerous other situations of everyday life, where this theory may be able to help us by setting a guideline to create new positive changes through our daily activities, and, in return, get rewarded with more happiness.
The process of revolution helps us to survive through time, developing necessary capabilities. But the question is, how far in the future might our survival be extended? Can we survive indefinitely, and become a living entity of the universe, beyond the life of this planet Earth?
The answers may depend upon how fast we can evolve to advance our capability, and how long our planet earth will last. In that context, the two most important tasks to us might be to preserve our planet for as long as possible, and to evolve as fast as possible.
The logical theory of happiness described here may be able to help both causes. It helps by giving us a scientific explanation of happiness, as well as a guideline to help maximize the overall positive change we create through our daily activities. As a result, we minimize the negative distortion of our evolution! OM!
Click HERE to Connect with your Daily Horoscope!
About the Author
Jay K. Ghosh immigrated to the United States in 1968 and holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering. He was born in Kolkata, India, in 1944. Jay received his BS in Science from Calcutta University, followed by a BS in Electrical Engineering from Jadavpur University, India. Though his profession has been in technology, his real passion is in spirituality.
