What is the purpose of our life?  What is the ultimate reality, ultimate goal of our life? What is that we are craving for? We all are running after money, fame, name…these all are pleasure (i.e. so called happiness) But we all know that these cannot bring the ultimate happiness. We all are struggling for ultimate happiness, not for temporary pleasure that will not stay forever. So how to achieve that goal?

Happiness can be defined as a state of wellbeing, but there is much more to understand when we look at this concept philosophically and through lens of other streams. This paper tries to look at this concept through an interdisciplinary approach by understanding the concept of happiness as seen by a philosopher and an economist.  It aims to analyze the following questions. What is the ultimate reality, ultimate goal of our life? What role happiness plays in our lives? How happiness is seen as a concept of wellbeing maximization? How does incomeadd to happiness? What are the subjective and objective determinants of happiness?

Carol Gram (2005) states happiness as an approach of studying welfare combining the techniques used by economists and those used by psychologists.

Diener and Seligman (2004) presses the need for national income account complimented with national wellbeing account to accommodate state of happiness at nations level

In early 1970s Richard Easterlin was the first modern economist to re-visit the concept of happiness, and the concept stated gaining popularity in late 1990s  as seen in the work of The Economics of Happiness Blanchflower and Oswald (2004); Clark and Oswald (1994)

Many economists found positive association of happiness with Economic development and growth indicators. Richard Layard (2005) emphasized through his research on the potential of happiness to improve people’s lives via changes in public policy.  He found a positive impact of workplace and home security and good quality social relationship and trust on level of happiness.

Studies have found a strong association of income to happiness. Within countries, income matters to happiness (Oswald, 1997). James Duesenberry(1949)highlighted that how income satisfaction changes with changing aspirations.Also, many studies pertaining to inequality in U.S. and Europe found little or insignificant association between happiness and inequality.This might be a result of inequality seen as a signal of future opportunities as much as it is seen as a measure of injustice(Alesina, DiTella, and MacCulloch, 2004).

The whole argument takes us to the consensus that when looking through a lens of economist the determinants of happiness are borrowed from the branch of microeconomics and macroeconomics that adds to the wellbeing through the income effect it generates, we term them as measurable or objective determinants. Happiness that has evolved as a much broader concept borrows some factors outside a simple economist world that relates to feeling of satisfaction, security, peace, spirituality and acceptability, the factors that are subjective in nature. Many philosophers and economists like Aristotle, Smith, in earlier times emphasized on   pursue of happiness as a key factor of wellbeing. As economics grew, more quantitative assessment dominated the measurement of welfare and economists have only recently ventured into this new concept of happiness again by combining income and non-income determinants together. With the evolving studies on bounded rationality and behavioral economics as new branches of economics the concept of happiness has gained popularity as an economic concept.

Richard Easterlin was among the first few economists who researched the concept of happiness by revisiting it in 1970s (Easterlin,1974). The concept aims at complementing the income bases assessment of welfare rather than replacing it.Many choices are constrained by capabilities. Though pecuniary economics captures the choices it fails to capture the capability and capacities generating the choices. A holistic focus on happiness captures all three factors and thus complements the income based studies.For example the welfare effect of inequality, inflation and unemployment can be better answered when relied on expressed preference rather than the choices revealed. Since the revealed preference theory cannot ascertain the welfare effect of a policy where individual has no control over. The assessment is done through survey methods where individuals are asked to rank their happiness or question like “How happy or satisfied they are?”. Microeconomic studies on concept of happiness and wellbeing works with logit probit regression to study the relationship between wellbeing and its determinants, where wellbeing is a pure qualitative variable quantified using dummy variables.Despite limitations a large sample work across countries has identified some important determinates with established relationship between them and level of happiness of individuals across countries and over time.

In the context of happiness and its relationship with income it is interesting to study about the Easterlin paradox of income. Wealthier people on an average are found to be happier than poor people in within country analysis but the same relationship fails to be established in a cross country studies of increase in per capita income and happiness levels. Happiness level increases with income up to certain level but not beyond it.After a certain level it’s not absolute but relative income that leads to higher happiness levels. Thus rising aspirations and relative income differences plays a big role in addition to income in determining the level of happiness. In this era of globalization the rising opportunities are leading to higher income but at the same time higher aspirations as well. Capabilities and aspirations are linked to available global opportunities but choices are constrained by local factors and conditions.

