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Joy and Happiness
United Communities of Spirit
The search for happiness is basic to human life, and to the purpose of religion as well. This first section brings together passages dealing with the religious experience of transcendental joy through union with Ultimate Reality or the realization of one's true mind. This state may be characterized as bliss (Skt. ananda) or Nirvana; it is a reality beyond any suffering. Scriptures of all religions depict and extol the ultimate goal of the religious journey as a state of intoxicating joy.
The section opens with passages which extol the bliss which is the final goal of the spiritual life. A second group of passages assert how heavenly joys are in every way superior to mundane pleasures, and then various degrees of happiness are discerned, depending upon the level of one's spiritual awareness. The highest level is attained only with the complete cessation of self-centered desires and denial of self in relation to the Absolute. The last group of passages recommend that one live in a state of contentment, joy, and praise, even as one pursues the path to ultimate bliss; a heart filled with bliss is itself a prerequisite for realizing higher, more refined states of divine happiness.
Interfaith passages at: origin.org/ucs/ws/theme018.cfm
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