Top 5 Tips for Living a Happy Life by Enlightened Masters

“Living in the moment with joy, alertness, awareness and compassion is enlightenment. Being like a child is enlightenment. It is being free from within, feeling at home with everybody, without barriers.” – Sri Sri Ravishankar

Spirituality in it’s essence means man’s quest for happiness. In that respect, enlightened people are the ones who have achieved a PhD in happiness. Enlightenment comes when a person has tasted immortal bliss. While looking for answers about happiness, who else is more suited than the enlightened beings themselves, for guiding us in living a happy life ? Therefore in this article we look at top 5 tips for living a happy life, by enlightened masters themselves.

Before we dwell deep into the the tips about happiness, let me mention that these teachings are quite profound. Hence, I urge you to re read them and reflect on them to truly realize what the masters want to teach you, so that you can effectively apply them for living a happy life. Having said that, I shall now leave you alone with the wisdom of the enlightened masters.

1.  “Your first and foremost responsibility in life, is to be joyful” – Sadhguru

“When you were a child you were simply happy. That is your nature. If you go against your own nature to be happy, you will never get anywhere. To be happy is not the ultimate aspect of life. It is the fundamental aspect of life. If you are not happy, what else can you do with your life? Only if you are happy, can other great possibilities arise in your life.

“The first and most fundamental responsibility for a human being is to become a joyous being. It does not matter what you are pursuing in your life, whether it is business, power, education or service, you are doing so because somewhere deep inside you is a feeling that this will bring you happiness. Every single action that we perform on this planet springs from an aspiration to be happy because it is the original nature.

“The source of joy is within you; you can take charge of it. When you are fundamentally joyous, when you do not have to do anything to be happy, then every dimension of your life – the way you perceive and express yourself and the world – will change. You will no longer have vested interests because whether you do something or you do not do something, whether you get something or do not get something, whether something happens or does not happen, you will be joyous by your nature. When you are joyous by your nature, your actions will rise to a completely different level.

“The quality of your life is not determined by the clothes that you wear, the educational qualifications that you carry, the family background that you come from or the bank balances that you hold. Rather, the quality of your life depends upon how peaceful and joyous you are within yourself.

“Unless something of true value happens within you, you cannot do anything of tremendous value to the world. Whatever you do, it is only your inner quality that you are going to spread. Whether you like it or not, that is the reality. If you are concerned about the world, the first thing you must do is transform yourself into a joyous being.”

2.  How to get rid off depression and live a happy life again : Sri Sri Ravishankar

“Lack of idealism is the main cause of depression among young people today. Life appears to be so meaningless to these children, who are either too scared of the competitive world or bogged down by heavy stimuli. They need inspiration, and spirituality is that inspiration that can keep the spirit up.

“Depression sets in, if there is a lack of zeal to fight. Aggression is the antidote to depression. Depression is lack of energy; anger and aggression are bolts of energy.

“When Arjuna was depressed, Krishna inspired him to fight and thus reinstated life back into him. If you are depressed, do not take Prozac (an anti-depressant) – just fight for any cause.”

3. “Your source of unhappiness is, your identification with that which you are not” – Sadhguru

“After doing all that you are doing, if happiness is not happening, somewhere the fundamentals of life have been missed. When you were a child, you were simply happy. Without doing anything, you were happy. Then somewhere along the way, you lost this. Why did you lose it? You got deeply identified with many things around you, your body, your mind. What you call as your mind is actually just the stuff that you have picked up from social situations around you. Depending upon what kind of society you have been exposed to, that is the kind of mind you have acquired.

“Everything in your mind right now is something you picked up from outside. This nonsense did not come with you; you picked it up and got identified with it. You got so identified with it that now it is causing you misery. You can collect any kind of garbage you want, it is okay. As long as you are not identified with it, there is no problem. This body is not yours; you have picked it up from the earth. You were born with a tiny body which your parents gave you. After that, you ate plants and animals and grew. You borrowed it from the earth; it is not yours. You have to use it for a while, so enjoy it and go. But you have become so deeply identified with it that you think that this is you. No wonder you are suffering. The basis of all this misery is that you have established yourself in untruth. You are deeply identified with that which you are not.

Discard what you are not, to find everlasting happiness in life

” The whole process of spirituality is only to dis-identify with that which you are not. When you do not know what you really are, can you search for it? If you search, only your imagination will run wild. If you start thinking, “Who am I?”, someone will tell you that you are God’s child. Someone else will tell you that you are the devil’s child. Someone might tell you something else. It is just endless beliefs, and imagination runs wild. The only thing that you can do is that whatever you are not, start discounting that. When everything is discounted, there is something which cannot be discounted. When you arrive at that, you will see that there is no reason for misery in this world.”

4. “Realize that you are a Himalayan Musk Deer” – Paramhansa Yogananda

“The fabled musk deer searches the world over for the source of the scent which comes from itself.” – Shri Ramakrishna Pramhans

“Musk is a kind of valuable, extremely fragrant salve found in the navel of the musk deer, a habitant of the highest Himalayan Hills of India. At a certain age, the ravishing odor of musk secretly oozes out of the navel of the musk deer. The deer becomes excited at the attractive odor of musk and frisks about, sniffing under trees, and searching everywhere for many weeks to find the source of the fragrance. Finally he grows angry and very restless when he is unable to find the source of the musk perfume, and jumps from the high cliffs into the valley, trying to reach the source of the rare fragrance, and thus plunges to death. It is then that the hunters get hold of him and tear out the pouch of musk.

“A divine Bard once sang: ‘O you foolish musk deer, you sought for the fragrance everywhere but in your own body. That is why you did not find it. If you only had touched your nostrils to your own navel, you would have found the cherished musk and would have saved yourself from suicide on the rocks below.’

“Don’t you think that most people act like the musk deer? As they grow, they seek the ever-fragrant happiness everywhere outside of themselves – in play, temptation, human love, and on the slippery path of wealth, until finally they jump from the cliff of high hope onto the rocks of disillusionment when they cannot find the real happiness which lies hidden within the secret recesses of their own Souls.

“If only you would turn your mind inward, in deep daily meditation, you would find the source of all true, lasting happiness existing right within the innermost silence of your own Soul. Don’t be like the musk deer and perish seeking false happiness in the wrong place. Beloved seekers of happiness awake and try to find your happiness within the cave of deep contemplation.”

5. “To be happy, you need to stop running ” – Osho