Are You Happy?
The following is from a letter from Rudolf Steiner to his first wife Anna:
But you, dear Anna, have taken a wrong view of everything lately. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been able to say you want me to be happy. Don’t misunderstand me. I know you mean it. But I certainly don’t strive to be personally happy. I only want to be understood. But of myself – as a person – people should take no notice. (Berlin, 14 February 1904)
I have contemplated this many times and have come to the following understanding…
Happiness is the emotional response we experience due to (pleasurable) sensory stimulation. In short, when we “get what we want” out of what the material world has available for us to experience.
Joy, however, is that which we experience on such a (deeper) level that brings us closer to the gods, the the Creator God, following the precept, “Be perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect,” shared by the Christ in His Beatitudes (Matthew 5:48).
Happiness is temporary and all so often too misleading. Joy, true Joy, changes, enlightens, strengthens the soul.
May we all reach for Joy in our life and be more discriminating regarding that which makes us “happy.”