What's the difference between love and happiness?

[arpee]

What's the difference between loving something and being happy about something? Or showing someone my love or making someone happy? Is love and happiness the same thing? They feel the same.


"I feel happy about my life" feels the same as "I love my life".

[momo3bur]

Hmm...I don't know. Maybe it just depends on the person doing the loving or the happiness...ing.

[RonSouther]

Originally Posted by arpee

What's the difference between loving something and being happy about something? Or showing someone my love or making someone happy? Is love and happiness the same thing? They feel the same.


"I feel happy about my life" feels the same as "I love my life".

That's an excellent question. I really love these word comparisons because in them exists a paradox which is why they are so dumbfounding.

Happiness is a state of your mind. Unhappiness is the opposite state. When life is going according to the plans of your mind, you're happy. And when it seems like nothing is going your way, you are unhappy.

Happiness and unhappiness are emotions created by the mind and provide essentially a visual indicator to those around you of your state of mind. When you're happy, it shows! When you're unhappy, it shows too.

The mind is creating all of this.

Love is an essence of your being. Love has nothing to do with the mind. The mind is a tool, where love is your fragrance, if you will. Think of a flower...it gives and gives beauty to the world around it without asking or requiring anything of those that enjoy it. That's the quality of real love.

If you don't feel loving in general, I will bet you're still trying to figure how to be happy? And I'm guessing that in those "happy" moments, you feel loving? Can that be the association between love and happiness?

Look inside and see if you can see this. You've got an energy in life. When you're stuck on a problem, that energy is consumed by your mind and just by thinking, you will eventually run out of energy. And compare that to your energy when you're happy....do you see that your demeanor, your words, and your actions are a gift on others instead of a load on others?

In happy moments, your mind is at rest and that energy is now available to share with others. Your mind is trying to figure out how to create more happy moments not understanding that the real happiness isn't something the mind can secure for you. It's what happens when you live your life harmoniously which means you're creating the fewest problems for yourself.

Live in tension with your true nature and you're giving your mind a never ending workload of trying to fix the mess you're creating and allowing others to create in your life.

Just one scan through the newpapers is a testimony of how we create so many problems. The articles are either about the problems we created trying to recreate the world our way or what we are trying now to fix the problem.

Once you can see that "the pursuit of happiness" is driving your unhappiness, you realize that there is nothing to pursue. To realize a real love of life, you simply then let go, allowing your natural talents and interests to guide you in life, not dogmas and fads which are both beliefs systems.

The mind is logic and it's greedy to solve the problems logically...THAT'S the nature of the mind. But that is not your nature. Logic is not life.

[arpee]

I love what you said but I'd like to add my perspective to the happiness/unhappy things.

You can still be happy even when everything is not going your way. For some reason, people choose to be unhappy when things aren't going their way instead of looking through a different perspective to be happy. People say themselves "I won't be happy unless this happens" so when it doesn't, they stop themselves from being happy, which is silly. Happiness is an emotion, you can choose to feel it any time you desire.

That's why we have a mind, we can think more happy things and we can also dream...

[RonSouther]

Originally Posted by arpee

That's why we have a mind, we can think more happy things and we can also dream...

You're absolutely right! BUT!!

To make your mind happy is to miss life.

To be in this moment is to drop the mind altogether. When time is flying by, when you're simply being you, no self-consciousness, and no concern about the mind, happy or unhappy. You're not even thinking, you're just enjoying!

For that, mind games won't work. For that, you have to grow out of your beliefs including ego. You have to face all your fears and so on.

The world is a marketplace of stuff to get happy. Love is beyond all of that.

[arpee]

Originally Posted by RonSouther

You're absolutely right! BUT!!

To make your mind happy is to miss life.

To be in this moment is to drop the mind altogether. When time is flying by, when you're simply being you, no self-consciousness, and no concern about the mind, happy or unhappy. You're not even thinking, you're just enjoying!

For that, mind games won't work. For that, you have to grow out of your beliefs including ego. You have to face all your fears and so on.

The world is a marketplace of stuff to get happy. Love is beyond all of that.

Whether you're thinking of the past, present, of future, you're doing it now.

[SkylightMT]

I think the problem with the word "love" is that it has several definitions.

One of those definitions includes the feeling of happiness ("I love ice cream") or appreciation ("I love it when I experience X").

Some definitions of love are behavioral, not based on feelings. You can be feeling angry but still do the right thing for your misbehaving child, for example.

[Arcanum]

When you love someone, happiness is generally implied (though not necessarily), but you can be happy about lots of things that have nothing to do with loving anybody.

[Apopohis Reject]

Originally Posted by SkylightMT

I think the problem with the word "love" is that it has several definitions.

Indeed, although I would take it further - the problem with 'love' is that it has no valid, consistently verifiable definition - not a single one. Yet amazingly everyone KNOWS what it is without doubt!

Excuse me? How does that work again????

Well, it simply can't. Only a consistent, common and verifiable definition can possibly correct such an unbelievably disproportionate imbalance for us.

Originally Posted by SkylightMT

One of those definitions includes the feeling of happiness ("I love ice cream") or appreciation ("I love it when I experience X").

