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Table of Contents
Because Life Does Not End Where We Think It Does
Sometimes I feel ashamed of my happiness.
Not because there is anything wrong with being happy, but because, when I look around me, I see people who are suffering, human beings who have stopped hoping, and souls that seem to have resigned themselves to living without peace. In the face of all this, feeling so profoundly happy can almost seem like an unjust privilege.
Yet I have understood one thing: becoming unhappy does not help those who suffer.
The true responsibility of someone who has found happiness is not to hide it or feel ashamed of it, but to demonstrate that it exists, that it can endure over time, and that it does not belong only to the wealthy, the powerful, the fortunate, or those to whom life appears to have granted everything.
True happiness is possible for everyone.
This does not mean living without difficulties, losses, or responsibilities. It means possessing such a firm center that even the most painful moments cannot permanently destroy one’s inner peace. More difficult days will certainly come; yet, when we look back upon them after many years, we realize that they were merely small ripples upon a much greater sea.
Happiness is not the absence of pain.
It is the presence of a meaning that pain cannot erase.
I Did Not Find Happiness in the Most Expensive Things
Over the course of my life, I have experienced very different circumstances. I have had the opportunity to travel to many countries and, on one occasion, even found myself as the only passenger on a private aircraft. I remember these experiences with gratitude, but I do not consider them a personal merit.
I have also known completely different moments. I have slept many times on the ground and in the cold, and on some occasions I picked up food that had fallen because I had nothing else to eat. I have experienced loneliness, rejection, and the absence of the most basic forms of security.
I do not recall these things in order to glorify either prosperity or suffering, but because they allowed me to understand Paul’s words more deeply: one can learn to live both in abundance and in need, in satisfaction and in hunger.
Neither luxury nor deprivation, by themselves, can make a human being happy.
The deepest happiness may reveal itself in something very simple: lying upon a meadow, listening to the wind, touching a plant, and silently observing life continuing around us.
In those moments, I do not feel the need to possess the world.
It is enough for me to know that I am part of it.
One of the great deceptions of our time is the belief that happiness must be purchased, displayed, photographed, and compared with that of others. We have confused intensity with depth, entertainment with joy, and excitement with peace.
But that which continually depends upon new stimulation is not yet happiness: it is a hunger that is always asking for something more.
Authentic happiness, instead, knows how to remain. It must be cultivated, protected, and nourished, but it does not require the entire world to bend itself to our desires.
It requires, rather, that the heart learn to recognize with gratitude what it already possesses.
GOD, Love, Truth, Knowledge, and Balance
GOD is the source of happiness because He restores to life an origin, a direction, and a purpose.
Love is a source of happiness because it frees the human being from the prison of the self.
Truth is a source of happiness because it allows us to stop living within illusions created to protect us.
Knowledge is a source of happiness because it illuminates what once made us afraid.
Balance is a source of happiness because it orders our strengths and prevents one part of life from consuming all the others.
These realities cannot simply be purchased. They must be sought, studied, practised, and preserved.
For this reason, happiness is not merely a feeling: it is also a spiritual discipline.
Paul writes that he learned how to live both in abundance and in need, in satisfaction and in hunger. He does not claim that he was born already capable of doing so. He says: “I have learned.”
Lasting happiness can be learned.
It is learned by distinguishing what passes away from what remains. It is learned by ceasing to entrust our peace to money, physical appearance, reputation, or the approval of others. It is learned by recognizing that everything we possess can be lost, while what we become before GOD accompanies the soul beyond every loss.
The Privilege and Burden of Knowledge
Those who deeply study theology, the Holy Scriptures, and human nature may understand certain truths before others do.
Not because they are necessarily better.
Not because GOD loves them more than He loves others.
Simply because those who dedicate their lives to a search eventually begin to see what remains hidden from those who have not yet begun that search.
The navigator sees the coast before those who remain below deck. Yet precisely for this reason, he has the duty to warn them of the rocks.
Knowledge brings benefits, but it also brings responsibility. The more we understand, the less we can pretend not to know. The more suffering we see, the less we can remain indifferent. The more we receive, the more we are called to give back.
