Anand Damani

Aristotle

Author Name

Aristotle

Aristotle is one of the greatest greek philosophers of all time and he pioneered systematic, scientific examination in literally every area of human knowledge. He lived in the era of war and aristocracy, and this quote by him was justified only in those times. Now the knowledge of coexistence is here and people are looking towards achieving global harmony, well-being, and peace.
Anand
There is no way human beings can be a friend to a few only. That may have been the case in the war-torn Greek, Athenian era. With the knowledge of the science of coexistence, every human being is a member of the same species and a friend of every other human being whether he knows and accepts it or not. Coexistence is the reality and relationships are the crux of human existence. Identifying and understanding the relationships and discharging the responsibilities blooming from the relationship in interactions creates bliss. Each and every relationship can be understood and lived in a fulfilling way.
Author Name

Aristotle

Aristotle was a man of high intellect and his philosophical works prove the same. He could see that human beings can perceive and create a reality in imagination which results in suffering for them. However, he missed the point. Mere perceiving is not suffering. Not aligning the perceived reality with the actual reality causes suffering. Perceived reality needs to be aligned with the actual reality for a human being to be in the state of bliss.
Anand
The human being is a blend & coexistence of the life-atom (soul) and the physical body. Human beings have this power of Imagination which enables them to believe their perceived reality as truth. This creates a lot of inconsistencies between them which culminates in suffering. The purpose of human beings on this planet is to align the actual reality with the perceived reality that the frontal cortex and the fully advanced brain is able to conjure up.
Author Name

Aristotle

Aristotle is one of the most important figures in the history of Philosophy. He laid several important foundations and influenced western world’s thinking to a great extent. Some of the ideas and concepts of Aristotle are still relevant. However, this particular quote is incomplete as the natural state of human beings is living collectively in social harmony and not in individuality.
Anand

During Aristotle’s times, happiness was seen as something temporary and confused with different feelings. In reality, happiness is a feeling that is not measurable and needs to be always present. That is the default setting in nature. Human beings need to coexist with everything else in nature and be in alignment and happiness will be permanent.

Happiness is mostly misunderstood with different feelings like contentment, pleasure, excitement, epiphany, abundance, belonging, achievement, success, etc. These are all in some way connected to happiness but do not constitute complete happiness. A human being is a blend of a life-atom or soul which adopts a physical body to gain enlightenment. The body needs nourishment and protection. The soul needs understanding and experiencing through the physical body. Once both their needs are fulfilled, then the feeling that follows is actual happiness.