Is One Who Needs Nothing Happy?

Question: Various methodologies claim, “Happy is the one who needs nothing.” Is that so?

Answer: In general, yes. On the corporeal level if I need nothing, if all my desires are above the material level, aimed at love and bestowal, outside of me, then this is surely happiness.

Question: Some methods level out our desires. If a person does that, would he be happy?

Answer: A person leveling his desires reduces himself to the level of inanimate creation.

If he does not resist, does not criticize, does not blame anyone or anything, he is happy, but this happiness is emotionless like a rock. In this way he protects himself from suffering as much as possible. However, being a part of the rest of humanity, he will not be able to avoid problems. They will still come through. Moreover, he will constantly feel the need to become something more.

Question: The great Kabbalist Baal HaSulam writes that if a person made a calculation, looked at his life, and saw the amount of pain he felt versus the pleasure he experienced, he would immediately end his life. In other words, the amount of suffering is so much greater than the pleasure. Why is this calculation concealed from a person? We are all egoists. We are constantly calculating.

Answer: This is needed for the internal cumulative process so that we could accumulate multiple evils, bitterness, problems, depression, and come to such disillusionment in life that we would want to rise above it, not to end our lives, but to truly rise, to find the answer to why we suffer—for what?!
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/17/17