We have hundreds of definitions of “happiness” described by philosophers, spiritual teachers, writers and regular people. Thanks to our advanced technologies we have discovered “happiness” hormones and can now monitor and register the brain activity of a happy person, to see how it works. We have surrounded ourselves with fancy gadgets that make our life more comfortable and more enjoyable. We have even invented new chemical substances that put us in a state of ecstasy and temporary bliss.

And yet we do not seem to get any happier! Sure, sometimes we feel happy and excited. But there are also moments when we are deeply unhappy, angry or hurt. It seems that technological progress and scientific discoveries has not gotten us even one step closer to the state of blissful unconditional happiness.

I recently found a description of happiness written over 5 thousand years ago in Vedas, an ancient books of wisdom and spiritual knowledge left by the Indo-Aryan civilization.

Wise men of ancient times identified 3 different types of happiness:

It is basically a misery hidden under the mask of happiness. How is this possible? Have you ever seen a movie that was so stupid to the point of being funny? Or looked at a French bulldog with his flat face, snub nose, short stumpy legs and thought, “Why this dog is so ugly it’s cute!”? As paradoxical as it may sound two extremes are sometimes easy to confuse. A lot of people look at their lives and get some weird and unexplainable satisfaction out of their misery.

I was watching a TV show last night where they took a homeless person off the street, washed him, dressed him in new stylish clothes, gave him a good-looking hair cut, shaved off his long beard and made him a new Identity card, so that he could find a job and stop living on the street. When the poor man finally saw himself in a mirror he started crying. Only they were not tears of happiness.

What he said shocked everyone, “No one will give me any money for a month now! I am going to lose my spot by the church on Sundays!” He did not need a “normal” life and a regular job. He was happy with his old lifestyle.

Forced happiness is when a person convinces themself that they are happy, even though no one else would agree with this statement. Forced happiness is the most harmful type, because all of the energy is spent convincing yourself how happy you are and ignoring those who tell you that you must change something about your life.