Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume II - Part 1

Fragment ID: 11276

Happiness is a condition of gladness, sense of inner ease and welfare, contentment, a sunlit life – it is more quiet in its nature than joy and delight.

Joy (harṣa) is more intense. It is a strong movement of great gladness with an exultation, a leaping up of the vital to take some happiness, good fortune or other thing pleasant to the being.

Delight is an intense joy or an intense pleasure in something or an intensely joyful condition. At its most intense it becomes what is called rapture or ecstasy when one is “carried away” or “lifted out of” oneself by the intensity of the delight.