Master Nome’s Teaching about the Nature of Happiness –  

[actual quotes are so indicated] True Knowledge is described in a number or ways. In one sense, True Knowledge is certainly regarding the real "place", the real Nature of Happiness. Seeing  Suffering in Life, we naturally want to remove Suffering forever. Looking deeply, we see that the World does not, will not, & cannot deliver relief from Suffering & consequent Happiness.  Sense experiences do not suffice [for pleasure perhaps, but not for Happiness].  Mental emotions & moods likewise fail to secure Happiness.  Freedom from desire is more on track, as is freedom from the Ignorance out of which Suffering arises. Any accidental pause in Suffering is short-lived & insufficient so long as we fail to understand how such a reprieve came about, & how such can be repeated & continued.

Spiritual Bliss & Peace alone is lasting & anything less is only a lesser, short-lived, & accidental taste of real Happiness., True Knowledge alone is the permanent source of Happiness.

Noticing that Happiness is the one true motivation in Life leads to a life guided by that one motive, guided in one direction, That one direction lies "within", seeking Self-Knowledge by Self-Inquiry. In one form, such is an Inquiry into Bliss, a determination about Happiness that becomes an inquiry into “Being-Consciousness-Bliss, because Being-Consciousness-Bliss is the nature of the one Reality, the one Self.” This connection between Happiness & Self-Knowledge constitutes the motivation for Self-Inquiry. Again, in terms of Happiness, this “one motivation behind all kinds of searching” entails becoming detached from worldly pursuits & desires with resulting “access to the inner source of Happiness.”

(some) informal summary notes about the Nature of Happiness –  

Philosophers struggle to define Happiness in terms of "well-being", "positive feeling tone", achievement of one's "well informed' (relatively wise) desires, & so on. The "Oracle" in The Matrix did a better job if we could borrow her hint about "being the One." She said it's like falling in Love. No one has to tell you (no one could tell you, nor deny your claim). You just know it (directly) "through & through".

In the context of Non-Duality, the Sages tell us that Happiness is our Real Nature, as one sense of Ananda in Sat–Chit–Ananda, Existence-Consciousness-Bliss.  For the same reason that we seek Self-Knowledge, seek to know our own Identity, we likewise seek Happiness, which is our Identity.  Cessation of Existence is inconceivable, so that those who identify with a Body will fear Death.  Enlightened or Ignorant, either way, such cessation of Existence is unacceptable because we intuit that this would bring an end to Happiness.

Self-Knowledge & thus true & lasting Happiness are gained by the removal of Ignorance as to our own Identity.  So to inquire: Who am I ? & to subjectively find the "Inquirer" to be the answer, to be that pure Existence & Happiness.  This alone is the final & lasting solution to our unending search for Happiness.

When I breathe, turn left or right, think this thought or another, all is done to increase Happiness or to decrease the loss of Happiness, for this is the only motive for anything.  Complete Self-Knowledge includes the recognition that as Happiness itself, we can never find it outside, & once realized, we can never lose it.

In the meantime, the very mean, mean, "meantime", we chase external objects of desire in a Waking–Dream–World.  When partial Happiness is apparently attained for the moment, that anxiety of the Mind relaxes, & a glimmer of true Happiness is experienced.  But as the Buddha advised, in telling us that the nature of Worldly Life is suffering:

            1) to not get what you want is Suffering

            2) to get what you don't want is Suffering

            3) to get what you want also includes Suffering because we sense that what appears in Time, with a beginning, will certainly have an end & be lost.

            4) whatever the Happiness enjoyed when you get what you want, you still sense that you could have more or better, may have once had more or better, & that "others" already have more or better.

Real Happiness never ends & has never left us, even if only dimly appearing as the "reference background" by which we "measure" lesser Happiness. We always know just how happy we are, or are not.  We often know the same about others.  Ever we "measure" against that "reference background" of perfect Happiness which is our own True Nature, the unwavering Reality of Happiness which is our very Existence.