Editor’s note: There are some points made in this below article that are not supported by our vaisnava siddhanta, so it is just as well that that was not the reason for us posting it!
Rather, our purpose was to show, not only division among the scientific / psychiatric world, but to show the strong challenge there is to the outright atheistic view as represented by the likes of Hawkins, Freud and Dawkins etc. It would have been truly remarkable if all points made in this article were in line with our siddhanta. So we request readers to focus on the positive in this piece, seeing the glass as half full as opposed to half empty.
I saw a news clip on the internet this a.m. regarding “findings” of “positive psychology”. I went back to look for it this p.m. and couldn’t find it, though.
The thing I liked most about the clip was that it recommended meditation as a way to improve happiness, and there was a picture of a meditation class in which people were sitting cross-legged and silent. It said “happiness scientists” have discovered that meditating 1/2 hour or hour per day quickly changes the brain to make it more receptive to happiness.
The story also talked about findings that money can buy happiness only up to a point. Regarding money and happiness, said the “happiness scientists”, the most important thing is having at least as much or a little more than those in your own “tribe” or peer group. It is more about comparing your economic position to others and not feeling inadequate.
It is also important to know how to spend it, one “authority” said, but I forget what exactly he said about how best to spend it. I think he said, use it on things that do bring you joy and fulfilment.
The thrill one gets from buying an expensive item like a diamond tennis bracelet wears off quickly, and to reproduce such a thrill you have to pop for something bigger and better next time. People quickly get used to their “standard of living” and it does not do much to increase their happiness to just have a higher standard of living. People can be on a “hedonic treadmill” where it takes more and more money just to stay at the same level of stimulation.
My overall impression was, it was the kind of news clip that could be helpful for book distributors to refer to: “You know they say meditation can improve the brain’s ability to be happy?” That kind of thing.
Of course, the actual “happiness scientists” are hampered by many of the materialistic and atheistic assumptions that allow them into the “scientist” club in the first place. However, it is a positive development that psychologists are at least looking at the question of what really makes people happy, and what doesn’t.
Maybe they will some day discover that some happiness is like poison in the beginning but nectar in the end (and awakens one to self-realization), other happiness derived from sense gratification is like nectar in the beginning and poison in the end , and other happiness arises from sleep, laziness and illusion (and is blind to self-realization), and is really pretty much miserable all the way through.