RELIGION AND HAPPINESS: –

There is now extensive research suggesting that religious people are happier and less stressed. There are a number of mechanisms through which religion may make a person happier, including social contact and support that result learned coping strategies that enhance one’s ability to deal with from religious pursuits, the mental activity that comes with optimism and volunteering, stress, and psychological factors such as “reason for being.” It may also be that religious people engage in behaviors related to good health, such as less substance abuse, since the use of psychotropic substances is sometimes considered abuse.

The Legatum Prosperity Index reflects the repeated finding of research on the science of happiness that there is a positive link between religious engagement and wellbeing: people who report that GOD is very important in their lives are on average more satisfied with their lives, after accounting for their income, age and other individual characteristics.

Happiness vs. Religion: –Religious people are less stressed and happier than non-believers – WHY?

Some studies show that religion buffers its adherents from worry. Religious people are less depressed, less anxious and less suicidal than nonreligious people. And they are better able to cope with such crises as illness, divorce and bereavement.

Studies also show that the more a believer incorporates religion into daily living-attending services, reading scriptures, praying – the better off he or she appears to be on two measures of happiness: frequency of positive emotions and overall sense of satisfaction with life. Attending services has a particularly strong correlation to feeling happy, and religious certainty – the sense of unshakable faith in God and truth of one’s beliefs – is more closely linked with life satisfaction.

We know that religion’s benefits can be divided into following four areas:

1. Social support – Religion, after all, derives from the Latin Religion friends and community, clergy and congregation.

2. Spiritual support – If you believe there is GOD watching out, for you, which is profoundly comforting. It is the grand scale equivalent of thinking, if I can’t pay my rent at the end of the month, my dad will help.

3. A sense of purpose and meaning – Doing good works through acts of charity or prayer and meditation, provides another sense of connection to community for many believers. That is a key factor in Buddhism’s capacity to foster happiness. A person might emulate the Buddha by imagining he’s breathing in the suffering of others and breathing out energy to heal them.

4. The avoidance of risky and stressful behaviors. – In a national study of thousands of adolescents, it was found that teens who attend less misunderstood and guilty and more cared for than their non religious peers. People can benefit from spirituality without subscribing to a particular doctrine.

Definition of Happiness:

Happiness is a mental or emotional state of well-being characterized by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy.

Various research groups, including Positive psychology, endeavor to apply the scientific method to answer questions about what “happiness” is, and how we might attain it.

Philosophers and religious thinkers often define happiness in terms of living a good life, or flourishing, rather than simply as an emotion.

Happiness economics suggests that measures of public happiness should be used to supplement more traditional economic measures when evaluating the success of public policy.

Happiness is a fuzzy concept and can mean many things to many people. Part of the challenge of a science of happiness is to identify different concepts of happiness, and where applicable, split them into their components.

Money doesn’t buy much happiness unless it’s used in certain ways. “Beyond the point at which people have enough to comfortably feed, clothe, and house themselves, having more money – even a lot more money – makes them only a little bit happier.” However we can sometimes get more happiness bang for our buck by spending it in prosocial ways. A Harvard Business School study found that “spending money on others actually makes us happier than spending it on ourselves”.

Psychologist Martin Seligman provides the acronym PERMA to summarize Positive Psychology’s correlational findings: humans seem happiest when they have

1. Pleasure (tasty foods, warm baths, etc.),

2. Engagement (or flow, the absorption of an enjoyed yet challenging activity),

3. Relationships (social ties have turned out to be extremely reliable indicator

of happiness),

1. Meaning (a perceived quest or belonging to something bigger), and

2. Accomplishments (having realized tangible goals).

Sociologists define happiness as the degree to which person evaluates the overall quality of his present life as a whole positively. In other words how much a person likes life he or she leads.

By happiness I mean here a deep sense of flourishing that arises from an exceptionally healthy mind. This is not a mere pleasurable feeling, a fleeting emotion, or a mood but an optimal state of being. The person feels in harmony with the world and the self.

Real happiness is the state of lasting well-being that manifests itself when we have freed ourselves of mental blindness and afflictive emotions. It is also the wisdom that allows us to see the world as it is, without veils or distortions. It is finally the joy of moving toward inner freedom and the loving kindness that radiates towards others. Ignorance is an inability to recognize the true nature of things and of the law of cause and effect that governs happiness and suffering.

WHAT IS HAPPINESS?

1. The quality or state of being happy.

2. Good fortune; pleasure; contentment; joy.

3. Pleasure, joy, exhilaration, bliss, contentedness, delight, enjoyment, satisfaction.

4. Happiness, bliss, contentment, felicity, imply an active or passive state of pleasure or pleasurable satisfaction.

5. Happiness – results from the possession or attainment of what one considers good: the happiness of visiting one’s family.

6. Bliss – is pure or absolute happiness or supreme delight: the bliss of perfect companionship.

7. Contentment – is a peaceful kind of happiness in which one rests without desires, even though every wish may not have been gratified: contentment in one’s surroundings.

8. Felicity – is a formal word for happiness of an especially fortunate or intense kind: to wish a young couple felicity (pleasure) in life.

9. It is a state of well being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy.

10. It is emotions experienced when in a state of well-being.

11. It is a feeling the experiencing of effective and emotional state.

12. It is enjoying or showing or marked by joy or pleasure.

13. Whereas Unhappiness is experiencing or marked by or causing sadness or sorrow or discontentment.

 

TRUMP VS. Dr. MARTIN LUTHER KING Jr. (MLK)

	BODY-CONSCIOUSNESS	SOUL-CONSCIOUSNESS
	TRUMP	MLK
DISCUSSION	VIOLENT & UNTRUTHFUL	NON-VIOLENT & TRUTHFUL
	TRUMP	MLK
AWARENESS	I am the boss here; I know more than everyone here. After all, that is why I am the boss.	I am a spiritual being; I have to play out a role of responsibility. Each of my employees has his/her own specific role.
	TRUMP	MLK
THOUGHT	They should listen to me. After all I am the one who pays their salaries.	Let me listen to their suggestions. Perhaps we can improve something.
	TRUMP	MLK
DECISION	I will show them who is the boss here.	Let me understand each of their specialties.
	TRUMP	MLK
ACTION	The boss shouts and argues with them.	A two-way dialogue ensues.
	TRUMP	MLK
RESULT	Ill-feeling between boss and employees.	Respect and a climate of trust are maintained.

TRUMP = Body Consciousness –Desire, Anger, Greed, Attachment, Ego, = Sorrow

MLK = Soul Consciousness – Peace, Knowledge, Love, Purity, Bliss, = Happiness