The way to happiness is simply this:  understand that there is no meaning outside of the human mind.

I'm not talking about an absence of meaning - for this would indicate that meaning had to exist in order for it to be absent.  And I'm not talking about meaninglessness, either, for the same reason.  The path to  happiness and peace is to first realize that meaning is created, that it exists in the human condition (in fact, in any animal's condition), and that it is, therefore, governed by the laws of language.

So yes, language creates meaning.  The moment two or more people agree on an alliance between language and its object - that which exists, either organic or otherwise - meaning is created.  This is true of all living things - not just humans.  For example, the dog urinating on the fire hydrant is using language - the urine is language because others of his species (and some other species, as well) understand what it means.  Humans do not; but others are aware of the alliance between the language (urine) and the object (??).

Who creates this so-called alliance?  It is the members of what I call the Collective Consciousness who create meaning, and we humans move fluidly into and out of many Collective Consciousnesses every day.  It all began back in the cave, when we first realized that in order to survive, we needed to have "collective beliefs;" otherwise, certain death would come to the clan.  Today, we still live in multiple Collective Consciousnesses each and every day.  We move into and out of them almost without realizing it.

It is not the individual who creates collective meaning: it is the Collective Consciousness, the "majority," the culture, the civilization, etc.  This is why it had worked so well during the beginning of our kind - our primitive intellect required something larger in order for us to operate as well as in order for our intellect to evolve.  Today,  however, it is our most severe malady.

Imagine a civilization deep in the forest.  They worship the sun.  But it has been raining for seven days.  Their prayers go unanswered; the rain still comes.  The Gods, they believe, are angry.  On the eighth day, they offer a sacrifice:  each woman upon reaching the age of thirteen receives a sacred stone which insures their transcendence into the afterlife; but today, in the pouring rain, they remove the stones which are worn on a rope of leaves around their necks and place them in a pile where the men of the tribe smash them with what looks to you like sledgehammers.  The next day, their eyes touch the rising sun.  They rejoice.  Now, imagine another civilization three hundred miles away in the same forest.  Today is the first day of the Sacred Growing.  Over the last several weeks, they've been preparing for this through prayers and rituals - and, of course, plantings.  Their God must bring them rain on Rain Day of the Sacred Growing.  Today is Rain Day.  But rain does not come.  Instead, it's another sunrise.  They lament.

The sun which rises on this day is the same sun for both civilizations - indeed, it's the same sun for all of us on the planet.  However, its meaning is vastly different - whether an unhappy God, a Rain Day, your wedding day, a funeral, etc.  You can take this example and apply it to any belief system, anything to which you give meaning...and anything that you believe gives meaning to you.

Once you realize that meaning exists only in the Collective Consciousness, you will begin to raise your level of consciousness to that of the Universal.  It is in the Universal where Nature lives.  Nature is boundless - it is what makes up everything we know (earth) and everything we don't (the universe).  Nature possesses no meaning:  it is Universal.  And language is incapable of harnessing (or supporting) the Universal.

Before I explain the way to happiness and peace, I offer to you this introduction.  Please meditate on it.