Some pecuniary and non-pecuniary factors play a significant role in defining happiness but there remains a question if the level of happiness attained by these factors is long lasting or put a temporary shift. For example, someone who won a lottery ticket or is going for a vacation leads to a greater of happiness, someone blessed with a child or got good marks or feeling a senxe of security due to freedom of choice and democracy in the country are all related to that time when the mind realizes its importance to someone in that moment. In the long run this explains a little about the overall happiness. Studies have shown a modest or insignificant effect of rising inequality and levels of happiness. Inequality is a measure of unjust distribution but at the same time is perceived as arising greater opportunities in future and thus leads to a mix results between developed and developing world ( Alesinaetal, 2004).

Economists are certainly looking for an answer to capture how the loss in happiness for a certain event say a divorce or low popularity among the peer group can be compensated by some increase income so as to maintain the same level of utility of welfare of an individual but such studies remained limited and has its own limitation. However, one of the most popular measures of happiness developed across countries to complement the measure of growth ie GDP is Gross National Happiness Index(GNH). Economic happiness is a concept that originated in Bhutan in 1970s that takes into account not just the quantitative economic measures but a holistic view on quality-of-life factors. According to Kingdom of Bhutan “If the government cannot create happiness, there is no purpose for it” (M. Roy,2020). In1998 the Government of Bhutan established the CBSGNH center to conduct studies related to happiness and develop the concept of GNH. The four pillars of GNH that provides the foundation for happiness are good governance, sustainable development, preservation and promotion of culture and environmental conservation which are captured by nine domains or factors. The first CBSGNH report on GNH came in 2012covering the countries performance over the nine domains. It operates on the principal of multidimensional concerns and that the pursuit of happiness is a collective one though it originates from within at the micro level.

Studies have also confirmed that Less than 3% of an individual's level of happiness is explained by external sources such as income, employment, education level, and socioeconomic status etc. (Lykken, D; Tellegen,1996).  High internal locus of control leads to higher happiness levels(Denny, etal, 2009)

In cases where happiness is affected by external factors such as increase income, employment opportunities, negative situations on poor marks scored, fight with friend or neighbors, security arising out of country’s democratic procedures etc. only have a short time effect on overall happiness levels and in the long run these factors plays a limited role where the happiness level return backs to the same pre effected levels before any such change of interventions (Fredrick etal,1999).

Internal factors matter the most in defining the true levels of happiness in the long run. These internal factors consist of genetics, personality traits, Individual’s spirituality levels, feeling of ones, established relations with the nature, mother earth and the universe, abilities to concentrate and meditate, developing the sense of satisfaction and aspirations that arises in absolute rather than relative comparisons.  According to a study by Lyubomirsky, S etal. (2005) Genetic factors contribute around 50% of the individual’s total happiness levels and are stable over time. The feeling of oneness:The concept of “VasudevKutumb” in the present globalized word takes us to the true notion of internal happiness. The feeling of contentment as explained by Krishna’s script in Gita “Karamkar par phalkiecha mat kar” defines the true secret to happiness. The micro analysis at individual level and macro analysis at the aggregate level takes an economist a way further from the quantitative measurements of welfare and wellbeing to integrate with other disciplines and strengthens the ties between economics and other related subjects exploring the concept of happiness and truly understand the concept by capturing not just objective but the subjective aspects of it.

According to Hedonists, ‘Hedone’ or pleasure is the ultimate standard of Morality. The word ‘pleasure’ means the feeling of satisfaction after attainment of a material object. But this pleasure is temporary whereas happiness arises from systematization and regularization of desire. Pleasure is associated with a number of external factors.

Now question arises, what is the real nature or fundamental structure of the cosmos? What we see in front of us, what we know through direct sense-experience are they actually real, ultimate reality or Absolute reality? Or they are mere illusion, these appear to me as real and we mistake these appearances for reality. These all are Apparent reality.