This cannot possibly be 'love', for 'love' is (at least) a far more enduring commodity than an incredibly whimsical, transient hue; such as I 'love' that ice-cream immediately prior to, and whilst eating it, but upon completion I look for the next thing to 'love'.

Originally Posted by SkylightMT

Some definitions of love are behavioral, not based on feelings. You can be feeling angry but still do the right thing for your misbehaving child, for example.

Getting closer now, IMO. Encouragement to you in continuing the search, SkylightMT.

[RonSouther]

Originally Posted by arpee

Whether you're thinking of the past, present, of future, you're doing it now.

When you think of the past or of the future, you're missing the now or the "oneness with God" that you mention in your signature. Free of thought, the beauty of nature fills you, including of your own nature.

An example is when you are talking away with someone....how much of nature do you really notice? You know the world is there but don't you feel like your attention is on your thoughts. Try it one time...chatter away while in the woods or around sunset then stop, then notice how your senses fill up with granduer around you. In the chattering you miss "God"

[Apopohis Reject]

Originally Posted by RonSouther

When you think of the past or of the future, you're missing the now

Quite right, yet there is a little more to this, as I see it....

ONLY the momentary 'now' exists...ooops no it doesn't, it's already gone - and the same occurs constantly, because as soon as 'now' is, in less than one quadrillionth of a second hence, it is no longer, for it's already in the past. So the past has ceased to exist, so doesn't - constantly, yet the future hasn't yet entered existence, so also doesn't (yet) exist.

This is according the illusion of time; a human construct that does NOT exist in any realm apart from man's imagination, yes even if we constantly refer to it like it's the most essential reality within reality.

Indeed yet another recipe for cognitive dissonance right there, further compromising a mental integrity already dealing with all kinds of this disease, in a world full of such. But there is more to come in this wondrous entanglement of complexity.

So now, here is the really intriguing thing about this. In the science of quantum mechanics, we find a well recognised concept that scientists have reportedly struggled in coming to terms with. It is referred to as; 'ENTANGLEMENT', and re. our human consciousness, here's how it works ......

Despite common (mis)belief, we quite patently CANNOT relate to the 'now', simply because effectually, it doesn't exist at all in any way possible. Indeed 'now' is so fleeting, we didn't even notice it came and went a million times while we blinked our eyes. So ultimately we can truly only relate ourselves towards - the past, or the future - despite neither existing right 'now'. Ooops another one gone...and another.

Furthermore, and here comes an obvious yet seriously amazingly dimension to this - the nature of this kind of relationship is that we simply cannot relate to both directions at the same time (if such existed), so we are necessarily, constantly required to make a CHOICE for one or the other. It's like I'm walking along the road, so how can I be also walking in the opposite direction? I'm forced to CHOOSE which direction, or die where I stand having gone nowhere.

So much for the tabernacle choir from the NO-CHOICE-ISM congregation.

If we realised we were constantly making this CHOICE, we'd all naturally like to focus our attention towards the future rather than the past. Yet that is *IF* we knew of this dynamic of quantum entanglement. However we do not, so we imagine, invent all kinds of tangential delusions to cope with this intrinsic dissonance.

On the other hand (now for the sting in the tail); if we actually knew about this absolute necessity of choice re. focus, it wouldn't change very much at all for us. For by default; the way we favour relating to our existence, rather than objectively, is through our subjectivity, which is in turn predicated upon our emotions.

Now our dilemma increases exponentially, for we have no way of relating to the future emotionally, unless we defer our emotions towards the past.

So despite our favouring a focus towards the future, our subjective resonance with our existence, leaves us no alternative than to turn away from the future in focusing upon an ENTANGLEMENT with the past.

So I hear someone asking "Is there a solution for us with regards this inherent dilemma, dissonance and dog's breakfast?"

Great question. Indeed, absolutely there is a solution, yet how are we going to so much as look for it, when we struggle to recognise even the first dimension to this mind-boggling puzzle - that time is illusory, it doesn't in fact exist?

**Whew!** Any wonder that scientists struggle with this? I think not.

[Arz Sra]

Originally Posted by arpee

What's the difference between loving something and being happy about something? Or showing someone my love or making someone happy? Is love and happiness the same thing? They feel the same.


"I feel happy about my life" feels the same as "I love my life".

Being happy about something means that something is in the condition that makes you happy. your happiness is conditioned to certain situation.

Being in love with something means , that something is in the condition that makes your love flow towards it. your flow of love is again conditioned to certain situation.

Love and happiness are two different states of being. Like being angry and being happy are two different states..

the word 'about'/'with' is a pointer to conditional states.. you cannot be just happy.. you have to be happy ABOUT something.. you cannot be just in love.. you have to be in love WITH something..

Being happy and being in love are different.. they can occur simultaneously tough..

[RonSouther]

Apo,

Only the now exists.....and we have memories and projections....

[Apopohis Reject]

Originally Posted by RonSouther

Apo,

Only the now exists.....and we have memories and projections....

Well Ron, that is PRECISELY what I was explaining, yet to far greater depth. You best re-read, IMO.

[RonSouther]

Originally Posted by Apopohis Reject

Well Ron, that is PRECISELY what I was explaining, yet to far greater depth. You best re-read, IMO.

yo se....