Heaven and Hell! What is happiness? “Spirituality”

 Heaven and Hell! What is happiness? “Spirituality”

Heaven and Hell! What is Happiness? From a spiritual perspective, the concept of happiness varies for each person. Here, the discussion is based on one particular viewpoint.

Regarding heaven and hell, for those who have been freed from suffering, their state may be perceived as heaven.

Conversely, someone who has been living an ordinary life and then loses something significant may perceive that state as hell.

Spiritualist Hiroyuki Ehara speaks of happiness in terms of developing a mindset that prevents one from collapsing in response to a challenging event—this mental resilience is connected to the experience of happiness.

Comedian Matsumoto of Downtown once mentioned that when dining with friends in a high-rise building, he wondered if the times he was striving to reach the top had actually been the happiest moments.

There is also a story of a Roman king who, upon tasting the simple soup eaten by ordinary people, declared it the most delicious soup in the world.

Regarding heaven, hell, and happiness, a common element in these stories is the concept of “change.”

“Change” brings new experiences, for better or worse, and it is this process of change that may be considered a source of happiness.

Heaven and hell, happiness, “sense of existence,” and “spirituality”

Regarding heaven, hell, and happiness, from a spiritual perspective, this physiological response is also an important aspect.

Psychologist Sigmund Freud proposed the “pleasure principle,” noting that whether a person is eating, sleeping, or relieving themselves, some degree of pleasure is naturally experienced, and humans are driven to seek this pleasure.

In extreme terms, one could say “a sense of existence = pleasure.” When a person feels happiness, they simultaneously experience a strong sense of existence and intense pleasure.

Not feeling a sense of existence is not just about lacking that awareness; the body and mind influence each other, and a lack of perceived existence can trigger stress as a form of life-threat response.

Stress responses place a person in a state of either attack or flight toward the source of stress, either way requiring energy and generating physiological activation throughout body and mind.

From a physiological standpoint, the deep, heart-stirring pleasure that excites one from within strongly reinforces one’s sense of existence, and this state manifests as the pleasure of happiness.

Heaven and hell, happiness, “spiritual growth,” and “spirituality”

Regarding heaven, hell, and happiness, from a spiritual perspective, there is a form of happiness tied to soul growth.

As discussed repeatedly on this blog, the growth of knowledge consists of each individual realization, and the growth of the heart—spiritual maturity—is similarly made up of each heartfelt realization.

When spiritual maturity increases, one’s existential presence strengthens in a mental sense, the ability to enrich others’ hearts through creativity grows, and the more realizations one accumulates, the broader one’s perspective becomes. This is not a complicated concept; it simply represents becoming spiritually mature, or “adult””.

Conversely, when spiritual maturity is low, existential presence is weak, one tends to prioritize satisfying one’s own heart over enriching others, and having fewer realizations narrows one’s perspective. This too is simple to understand: it represents spiritual immaturity, or “childhood”.

Low spiritual maturity also weakens existential presence, making stress more likely, and the energy to assert one’s existence can manifest as verbal abuse, child abuse, bullying, emotional harassment, “monster” behavior, toxic parenting, stalking, violent crimes, and other societal harms.

If many people with low spiritual maturity appear, in extreme cases, even the natural world could collapse. Naturally, those with low spiritual maturity themselves would also face destruction.

From a spiritual standpoint, happiness comes from becoming spiritually mature, which enables one to respond effectively even to “hellish” circumstances, transforming hell into heaven through one’s own awareness.

For the Earth itself, humanity’s actions cannot be simply called heaven, but the intention and effort of humanity to transform the world toward a state of heaven is also essential.