Yoga and The Pursuit of Happiness

by Nina

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” — Declaration of Independence, United States of America

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always found it was a bit surprising that one of the three “unalienable rights” the U.S. Declaration of Independence recognizes is “the pursuit of happiness.” In contrast, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen defines the natural rights of man as: liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression. And it’s quite interesting to contemplate what our founders meant when they used the word “happiness” in this context. From what I can tell, hundreds of years later, there is still quite a bit of debate about it.

On the other hand, the Yoga Sutras make it pretty clear what “happiness” means to a yoga practitioner.

2.42 Perfect happiness is attained through contentment. —translation by Barbara Stoler Miller

And if you’re wondering what “contentment” means, in his translation of the Yoga Sutras, TKV Desikachar provides an explanation that I really love: “Contentment or the ability to be comfortable with what we have and what we do not have.”

I’m thinking about happiness this morning because I woke up with a troubled mind. There’s a problem I can’t solve right now, and maybe will never be able to solve. But I decided that I didn’t want to dwell in that troubled state, and consciously decided to let go of my negative thoughts for the time being. I wasn't particularly trying to be happy, just not weighted down by frustration and anger—in other words, more “content.” Then as I started to work at my computer, I stumbled on to some online instructions for how to fold fitted bottom sheets. Hey, I always wanted to know how to do that! So I ran downstairs and grabbed one of my mashed-up bottom sheets and refolded it. The results weren’t as perfect as shown in the instructions (which were for sheets that just had elasticized corners—mine are elasticized all around), but the technique was a great improvement over the one I’d previously been using (well, calling that a technique is a bit of a stretch). And as I stood there admiring the rather attractive rectangle I had created, I was shot through with a tiny burst of happiness.

It struck me then that by quieting my negative thoughts and achieving a more contented state, I had given happiness the space to arise. And I was reminded of Edwin Bryant’s translation of sutra 2.42 and his commentary on it:

2.42 From contentment, the highest happiness is attained.

“This sattvic happiness does not depend on external objects, which are vulnerable and fleeting, but is inherent in the mind when it is tranquil and content.”

So maybe yoga is the pursuit of happiness. For if happiness is “inherent in the mind when it is tranquil and content” then the practice of yoga, whose aim is equanimity or contentment, will lead you toward happiness. The Yoga Sutras make it clear which steps to take on that journey:

1.12 Practice and detachment are the means to still the movements of consciousness.

1.33 Through cultivation of friendliness, compassion, joy, and indifference to pleasure and pain, virtue and vice respectively, the consciousness becomes favorably disposed, serene and benevolent.

1.34 Or, by maintaining the pensive state felt at the time of soft and steady exhalation and during passive retention after exhalation.

1.35 Or, by contemplating an object that helps to maintain steadiness of mind and consciousness.  

—translation by BKS Iyengar