How to Find Happiness?

Cinema star Vijay Deverakonda asks Sadhguru for the truth about how to find happiness and keep it. Happiness, along with all the emotions, explains Sadhguru, is just a certain kind of chemistry. He discusses the technology with which we can create the kind of chemistry we want within ourselves.

ArticleSep 18, 2018

Vijay Deverakonda: Hi, Sadhguru! Today, each of us works hard to earn money, thinking money will give us happiness. Happiness is the most marketed thing. We drink alcohol thinking it will make us happy, we want to be with a woman thinking she will make us happy, but what is it that will make us happy and keep us happy? We are at a point where we do not even know where it is that we will find happiness. So, what is happiness? What does a happy mind look like? Do not tell me to look for happiness inside – that answer does not work for me. Give me the truth!

Sadhguru: Namaskaram, Vijay! So, what does a happy man look like? What do I look like to you? Now, we are thinking of happiness like it is some kind of a commodity or some kind of an attainment. No. When your life comes to ease and when you come to ease, then happiness is a natural consequence. What does it mean to come to ease? There are many ways to look at this. Well, I should not say “look inward” because you already put a condition on me!

Today, even medically we know that every human experience has a chemical basis to it. What you call as peace is one kind of chemistry. Happiness is another kind of chemistry, as are joy, misery, agony and ecstasy.

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In other words, you are a very complex chemical soup. The question is only, are you a great soup or a lousy soup? If you are a great soup, you taste good! Not for somebody, but for yourself.

In other words, you are a very complex chemical soup. The question is only, are you a great soup or a lousy soup? If you are a great soup, you taste good! Not for somebody, but for yourself. When you taste very good for yourself, if you sit here and feel extremely pleasant within yourself because the soup is great, then people say you are happy. If you become very, very pleasant, people will say you are joyful. If you become super pleasant, people will say you are ecstatic.

To make it very simple and understandable for most people, your chemistry needs to be altered. There is a whole technology with which we can create the kind of chemistry that you want. If I teach you how to create a blissful chemistry within yourself, you will be blissful. When you are blissful, you will no longer be in pursuit of happiness. Being in pursuit of happiness is the biggest mistake. Your life has to become an expression of joy. When your life is an expression of your experience, then the quality of your life will not be determined by what you do or do not do, but by how you are within yourself.

If you think you are going to squeeze happiness out of something or somebody, you will be disappointed, because nothing will yield anything unless you have a chemistry of blissfulness.

I am sorry, I have once again used the word “within”! Chemistry is not within – it is still outside of you. But if you know how to make the right soup, then being joyful is not an issue; it is a natural consequence. We can teach you a technology, a methodology with which you will know how to stir the right kind of soup. This is what I am calling as “Inner Engineering”, that you engineer your chemistry in such a way that it is blissful by its own nature, not because of something. If you think you are going to squeeze happiness out of something or somebody, you will be disappointed, because nothing will yield anything unless you have a chemistry of blissfulness.

Editor's Note: Whether you're struggling with a controversial query, feeling puzzled about a taboo topic, or just burning with a question that no one else is willing to answer, now is your chance to ask! Ask Sadhguru your questions at UnplugWithSadhguru.org.