Do you, as you speak of bliss, understand wherein it differs from happiness and joy?

Question

I read this in a book and wonder how you'd explain the difference between the meanings of the words.

Also wondering if these are created internally only of if they require an outside influence? A combination? How do they apply to you personally?

Answer 1

Welcome back to YA Mithra. I've missed you.
To me personally bliss is much different from happiness and joy like the author seems to be saying. Those 2 emotions have opposites and from my experience bliss is just bliss, it doesn't come and go and it has no opposite. Bliss comes from awareness; it is awareness; it is Being: the background that is always there but strangely enough is many times obscured by the emotions such as joy and happiness.

If the emotions and thoughts(which is what our attention is always on and sees, it never sees the seer) were clouds than awareness/bliss is the unmoving sky. It's there n all it takes to see it is the right attention away from object consciousness to consciousness itself. Bliss is the undercurrent that everything floats through.

Everyone will have their own meanings of those words so another way of saying it would be is that peace is permanent and everything is impermanent. It's only identifying with and getting lost in the passing clouds of objects that we get lost.

Not sure if this what the author meant by that statement but I can only state my experience.

Answer 2

I am by no means an professor of the english language, but here's the best effort...

While all three are positive, there are some differences in connotation.

Bliss to me is simpler, i.e. ignorance is bliss. There might be bad things going on but you don't know about it. In fact, you might not even be aware that you are in bliss. It has a calm connotation, as well.

Joy is a feeling that lasts for a short time, like when a loved one returns to you from a long absence, or you see your child graduate from high school or something like that. it's very powerful and isn't sustained for long periods of time.

Happiness can last for a longer time than joy, but it is more informed than bliss. You know when you're happy, you see the things around you and it's a feeling of satisfaction in that life is good.

Well, that's the best I can do, there's always dictionary.com, for what good that will do you...

Answer 3

Words mean what people want them to mean.

That's especially true for words that describe internal states of feeling. For some people "happiness, joy, and bliss" would all mean the same thing. They would consider it pointless to draw a distinction.

Someone else might want to analyze themselves in depth and decide that happiness and joy and bliss would describe ways of feeling good that were each slightly different in some way. However, no one else would have a clue what they were talking about.

Remember, these are INTERNAL states of feeling. No one else knows what you feel other than what they can intuit from your facial expression, body language, etc.

Certainly, if someone asked me, "Hey, do you think Mary Lou is happy or joyful or blissful?" I would look at them with raised eyebrows. ^_^

Answer 4

happiness is a state of content...joy is a state of playful harmony...

bliss is a state that lies beyond happiness or sorrow...
a state where you are untouched by pain and unmoved by any pleasures...

happiness, sorrow or joy is an experience...but the state of bliss is beyond the experience...its the state of pure spirit...