My original intention was to write about how one can show gratitude for whatever happens – good or bad. Then a realization came that it is one’s sense of happiness that determines how grateful one feels.
And it matters little as to whom we direct our gratitude to: be it God, the Absolute, our friend, employer, spouse or a stranger. To be happy is our single most important raison d’être.
Globally, on Google alone, people search online for “happy happy” (yes, they want it doubled) more than 20,400,000 times, and for “happiness” more than 3,350,000 a month.
It only reflects the fact that gratitude originates from happiness, and those still searching feel probably nothing to be grateful for. So let’s talk about what happiness is, and how to have it in abundance.

To make our investigation more meaningful, let’s approach the issue for the perspective of what I call a “spiritual happiness”. By doing so, we’ll talk in the language we understand, free from the distortions of the “commercially induced” sense of joy, exuberance and excitement. The happiness we’re trying to reach is of the kind that Avatars and enlightened spiritual teachers refer to as bliss. In other words, the sense of peace and contentment made permanent by reaching Enlightenment, and momentarily experienced by some of us during the spiritual journey. As we struggle to break up the veil of illusion and reach the Self, remembering the words of Realized Masters offers hope and motivation to keep going. And when we feel not advancing and lost, heeding Nisargadatta Maharaj’s words will brighten our horizon: “Don’t feel lost. I only say that to find the immutable and blissful you must give up your hold on the mutable and painful. You are concerned with your own happiness and I am telling you there is no such thing. Happiness is never your own, it is where the ‘I’ is not. I do not say it is beyond your reach; you have only to reach beyond yourself, and you’ll find it.”
Sure, the price is high – giving up one’s ‘I’, but the reward…

When there’s no ‘I’ there’s nobody to be hurt, and nothing to hurt you, for you are All. You are the smallest speck of dust and the hand of your enemy that struck you. Aloof and silent, you are one with the Absolute.
Why then would you feel unhappy when “things were not going your way”?
Maharaj confirms that which you should know, and live by already: “Things happen as they happen; blame and praise are apportioned later, after the sense of doership appearing.” Yes, this is the hardest thing to accept.
Our egos will not renounce their power over us easily. Quite to the contrary: the ego will tell you to try harder, to strive more, to put forward a greater effort. In reality, all is set up for you and I. And if you’re thinking right now that you may as well give up, this too is a part of the “setup”.
Said Ramana Maharshi: “In accordance with the prarabdha of each, the One whose function it is to ordain makes each to act. What will not happen will never happen, whatever effort one may put forth. And what will happen will not fail to happen, however much one may seek to prevent it. This is certain. The part of wisdom therefore is to stay quiet.”

Do you see now, how flawed our sense of happiness is? To be happy, all it takes is to stop desiring for what you don’t have (what is outside of you) and accept what you have. By going outside of yourself in search of happiness you’re giving up your royal crown and accept beggar’s garb. You carry on begging the illusory world for more of illusion.
Look within and you’ll realize that there’s nothing to seek. Realization that you are THAT is the greatest gift and a source of happiness a human can receive. You know, form the spiritual masters’ testimony, that once you’ve heard of Enlightenment, it is only a matter of time… Make the waiting short!