Happiness

Is it by doing a bunch of good in the world to balance your debt, or to somehow gain forgiveness from the god or master subjecting one to such suffering? The promise of heaven in an afterlife or the possibility better luck in the next life works for many.

Many may go many lifetimes, developing no further than whatever level of denial they achieved, yet each believing that their level of denial is superior to others and may even react with violence to anyone who threatens their relative peace of mind that they have come to believe they have gained. They have now convinced themselves that their perceived decrease from the suffering endured in the past means that they no longer suffer.

In a relative way this might be true.

If you have so convinced yourself that you are happy then the experience of happiness through denial is identical to that achieved otherwise. And that is yet another step forward in your coming to accept responsibility for your life. At this point you will be forced to recognize that all suffering is relative. Your higher self tends to play little tricks on you to understand this.