04/05/2026
The realization and description of true happiness are exceedingly difficult tasks. For instance, a starving person considers the mere act of receiving food to be happiness; a poor person regards liberation from poverty as happiness; and a sick individual perceives recovery from illness as happiness. Furthermore, there are those who aspire to attain status, position, power, or wealth in this world; once they acquire these things, they deem that to be happiness. Others find happiness in silence, solitude, religious rituals, or various forms of festivity and revelry. Yet, there are still others who—despite possessing all the material things the world has to offer—renounce them entirely; detaching themselves completely from everything, they abandon all mental constructs and physical attachments—relinquishing every internal and external aspect of their being—in a quest for absolute liberation. They believe that *this* constitutes true happiness. Thus, there exists a distinct diversity—and indeed, inherent limitations—regarding the nature of happiness and desires among different individuals. Moreover, while many of us assert that true happiness belongs to those who possess supreme wisdom and knowledge, the reality is that numerous people in this world lay claim to being profoundly wise and knowledgeable themselves. Consequently, determining—in a truly objective sense—who among them is genuinely wise or enlightened proves to be an exceedingly difficult task. Therefore, for those who remain bound by conventional scholarship—in a state where complete mental and physical freedom is absent, where there is no absolute openness, and where the process of critical inquiry and analysis remains subject to various constraints—true happiness can never truly exist.