According to Sankaracharya, the whole world is an illusion, Brahman alone is the ultimate reality. Sankaracharya introduced the distinction of a common-sense view vyavaharika and a philosophic view Paramarthika. Only attainment of Brahman can give the freedom from the bondage of actions, this is pure consciousness, devoid of all kinds of sense-gratifications. The Vedanta takes a twofold view of things; the first view refers to ultimate reality and the second to Appearance. This ultimate reality is pure bliss: Sat, Chid and Anandam.

The Atman, according to Sankaracharya is the universal self. It is Brahman, the absolute, the supreme reality. The Atman is of the nature of pure consciousness. It is eternally pure, conscious and liberated. There is one, eternal, universal consciousness it is the only ontological being, infinite, eternal and supreme. The Upanisads speaks of the higher Brahman (Para Brahman) and lower Brahman (Apara Brahman). The former is unconditioned, indeterminate and attribute less while the latter is conditioned, determinate and qualified by attributes. The former is transcendent and the latter is empirical and phenomenal or immanent. Even in Bhagavat Geeta Lord Krishna says to Arjun, ‘this soul never dies, weapons cannot cut it nor can fire burn it, water cannot drench it nor can wind make it dry’. That means this soul is eternal, omnipresent and imperishable. (Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 2, Verse 24 )

Now, the ultimate goal of all paths to salvation, it is achievable by control over physical and mental processes (yoga), knowledge (jnana-yoga), selfless action, devotion to God (bhakti-yoga) or by a combination of some or all of them. It is karma that binds one to samsara.

According to altruistic Hedonism, universal or general happiness i.e. ‘The greatest happiness of the greatest number of people’ is the moral standard. Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806-73) are the classical hedonists. According to altruism, ‘The utilitarian standard of what is right in conduct is not the agent’s individual happiness rather that of all concerned, happiness of others.’ happiness should be shared among others. In the verse of Mha-Upanisad it is said that in our actions we must not think only about ‘I’ but about every human being so that the entire world becomes a large family. When we will learn to see the whole world as one family there will be peace and joy everywhere “VasudaivaKutumbakam”. Where Vasudha means the Earth, Eva means like and Kutumbakam means large extended family. In the verse of MahaUpaniṣad it is said that in our actions we must not think only about ‘I’ but about every human being so that the entire world becomes a large family. When we will learn to see the whole world as one family there will be peace and joy everywhere. Swami Vivekanand considered nishkama karma as the central teaching of Gita. The Gita sheds light on karma or action.BG 3.4: Chapter 3, Verse 4

 There are two ways of approaching: the way of knowledge and the way of selfless action. One has to choose a right direction with due awareness and understanding of his situation. Krishna discloses to Arjun in chapter 4 in that the ultimate essence that is secured by the way of knowledge is also achieved by the way of selfless action. Shankracharya, a staunch advocate of Advaita Vedanta regards ignorance as the spring of actions. Actions are due to desire. Desires are due to ignorance. (Shankara's commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita xii 66, xiii 90) Specific duties ought to be performed without attachment and aversion or any desire for fruits. The Gita strongly emphasizes on the renunciation of the fruits of action. The desire for fruits leads to bondage whereas the renunciation of desire for fruits leads to eternal peace.

कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्तेराफलेषुकदाचन।राकर्मफलहेतुर्भमरामतेसङ्गोऽस्वकर्मणि॥ Bhagavad Gita Chapter 2, Verse 47;

Once we realize this universal truth that “the true happiness doesn’t come from material possession or external circumstances it comes from within” our entire world will turn into a happier and more friendly place. By practicing the principles of universal love and selfless service, we can proceed for a better world – a composite and cohesive world, the world at peace with itself and nature. This is the ideal of VasudhaivaKutumbakam – of the world being one family. It is an ideal that has inspired Bharat for thousands of years – and this can be felt in the very texture of our constitutional ethos. The principles of promoting a global perspective and prioritizing the greater good over individual or family interests, considering the welfare of others, fostering global solidarity and responsibility on various issues, including climate change, sustainable development, peace, and tolerance of differences, compassion, of assisting those in need, of building capacities, underpin our society. These are the very principles that we bring to the international community where discourse have been going on for bringing the world at peace and harmony, with minimal conflicts.

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