What is Happiness? A Guide to The Answer to Life.

In November 2024, the question came to me once more: “What is happiness?” Let me answer plainly: happiness is the state we reach when we have found clarity about life’s great questions. When everything becomes clear—when we understand where we are, where we are going, and why—we discover our life’s true meaning. From this understanding grows a deep satisfaction: a life with purpose, free from confusion, guided by direction. That is happiness, and with it comes peace. Only then can one say, “I am content. My life is whole. I am not merely settling.”

Suffering arises when this clarity is absent. It comes from not knowing the answers to our questions, from not understanding why we face difficulties or how to overcome them. We stumble through life like sailors lost at sea, without a map, without a sense of direction, afraid of storms we cannot predict. This fear and uncertainty are the roots of misery.

But do not despair. I'm here with you. The answer will come to you soon.

I, too, spent years searching for answers, looking through history, philosophy, psychology, and observing humanity. Life often seemed like a vast maze, and we, fragile and small, wandered lost within it. Our misery comes from this feeling of being trapped and directionless. Yet one night in 2018, as I walked under a sky full of stars, something shifted. I saw the world clearly for the first time, and the questions that had weighed on me seemed to dissolve. Happiness filled me—not because life had changed, but because I could finally see it as it was. Though I didn’t fully understand this happiness at the time, I later realized it came from clarity, from understanding my place in the world.

When this question, “What is happiness?” was thrown to me again, I was forcefully put into logical contemplation about what it is and where it comes from. His answer was: “It is only an emotion.” I responded with a preliminary thought: happiness is an emotional platform for us to do the things we want smoothly and efficiently. But the moment I spoke, I knew this was not the ultimate answer. So, I rethought the question and was reminded of the book Siddhartha.

Born a Brahmin, Siddhartha grew restless with the teachings of his upbringing and left to seek fulfillment. He joined the ascetic Samanas, rejecting material comforts, but found their strict self-denial lacking. Encountering the Buddha, he admired his wisdom but chose his own path, seeking answers through experience. He explored the pleasures of love with Kamala and the wealth of commerce with Kamaswami, only to find these pursuits empty as well. It was by the river, under the guidance of the ferryman Vasudeva, that Siddhartha finally found peace—not through striving or avoiding, but by listening, observing, and accepting life’s unity.

As Hesse wrote:"Gradually there blossomed within Siddhartha the realization of what wisdom truly was: the ability to see oneness in every moment, to accept the eternal unity of life in all its forms. This knowledge ripened slowly within him, reflected in Vasudeva’s calm and timeless smile: harmony, oneness, peace."

Siddhartha’s answer was oneness. And it is ours as well. Happiness comes when we understand that we are not isolated, struggling fragments, but part of an infinite whole. In recognizing this oneness, life’s great questions are resolved. The maze disappears, and the path becomes clear. In this unity lies the answer, and in the answer, there is peace. I will delve deeper into why oneness is the key to true happiness in my next blog.