WHAT IS HAPPINESS?

 

WHAT IS HAPPINESS?

            Happiness is “an emotional state of mind marked by feelings of joy, satisfaction, and inner peace. “.

            Readers may have seen unhappy wealthy men and happy poor men. Health is not on sale in the market. It is one’s personal commodity.  

            Good men who abide by cardinal virtues and refrain from deadly sins always feel happy.

            To be happy one has to choose such activities as give him natural joy. So there are many different means of happiness. We have seen unhappy great scholars and quite happy ignorant persons

            An old proverb says: Where ignorance is bliss, it is folly to be wise.

            Some synonyms of happiness are: joy, cheerfulness, elation, ecstasy, bliss, high spirits, euphoria, thrill, to be on cloud, and to be on top of the world.  

            According to Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) true happiness does not come from obtaining what one likes. It comes from cultivating a liking for what one dislikes.  

            The English poet S.T. Coleridge (1772-1834) said: Happiness can be built only on virtue, and must of necessity have truth for its foundation.

            Saint Augustine (13 November 354 -28 August 430) observed: Happiness consists in the attainment of our desires, and in our having only right desires.  

            The English novelist Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)  said in his famous novel The Mayor of Casterbridge :

            Happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain.   

            Finally, look at the following quote by the most prominent English romantic poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861 ):

            The Greeks said grandly in their tragic phrase, “Let no one be called happy till his death; to which I would add, “Let no one, till his death, be called unhappy.”

                                                            ******

G.R. Kanwal

11 November 2026

 

 

 

EVERFRESH QUOTES

 

                EVERFRESH  QUOTES

            We are born in a world of conflicts, differences, injustice, inequalities, good and evil, belief and disbelief, love and hatred, high and low, truth and falsehood, greed and contentment, godliness and ungodliness.

            There is a lot of convincing truth in religious texts yet they become bones of contention.

            However, there are great poets whose ideas are universal as well as eternal.

            Here are some quotes from such poets for your objective study. You are not bound to accept them as they are stated. Feel free to disagree if you think you should do so.  

* I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us , do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by a Christian example? Why, revenge. --------From Act 3, Sc.1. from the play  of William Shakespeare (!564-1616) The Merchant of Venice.

**  REMEMBER, no men are strange, no countries foreign,

Beneath all uniforms, a single body breathes

Like ours; the land our brothers walk upon

Is earth like this, in which we all shall lie.

 

They, too, aware of sun and air and water,

Are fed by peaceful harvests, by war’s long winter starv’d.

Their hands are ours, and in their lines we read

A labour not different from our own,

 

Remember they have eyes like ours that wake

Or sleep, and strength that can be won

By love. In every land is common life

They all can recognize and understand.  -------From ‘No Men Are Foreign’ written by the English poet James Kirkup (1918-2009).

 

*** The sea of Faith

Was once too, at the full and round earth’s shore

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl’d.

But now I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,

Retreating, to the breath

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear

And naked shingles of the world.

 

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another ! for the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help, nor pains,

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and fight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.------From Dover Beach, a poem written by the English poet and critic Matthew Arnold (1822-88).

 

                                                            ******

                       

G.R. Kanwal

10   November 2026

 

 

                                                                       

UNFORGETTABLE GUIDELINES

 

                          UNFORGETTABLE GUIDELINES

            ‘Unforgettable guidelines” are morally sound. They are not short-lived for temporary gains. Their validity is everlasting. They have an essence of divinity in them. We can call them eternal virtues or immortal values. They can be defeated in any situation but not substantially and perpetually. Their failure is ephemeral. For example, truth can be  beaten but not killed. It continues to survive so long as God is there as the ruler of the world.

            Here is a short list of such guidelines found in great writers’ books.

1.     Return good for evil.

2.     Forgiveness is the noblest form of punishment.

3.     Conquer anger by the power of non-anger and evil by the power of good.

4.     The power of good must prove its truth and strength by its fearlessness, by its refusal to accept any imposition, which depends for its success upon its power to produce frightfulness and is not ashamed to use is its machines of destruction to terrorize a people completely disarmed.

