Is happiness only just a state of our mind?

Yes, I would agree with you there. How we react to an external force can certainly affect our state of mind. Of course, I am not just talking here about surface happiness feelings, like we might get from winning a game of tennis. This is a fleeting happiness at its best. No, I am more referring to that state of true bliss, or enlightened happiness and joy, that brings us to a rarefied state of being, in that we are fully altruistic then, living entirely from love. We cannot choose to love, I feel, otherwise, the love is not a deeply felt one, either by us, or by the one loved. Love goes much deeper than just residing within our minds, and this is why I say happiness, real happiness, is much deeper too, than which any state of mind might create. Sure, our mind can choose to think happy thoughts, which might make us happier, but to me, real happiness is also more than just a thought. So, I stand by my idea, that we cannot directly choose happiness. We can just be happy, naturally so. Happiness is a natural state of our being, and so if this is true, we can decide, I suppose, to live from our real self, and so indirectly then, we are choosing happiness then too. So, we can get there from both directions, I guess. Both arguments could be right then.

@BabyRai1 Yes, that makes sense. Joy could be called a deeper form of happiness. God is happy and joyful, and loves at all times. Can God not love though? Love is who God is, and any other energetic field of love is like a clothing that you can wear for that day. You are not happy all of the time, nor are you sad. The world is built around dualities. At the deeper levels, oneness exists, and oneness is just love. Love is the only energy at that level. All else comes forth from love, and is an attribute of that love. I think that while we live on the Earth then, you are right. We should live from our emotions at times, going through each one of them, then letting them go, without "choosing" to let them dominate us too much, which we are doing, if we can choose these types of things with our minds. At a deeper level though, we might aspire to reach an enlightened state, and live from an underlying sea of joy, which remains untouched essentially so, from these minor disturbances or waves of emotions going up and down, on its surface, at any one time.

@innertalks then what you're referring to is called Joy.being joyful or joyous person is deep hapiness and its not affected by external factors.it comes from deep within.an example,the world may be crumbling at your feet but you are not shaken just happy.Do I make sense?

Yes, I was asking indirectly there if we could ever be totally happy, if we were isolated away, alone on a deserted island.

@innertalks Yes, you are right that both negative and positive feelings are important as day and night are important. There cannot be importance of day without night. I agree happiness is felt at deeper level. You are right that if we link our happiness with external factors and/or material things, then that happiness will not last long.

@dpk262006 Yes, we should not neglect and ignore any parts of life, as they are all there for their own purpose, linked into our purpose for our living this life too. Attachment to anything also attaches you to its opposite. Trying to be too positive, in the end, only leads us to become negative, in some ways too. When we walk the middle path, though, we lose attachment to either side, and then we live from each moment of love lovingly alive and aware of truth, and we are happy to walk this way even if the world thinks ill of us, we are being our real self, and we can only ever be truly happy when we are being this true self. No other way, or method of living, can ever lead us to happiness, except for us being and owning and rising up with courage enough to live as who we were created to be in this life of service to ourselves, God and to all other members of creation. This type of service is what real love is all about too.

This is true in many aspects. But, it's also true that we live within a dual world. Both negative feelings and positive feelings are important at times, I think. This means to me that we should not just attach our happiness to the condition of our being positive. We should realise that happiness exists intrinsically at a much deeper level than this. In a way then, if we attach happiness to being a state of mind, when we lose that state of mind, as we invariably always will at times, we will lose our happiness then too. It is the same, in a way, as our attaching our happiness to an outer condition, such as our winning the lottery, etc. Happiness attached to us like this, in any way at all, to my mind, can never be a true happiness.

Yes, I would think that you are right there too. That is why even some millionaires can still be unhappy with their lives. Nothing outside of us can make us happy.

Yes, I think also that we can be unhappy, on our surface, in the moment, like that too, but deeper down, we are still overally happy, in peace and love for our family. Why would I think like that though? I think that happiness isn't just skin deep. It is more than just a decision makeable by our mind to choose it. Happiness exists at all levels of our existence as a paradigm equation that we all are a part of, but when we add ourselves into the equation, we can either add to it or subtract to it, that is, as it applies locally to our self. We can, though, never change the realness of the underlying unchangeable formula for happiness, though, which always resides within us, and which can become real for us, and lived from, as soon as we embrace it with the love that opens it up for us in our own heart of love. Deep down then, happiness is a part of our make-up, but too often, we just cover it over with our day to day life problems, which sometimes can block our feeling of this deep happiness which always resides within the love, always too in our hearts. We are made from love, as is God.

Happiness is certainly a good feeling, but can it be far more than just this too. Can it be a state of absolute bliss, for example??

@inter4 Thanks, it's certainly proving to be an interesting topic of discussion here. I guess that's because we all want to be happy, in some way, or another.

@innertalks maybe , you're right.

Yes, we should try to treat all others with love. This involves us in giving them the extension of themselves within ourselves, to allow them to be fully themselves within the oneness, which is also including ourselves within it too. This is necessary, because when we prevent others from being themselves, in some ways then, we also restrict too, our own self, within the whole schema of things too. This is the paradox of individuality existing within oneness.

@Shiva49 "Empathy is about standing in someone else's shoes, feeling with his or her heart, seeing with his or her eyes. Not only is empathy hard to outsource and automate, but it makes the world a better place." The American author Daniel H. Pink said that. Yet, if we try to judge them from a position in their shoes, we will find that their shoes might pinch us then a little bit, as well. Another person's shoes fit them best, and we can never judge what fits another person best, only they can do that.

@innertalks We are given much to choose from, the immense variety in creation is unfathomable. And unless we are in others' shoes, how to judge their actions? Everyone is here for a purpose and endowed with different talents to illuminate our way. So let us accommodate all with a positive frame of mind - siva

Yes, he certainly sounds right in a lot of aspects of this, but as we are far more than our just being our minds, I feel that there is far more to it than just this. This idea would infer, that whatever we really are, we can allow our minds to control us by our programming of it to reside in a state of happiness, but if we really need to do this to be happy, what does that then say about our real selves. Are we not naturally happy creations of God then? All I am saying is that if we get back to our being of our real selves, we will find that as our core is love, and joy and happiness are attributes of that love, we will then be naturally happy in all that we do too. Choosing to be happy, from our minds only, will never be necessary, for us then. This is because we are being happy intrinsically so, rather than operationally so then, I think. And for me, I would prefer this much deeper naturally existing in-built state of happiness, rather than any chosen one, that we think that we can choose with our minds, based on our mind's concept, or knowledge, of what it thinks that this happiness is, in itself. It's all rather deep, when you think about it deeply....LOL...

Yes, Australia is good to live here. The weather is mostly pleasant, and most people here are friendly enough too.