Positivism and the quest for happiness

Pages:179-181
Ashna Gupta (Department of Psychology, Delhi University, New Delhi)

The growth of positive psychology has changed the focus of Psychology from a science which was preoccupied only with repairing the worst things in life to one which also focuses on building positive qualities. People pursue all kinds of objects money, relationships, power, social status, knowledge, skills to gain happiness. Ultimately they do so because they believe, consciously or unconsciously, that obtaining the object of their desire will lead to greater happiness. And their experiences lead them to the inescapable fact that this is simply not true. Human experiences therefore lead to the search for the answers to two questions: The Vedas tell us that happiness is not an object or a place or a time. The Upanishads define the nature of happiness and explain away this nature in a rigorous, logical manner by the methodology of the analysis of one’s own life experiences. The meaning of life constitutes a question concerning the purpose and significance of life or existence in general. It is deeply mixed with the philosophical and religious conceptions of existence, social ties, consciousness, and happiness, and touches many other issues, such as symbolic meaning, value, purpose, ethics, good and evil and free will. And inevitably, questions of God, the soul, and the afterlife. We can therefore conclude that the human mind is constituted to make the best of any situation in which it finds itself. In this context, Positivism and Positive Psychology, along with the vision of Indian Philosophy as depicted in the Vedas is identical to the very nature of a human being.