10.10.2009

What Is Happiness?

Your Holiness, are you a happy man?

"I cannot answer that question without making sure that we understand the word "happiness" in the same way. If you are talking about a continuous state of mind, a permanent interior disposition where there is no regret, no suffering, no feeling of dissatisfaction, that state is foreign to me. But I believe that the state of mind is simply not human. In human life, happiness is a victory: the overcoming of doubt, despair, temptation. If this is how you understand happiness, then yes, I am happy!"

His Holiness Karekin I (1932-1999)