Happiness

Everybody wants to be happy. We all try to find joy. But before we look for it, it would be wise to know what is exactly what we are looking for and what we want to find.

Have you thought about that? What does JOY mean for you?

Let's check in the dictionary: "Great pleasure or happiness; delight. The expression or display of this emotion". In French, the equivalent of the word joy has an even deeper connotation: "A state of the conscience that is fully satisfied. Beatitude, well-being, felicity, pleasure, contentment, ecstasy, ravishment, satisfaction".

These descriptions indicate a certain progression and the existence of degrees in happiness. For some, happiness means to live well in the present moment. For others, it means personal fulfilment. But it is the balance between the physical and the spiritual what brings about the inner peace that can give true happiness.

In order to live to the full this inner peace, we need to modify the contradictions that may be present in our personality and our character, so as to make them converge to the same end. We can say, therefore, that in order to have a feeling of joy, our conscience must be in peace.

Sometimes we hear: "We have pleasure in giving ourselves pleasure". Yes, that's true, but we may have even more pleasure if we forget ourselves in order to please others. "When we have eaten and celebrated well, we have a feeling of well-being". Yes, but this feeling remains at the superficial level. On the other hand, "bringing joy to others" or "making someone happy", gives a feeling of a superior nature, because it gives us a deep inner joy.

When we love, all our actions become joy and happiness, because we do everything with an attitude of... self-giving. The joy of loving and being loved - not with a worthless love, but with a mutual feeling that is deep and pure - this joy gives wings to our happiness. Then all that we are is given to the other, and he or she has all in all. Giving everything and receiving everything in plenitude. This condition gives us a happiness that corresponds to the words: "The man and the woman that unite themselves like that, become together ONE BODY" (Genesis 2,24).

There are also other ways to learn to love and be loved that can lead you to the infinite. In your search for absolute happiness, you will grasp one day that the source of everything is love. Love is there, near your! You will feel that you are loved just the way you are, personally... with a tremendous love, by this LOVE who is at the origin of everything. But He respects your freedom. He doesn't want to force you. He calls you and waits for you to answer freely to His love.

This profound awareness, which, by a personal decision, moves us to respond to Love by love, can make us advance toward an indescribable joy that has no limits!

We are all called to live this kind of love, and those who attain this supreme joy, even if they are still on this earth, live already in union with God, and become ONE SPIRIT with Him (1 Corinthians 6,17).