The path of true happiness begins at the intersection of emotion, virtue, and our longing for God.
Combining dozens of quotations from a variety of sources with the distilled essence of his book “The Secret of Emotions,” Justice Saint Rain has created a lovely gift edition of his popular booklet, “The Secret of Happiness,” which has already sold over 12,000 copies worldwide. Whether you would like a clear and simple understanding of the nature of happiness, or need a gift for a friend who is feeling down, this easy-to-read and beautifully-formatted book is exactly what you are looking for. It is also a great conversation generator for book clubs.
There are a lot of people in the world talking about God, talking about Virtues, and talking about Happiness. A few even put two of these ideas together. But I looked all over for a book explaining the direct connection between happiness and the expression of God’s Virtues, and I couldn’t find one. So I wrote it myself.
Its subject matter, its clear and personal style, and its low-key presentation of the name Baha’i make it a gift that virtually everyone will accept with gratitude. After all, who doesn’t want to know the secret of happiness?
This gift edition is 5×8″ instead of 4×6 and has 82 pages instead of 36, with prettier borders, larger type and plenty of white space to give it that gift-book feel.
Here’s an excerpt from the beginning of Secret of Happiness:
God—your dearest Friend and the Creator of the Universe—wants you to be happy. In fact, He wants all of us to be happy. It is strange, then, isn’t it, that so few of us are happy—really happy?
There are many conflicting ideas about what makes us happy. Materialists would say that having everything we want will make us happy. Hedonists would say that doing whatever we want will make us happy. Romantics are sure that being loved by a good person will bring us happiness—which at least moves us in the direction of goodness, while religious people believe that doing what is good will make us happy. Since this is an inspirational booklet, you might assume that I would agree with one or the other of these last two. But I don’t.
Instead of doing good or being loved, I believe that we find happiness when we, ourselves, love what is good and then do what we love. How is that different from simply doing good because God wants us to? I’ll tell you.
If we don’t want to do good, but we do “good” things anyway, then doing good becomes nothing more than a bargaining tool with which to bribe God into giving us happiness when we get to heaven. In the meantime, it will make us irritated and self-righteous, which is very different from being happy.
By Justice St Rain, author of Why Me? – A Spiritual Guide to Growing Through Tests.
Other books in this series include: The Secret of Emotions, The Secret of Forgiveness, and Lust and the Longing for God which combines a three-book trilogy in one volume: The Secret of Emotions 4 Tools of Emotional Healing and Longing for Love. Look for excerpts on our FaceBook page called The Secret of Emotions.
from a private e-mail note, shared with permission. –
“After 50 years, my youngest sister is investigating the Faith. I have given her several Baha’i books – secondary texts as well at the Writings themselves. So has her primary Baha’i teacher. But talking to my sister a few days ago, it turns out that what has spoken to her most clearly, most deeply, is a little booklet from Special Ideas’: “Secret of Happiness.” We had a deep discussion over the phone about the difference between joy and happiness, and the true source of joy, based on the insights that she gleaned from the quotations included therein and the inspiration that they continue to provide on her search.”
Shirin Saeb Noori –
Expensive