This responsibility can become heavy. We must work inwardly so that it does not turn into pride, isolation, or the conviction that we are superior to others.
At times, with fear and trembling, I have found myself thinking of myself as “the foremost among Christians.” I do not mean the best, the holiest, or the one who possesses the right to judge the faith of others. No human being can measure the heart of another.
I can testify only to what takes place within my own heart.
I think about GOD continually. Theology, justice, and peace accompany my work, my family, my decisions, and even my moments of rest. I try to place GOD before everything else, not because I always succeed perfectly, but because I know no other way in which I would desire to live.
And should I meet someone capable of loving GOD more deeply than I do, I would not feel humiliated. I would ask that person to teach me.
If I think about GOD twenty-four hours a day and someone is symbolically able to think about Him for twenty-five, that person is not my rival: he is my brother and my teacher.
Authentic faith does not fear those who are further ahead.
It recognizes them, listens to them, and continues walking.
The Strength of the Believer Is Resurrection
All of this leads to the decisive question.
Happiness can become stable only when death ceases to be regarded as the definitive failure of life.
The greatest strength of the believer is resurrection.
In the Hebrew Scriptures, Daniel announces that those who sleep in the dust will awaken. In the Gospel, Jesus declares: “I am the resurrection and the life.” Paul affirms that without resurrection, faith itself would be in vain. The Qur’an also proclaims that GOD will raise those who are in the graves.
And yet, precisely concerning the meaning of life beyond death, humanity has multiplied terms, systems, and opposing doctrines.
Resurrection and reincarnation are not historically the same doctrine. They should not be superficially confused: the former, within the Abrahamic traditions, concerns the action of GOD, who raises the person back to life; the latter describes, within other traditions, a succession of earthly existences.
But after acknowledging this difference, we may ask a deeper question:
What are both words attempting to defend?
In different ways, they oppose the idea that the human being is an accident destined to disappear into nothingness.
They affirm that life has consequences, that what we become possesses value, and that death does not render useless the love, knowledge, and justice acquired during our existence.
I am not claiming that all doctrines are identical. I am proposing, however, that we should not allow words to prevent us from investigating the mystery they are attempting to approach.
The essential question is not merely: “With what body will I return?”
The question is: “What am I becoming, so that the life to come may find me better prepared for truth?”
Today I may be 190 cm tall, healthy, strong, and respected. In another condition of existence, I may possess none of these advantages. I may be fragile, dependent upon others, or deprived of what I presently consider part of my identity.
But none of this would make happiness impossible.
Happiness does not depend upon the form of the body, social position, or the amount of power one has received. It depends upon the capacity of consciousness to recognize GOD, receive love, understand truth, and live in harmony with it.
The life to come may not be disconnected from this one, but its unveiling and fulfilment.
What we cultivate here—love, truth, wisdom, mercy—gradually shapes the depth of the person who will stand before eternity. Our earthly existence is therefore not merely a passage of time, but a formation of the soul: a preparation for realities that an unprepared consciousness might neither comprehend nor receive.
We cannot decide how eternity will appear. We can only decide what kind of being will meet it.
Happiness Is Already a Principle of Resurrection
Resurrection should not be merely a doctrine to be awaited after death.
Every time a man emerges from hatred, something rises again.
Every time a woman rediscovers hope, something rises again.
Every time we choose truth instead of deception, mercy instead of revenge, and cooperation instead of conflict, a part of humanity is raised from its own grave.
Perhaps this is also what the believer should show the world: not only that there will be life after death, but that it is possible to begin living truly even before we die.
I do not claim to possess all the answers. I do affirm, however, with the full strength of my experience, that lasting happiness exists.
It does not belong to a chosen few.
It does not require wealth, physical perfection, or public success.
It requires inner work, truth, love, knowledge, balance, and a trust in GOD so profound that even death becomes incapable of speaking the final word.
Happiness is for everyone. But it must be sought in the right place.
And the right place is not outside us, within what we accumulate.
It is found within the relationship between our consciousness and the One who gave us life.