Recently, I have talked about happiness and love. Let’s introduce my current definition of both. Although I mentioned similar content weeks ago (in this article), today’s idea is an enhanced version.
What are happiness and love?
Sometimes, we want to comprehend happiness and love. Without feeling them, we cannot obtain or create them.
However, they are elusive, and many of their teachings are difficult to understand.
One example is the teaching that ‘everyone, including you, is already loved.’ Although we cannot even feel it ourselves, why can they say so?
Understanding the essence of happiness and love tells us why. They are not things to be felt but believed. In other words, happiness and love are not sensations but religious concepts beyond direct perception. This perspective may free you from pursuing them and satisfy your fundamental desires to be loved.
My current definition of happiness and love
Happiness and love are not things we can actually feel in reality; rather, they are religious concepts we believe in. That distinction may help you clear your mental confusion.
My current definitions of those concepts are as follows:
- Love is the practice of providing others—and oneself—with criteria for broad, long-term benefit, even if we don’t know what will improve the future or how the future holds.
- Happiness is the state of practicing love.
In other words, we are already loved. That awareness enables us to focus on reasonableness. That satisfies our desire for love.
An example of a murderer
To make it easier to understand, let’s look at examples.
Suppose a man used violence and intentionally killed a woman. The murderer was despised by the victim continuously and became enraged. That caused the murder.
Let’s discuss whether it is based on love.
From my perspective, it is a form of love, although it can be unreasonable. In other words, we have to separate love and rationality in our thinking.
The murderer understood that being looked down on unfairly would make him uncomfortable. That made him warn the victim—a woman who looked down on him—not to do so. He believed that stopping contempt would be better for the people and the world, including himself. He wanted to be encouraged in a different way. However, she was always insulting everyone around her.
That judgment made him use violence against the woman. It was a teaching method of encouraging the opponent to change their behavior. After repeating such conflicts many times, he decided to eliminate someone as harmful as her from the world. He thought it was for the world, including the murderer himself.
His act was a form of love. Love is profound; it includes not only joy and pleasure but also sadness and anger. To be precise, superficial emotions have nothing to do with love. It is a matter of what to believe. He believed that a world without contempt would make society better.
Although his actions were motivated by love, whether his violence was a reasonable action is another matter. If he could part with her and live somewhere else with another girlfriend, that would be a more reasonable option.
In other words, the case was a matter of rationality, not love. The murderer should be blamed for his unreasonableness, not for the coldness of his heart.
The perspective of the police and the court
The same goes for the police and courts that arrested him and judged his crime. Their action is fundamentally the same as the murderer’s. It is not a matter of love but rationality.
They believed that eliminating dangerous criminals secures social security. It was also a form of love, even if they used violence against the murderer.
The police and court punished the murderer’s unreasonableness. They thought that breaking up would have been easier and caused no social loss. They don’t punish people for having intense negative emotions. As long as it is recognized as a reasonable judgment, they don’t punish the defendant.
However, he chose a method that caused more social damage. The police and the court make judgments based on that point—rationality.
In other words, guilt is not about having negative emotions but about being unreasonable.
The meaning of ‘we are already loved’
That is the meaning of ‘we are already loved.’
Although many people, including spiritualists, believe that having negative feelings is guilt, that is a misconception. We all live based on love. It includes negativity. Love is not so shallow that it can be easily influenced by embracing some kinds of emotions, such as negativity.
Guilt is the inability to take rational measures, and love is about what we believe in. The murderer, the police, and the court—they already have love. It is a matter of rationality, not emotion.
This awareness frees us from clinging to negative emotions. Having them is not guilt; choosing unreasonable actions is. Even if you hold negativity, you still have love.
Love is not superficial. Having negative feelings doesn’t affect your love. No matter which mental state you are in, you are filled with love. Don’t doubt love. It is something to believe in.
Instead of doubting love, question and progress your rationality. People punish your unreasonableness. You have more reasonable options, like the murderer. The murderer should not doubt his love but rather his rationality.
Happiness is the state of practicing love—that awareness ensures your love while improving your life.
Conclusion
That is the essence of happiness and love.
Happiness and love are not things we can actually feel in reality; rather, they are religious concepts we believe in.
This perspective may free you from pursuing them and satisfy your fundamental desires to be loved.
Thank you for reading this article. I hope to see you in the next one.
