Is the right to happiness a human right?1

Is the right to happiness a human right? First of all we have to know what happiness is. Happiness is something that feeds our heart, inspires our mind, energises our vital and illumines our body.

When the heart is happy it embraces the whole world. When the mind is happy it accepts the world as its very own. When the vital is happy it offers its very existence to the world. And when the body is happy it serves the world the way the world wants to be served.

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Our happiness-moon smiles sweetly, charmingly and soulfully when our hope-kite flies in the skies of Divinity’s heights. Our happiness-sun shines bright when our dream-boat touches the Reality shore.

Possession gives birth to human happiness. Renunciation gives birth to divine happiness. Acceptance of God's Will in God’s own way gives birth to supremely divine happiness.

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In the domain of lifeless hope, happiness is theoretical and fruitless. In the sea of selfless love, happiness is practical and fruitful. In the domain of teeming fear, happiness bitterly cries. In the sea of brooding doubt, happiness instantly dies.

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An aspiring man spreads happiness wherever he goes. An unaspiring man strangles happiness wherever he roams.

The life of happiness is aspiration.
The soul of happiness is realisation.
The goal of happiness is perfection.

Is the right to happiness a human right? Without the least possible hesitation I venture to answer this question in the affirmative. Each man has a soul. Each man has a goal. His soul silently tells him that his perennial Source is all happiness. His goal lovingly tells him that in his constant God-manifestation is his own happiness.

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Happiness is in God.
Happiness is of God.
Happiness is for God.

A life of dedication knows that happiness is in God. A life of transformation knows that happiness is of God. A life of liberation knows that happiness is for God.

God’s invention is happiness. Man’s discovery is happiness.

God’s possession is happiness. Man’s achievement is happiness.

Man has every right to achieve God’s possession, for that is what God precisely wants man to do. Man has every right to discover God’s invention, for that is what God precisely wants man to grow into.

What is God’s supreme possession? Peace. What is God’s supreme invention? Love.

A peace-loving man is a quarter God. A peace-achieved man is a half God. And a peace-revealing and peace-spreading man is a full God.

A peace-loving man is the serving God. A peace-achieved man is the glowing God. A peace-revealing and peace-spreading man is the fulfilling God in earth-bound time.

God’s supreme invention is love. He who consciously loves God radiates the highest divinity. He who soulfully loves God manifests the inmost divinity. He who unconditionally loves God lives in the ever-radiating, ever-manifesting and ever-transcending divinity of the beyond.

A human God-lover achieves God’s constant happiness. A divine God-lover embodies God the happiness. A human God-lover still has a sense of separativity, so he achieves God's happiness according to his capacity and according to his receptivity. But a divine God-lover, on the strength of his inseparable and constant oneness with God, embodies God, the infinite happiness.

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AUM 844. Dag Hammarskjold Aud. U.N. Secretariat, May 10, 1972 — Series III; Lecture 1