The Art of Happiness

I gave a talk in our New Lands Temple recently on the theme of Happiness. Here in the UK, January can be a long, dark, heavy month. All the excitement of Christmas is over. The post is no longer full of greetings cards, more likely bills.  The weather is usually cold and wet, and some mornings it seems it will never get light! We were blessed on that Sunday because the weather was mild and the sun shining. It made me reflect that perhaps something which can most quickly lift our spirits is sunshine. No wonder White Eagle likens God to the sun. (Many years ago we published a children’s book called Hullo Sun, teaching young ones first steps in spiritual understanding.)

White Eagle often refers to happiness in his teaching. Indeed, one of our very early White Eagle books was entitled Religion of Happiness.

Perhaps the best known of his sayings about happiness is in fact the very last passage in The Quiet Mind. In my talk I went through this phrase by phrase, looking at the meaning of each.

Underpinning them all is the keynote of love and faith in God’s love and God’s perfect plan. To me this is the secret of being happy. But I was also intrigued to read another passage of his teaching where he talks about ‘The Art of Happiness’.  This phrase really caught my attention. I thought, yes, it is an art. Whatever is going on in our lives, we can learn to accept and look for the lesson it offers us. It is our choice then, whether we try to learn the lesson or grumble and complain.  We can choose to see our glass as half empty or half full.

So, in this new year ahead, as the dark, cold winter days give way to the lighter, warmer days of spring (here in the Northern Hemisphere) perhaps our intention we might wish to make is to see our glass as half full—or even full to the brim with golden new year blessing and joy!

I end now with White Eagle’s words referred to earlier:‘Happiness is the realisation of God in the heart.  Happiness is the result of praise and thanksgiving, of faith, of acceptance, a quiet, tranquil realisation of the love of God.  This brings to the soul perfect and indescribable happiness.  God is happiness.’