"The happiness of one's own heart alone cannot satisfy the soul; one must try to include, as necessary to one's own happiness, the happiness of others"
About this Quote
Self-sufficiency, Yogananda suggests, is a spiritual dead end. The line starts with a deliberately limited unit of measure: "the happiness of one's own heart alone". That word alone is doing the heavy lifting. It frames private contentment as not just incomplete, but incapable of "satisfy[ing] the soul" - a higher register than mood or pleasure, and a clear signal that we are in the realm of moral consequence, not self-help.
The quote’s intent is quietly disciplinary. It doesn’t ask you to be nice; it asks you to re-engineer your definition of happiness. "One must try to include" makes altruism less like charity and more like architecture: you build other people’s well-being into the load-bearing structure of your own. The subtext is that most of us treat compassion as optional, a bonus feature we add when time and bandwidth allow. Yogananda flips that: if you want lasting peace, the joy of others can’t be a side quest, it has to be part of the main story.
Context matters: Yogananda was a spiritual leader who brought yogic philosophy to a modernizing, increasingly individualistic 20th century, especially in the U.S. In that setting, this reads like a counter-program to the cult of personal fulfillment. He’s not condemning happiness; he’s warning that when it’s pursued as a private possession, it curdles into anxiety and isolation. The rhetorical power lies in its calm inevitability: a soul that wants wholeness will keep bumping into other people, whether you planned for it or not.
The quote’s intent is quietly disciplinary. It doesn’t ask you to be nice; it asks you to re-engineer your definition of happiness. "One must try to include" makes altruism less like charity and more like architecture: you build other people’s well-being into the load-bearing structure of your own. The subtext is that most of us treat compassion as optional, a bonus feature we add when time and bandwidth allow. Yogananda flips that: if you want lasting peace, the joy of others can’t be a side quest, it has to be part of the main story.
Context matters: Yogananda was a spiritual leader who brought yogic philosophy to a modernizing, increasingly individualistic 20th century, especially in the U.S. In that setting, this reads like a counter-program to the cult of personal fulfillment. He’s not condemning happiness; he’s warning that when it’s pursued as a private possession, it curdles into anxiety and isolation. The rhetorical power lies in its calm inevitability: a soul that wants wholeness will keep bumping into other people, whether you planned for it or not.
Quote Details
| Topic | Happiness |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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