Happiness - what is it??

In my last post, I am really sorry of boring you all with my story of friendship but my point in telling that was to emphasize the meaning of happiness in our lives.  It was an effort at defining happiness.  Happiness, as many believe, does not necessarily come by having money or luxuries.  These are no doubt essential parts of life and help in making life very comfortable but a comfortable life need not necessarily be a happy life.  I can give you examples of many ultra successful and super rich people who ultimately suffered from heavy depression and committed suicide.  A very sad example is that of Marilyn Monroe who was a very successful actress of her times but ultimately succumbed to drugs and a sad demise.

Then what is happiness?  Let's start from small things.  Imagine a small child - may be your own son or daughter - imagine who s/he looked, smiled, cried, talked in their own primitive code language known only to them - did you get a smile or felt happy somewhere in your heart by looking at a child?  Did you ever feel that you are living your childhood again?  Did you ever feel like taking the child in your arms and playing with him/her?  If yes, then that is a form of happiness.  Very difficult to define or understand, but very easy to feel and enjoy!  Similarly, remember the days when we were young children, what made us happy?  Simple stuff like new or old toys, sometimes even broken toys, new things that our parents brought home and to some, even destroying those new things in the shortest possible time gave a sense of pleasure and happiness that not even a psychotropic drug can match.  So, happiness is something that we emanate from within us - how we do it - God only knows.  But one thing is sure, happiness is not something that we can buy or something that we produce using material gains but something that comes from deep within our heart.  Think on it for a moment friends - seems like food for thought!