5.       Moral conquest does not always consist in success because failure does not deprive it of its dignity and worth.

6.      Pray to God to give you the faith of love, the faith of the life in death, of the victory in defeat, of the power hidden in the frailness of beauty, of the dignity of pain that accepts hurt, but disdains to return it. ,    

7.     Nothing is impossible for a true devotee who is ever absorbed in God.

8.     Without devotion, action, and knowledge are cold and dry, and may even become shackles,

9.     The faith in one’s ideals constitutes true life: in fact, it is man’s all in all.

10.                         Modesty and humility nourish man and make for his growth.

11.                          To be happy, the temperament must be cheerful and gay, not gloomy and melancholy.

12.                         A quiet conscience makes one perfectly serene.

13.                         Candour is the brightest gem of criticism.

14.                        Blessings always wait on virtuous deeds.

15.                         A blush is the colour of virtue.

                                                            ****

G. R. Kanwal

9 November 2026            

 

 

 

SOME RANDOM THOUGHTS

 

SOME RANDOM THOUGHTS

1.    Today, India as also other countries, are celebrating the ‘Festival of Lights’. It is an auspicious day, a day of greeting each other, offering gifts and also blessings for happiness and material prosperity.

There will be light in every home. In India a sacred city called Ayodhya has been illuminated with thirty lakhs earthen lamps.

However, this night of illumination with such a huge number of earthly lamps is a temporary phenomenon. It will not fill the hearts of celebrators with unending light till the next year’s similar celebration. That requires the development of spiritual light which refuses to fade away.

2.    Obstinate are the trammels, but my heart aches when I try to break them. Freedom is all I want, but to hope for it I feel ashamed. ….The shroud that covers me is a shroud of dust and death; I hate it, yet hug it in love.-----Indian poet and polymath Rabindranath Tagore.

3.    Values have natural and logical origins. They are interdependent and interrelated in logical, hierarchal systems. These systems, and the perturbations thereof, ought to be subject to study and analysis and perhaps prediction and even some experimentation on a model basis these days, with computer assistance.

4.    Science tells us free will is just an illusion and gives us, instead, casual determinism.

5.    Science can be accused of having deprived the thinking man of his Father in heaven, along with heaven itself.

6.    Remember, no men are strange, no countries foreign

  Beneath all uniforms, a single body breathes

Like ours; the land our brothers walk upon

Is earth like this, in which we all shall lie.

 

They, too, aware of sun and air and water,

Are fed by peaceful harvests, by war’s long winter starv’s.

Their hands are ours, and in their lines we read

A labour not different from our own.----The English poet James Kirkup.

 

7.    It is a shameful thing to be weary of inquiry when what we search for is excellent.

8.    Unstained thoughts do seldom dream an evil. ---English poet, playwright, and actor William Shakespeare (1564-1616).

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G. R. Kanwal

8 November 2026

 

 

THERE SHOULD BE LIGHT WITHIN

 

                THERE SHOULD BE LIGHT WITHIN

            Darkness and light coexist in this world. Day represents light, night signifies darkness. Both make the full circle.

            Day is exertion, night is rest and relaxation. Day is reality, night a sort of dream. Day is long, night is short.

            Man has devised artificial sources of light to change night into day, but has also suffered by violating nature’s  eternal law. A sleepless night is the cause of several diseases. Those who do not relax at night, have to do sleep  during the day.

            Symbolically, darkness is vicious; light is virtuous. Various religions regard pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, anger, and lethargy as the result of  man’s spiritual darkness. On the contrary. Prudence, justice, courage, moderation, faith, hope, and love are his virtuous light.

            To remove inner darkness you do not require the light of earthen lamps or any other such device as for example wax candles.

             Lord Buddha found everlasting enlightenment not from lamps but from moral virtues. He removed the inner darkness which almost every human being develops while staying in this world.

             Light is a metaphor for knowledge, understanding, truth, spirituality, goodness, beauty, love, charity, etc. Darkness is a metaphor for ignorance,  evil,  sin, moral corruption, lust, vicious desires, arrogance, etc.

              Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) said: We all have within us the forces of light and darkness working side by side. Therefore, mental agony is inevitable. But this need not frighten us. Sustained resistance will defeat the forces of darkness in the end. But we must remain confident in our hearts that it is our sacred duty to strengthen the forces of light.  

            He also said: When a man’s mind is filled with the Light of Heaven, all obstacles in his path fade away.

            In conclusion, here are a few lines by the Indian writer, polymath,  statesman and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941):

            Light, oh where is the light ? Kindle it with the burning fire of desire!

There is the lamp but never a flicker of a flame ---is such thy fate, my heart? Ah, death  were better by far for thee! Misery knocks at thy door, and her message is that thy Lord is wakeful, and he calls thee to the love-tryst through the darkness of night.

The night is black as a black stone. Let not the hours pass by in the dark.

Kindle the love of lamp with thy life.

                                                            *******

G. R. Kanwal

7 November 2026

 

 

 

LIGHT

 

                LIGHT

            Thank God that He has illuminated this world with light. The morning sun, the evening moon, and the nocturnal stars enable humans as also non-humans to live and work comfortably all through their existence.

            Some synonyms of light are: illumination, brightness, blaze, radiance, luminosity.

            Besides the sun, the moon, and the stars there are glowworms that provide light at night.

            Artificial sources of light are: candle, torch, lantern, taper, and lamp.

            Some words staring or ending with ‘light’ are: lighthouse, lightweight, lightyear, sunlight, moonlight, flashlight, headlight, streetlight, spotlight, twilight, candlelight, and daylight.

             The word light is also used as a symbol or  metaphor of: truth, knowledge, intelligence, insight, clarity, spirituality, hope,  goodness, enlightenment, wisdom, philosophy, holiness, moral illumination, etc.  

            God called the light “day”.

            Jesus said about himself : “I am the light of the world”.

            A few important antonyms of light are : dark, dim, dusky, black,  swarthy, opaque, depressed, dejected, dispirited, discouraged and disheartened.   

            Here are some literary quotes about light:

*Hail, holy light, offspring of heaven, firstborn. ----English poet John Milton.

*The first creation of God, in the works of the days, was the light of sense; the last was the light of reason; and his Sabbath work, ever since, is the illumination of the spirit. ---English jurist and essayist Francis Bacon.

*Light is the symbol of truth. ---The United States poet and Ambassador to the United Kingdom.

*Light is the shadow of God.---Greek philosopher Plato.

*The light of nature, the light of science, and the light of reason, are but as darkness, compared with the divine light which shines only from the word of God.---American historian John R. Lord.

            Finally, the Indian festival Deepavali (The Festival of Lights} which will be celebrated this year on 8^th November is the symbol of victory of good over evil.                                  

G.R. Kanwal

6  November 2026

 

IDEAS

 

                IDEAS

1.     Castles built in the air remain in the air.

2.     Pleasant dreams taste sweeter than bitter realities.

3.     Silence can be more meaningful than speech.

4.     Words are like eatables, don’t make them bitter.

5.     Ability is a poor man’s wealth.

6.     Gray hairs deserve to be respected.

7.     Pride ultimately breeds humility.

8.     All men are brothers, and all women sisters.

9.     Spirituality is the  greatest source mental peace.

10.                         Poetry is a lyrical expression of emotions and ideas.

11.                        God is always around us.

12.                         Somebody rightly said that it is right to be contented with what we have, but never with what we are.

13.                         Goods and chattels are temporary assets.

14.                         Idleness is a major cause of physical and mental suffering.

15.                         Man is never alone, he is always surrounded by thoughts and ideas.

16.                         Kindness is a language  which even the dumb can speak.

17.                          Practice makes man perfect.

18.                         According to the English poet Lord Byron (1788-1824) man is half dust, half deity, alike unfit to sink or soar.

19.                         Love tries man in many ways.

20.                          Mahatma Gandhi said:  evenmindedness is the best of all knowledge.

                                                ****

G.R.Kanwal

5 November 2026