Is living in comfort necessary to be happy?

Does more comfort increase our happiness?

Why do we dislike some emotions?

Are negative emotions actually that negative?

Is there meaning in life? Is meaning required to live peacefully and without self-doubt?

In fact, what is essence of happiness? What is inner peace?

I have been searching for the answers for a long time, among books (be they self-help, fiction, autobiography and so on), people I have interacted with and every experience I have had.

It is rather difficult to present all this loosely collected information in an organised manner but the author Michael Singer had accomplished it in his works - dissecting those questions in a way that is simple and down-to-earth, yet profound and wise.

I shall borrow some of his words and concepts in describing how and why we suffer and what can be done about it, as his explanations had been so clear that I can’t really improve them further.

To start with, inner peace is that kind of “if you know, you know” thing; everyone has experienced the feeling of peacefulness before, however transiently.

Yet it slips away quietly without us knowing, and cannot be forcefully summoned.

How can we achieve inner peace? I don’t claim to know a straightforward answer. But I know that some of the things which we do will surely not lead to inner peace. Let’s look at the first of these obstacles in the next post.