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Everyone wants to be happy. In over thirty years of transformational work with over 100,000 people in eight countries, I have found that even the most sour-faced individual you can imagine --- the one who sees dark clouds everywhere, even in the midst of sunshine; the one who firmly believes that life sucks, and feels the only way to be protected from further disappointment and hurt is to be encased in the brittle armor of irony and cynicism ---- when they pierce through the layers of numbness, hopelessness, resignation, apathy, anger and sense of separateness, their yearning to be happy still lives like a flickering flame. How can this be? Because all of us, at some level, sense that happiness is our natural state. Our Founding Fathers knew that. The Pursuit of Happiness is even listed as a "right" in the Declaration of Independence!
Today, from every direction, we are offered more, better, and different things that promise to provide us with the magic formula for happiness through some form of self-improvement; either showing us how to get more of what we believe we want to make us happy, and how to have less of what we believe keeps happiness beyond our reach. The search for happiness has generated a multi-billion dollar industry of books, tapes, courses, etc. that all promise to provide us with the magic formula. There is also the "suppress it and forget it" medication route offered by pharmaceutical companies.The list of promised solutions that provide happiness include: more money, more success, more power, more fame, more control, more approval, more security, more relationships, more love, more muscles, more sex-appeal, more hair, more "in" clothes, faster or bigger cars, the "dream" house, whiter teeth, deeper meditation, less weight, less stress, less uncertainty, less fear, less anger, less self-doubt, etc.
Yet, with all these so-called solutions available, why then does happiness still seem such a transient, illusive quality for most people?
The problem is that most of us are looking for the source of happiness in the wrong place. The enlightened mystics and masters of Spiritual Wisdom, both East and West, ancient and contemporary, have told us the truth about happiness over and over again.
Regarding happiness, there is bad news and good news. First the bad news:
NOTHING WILL MAKE YOU HAPPY.
That's right. Nothing out there, in any amount, will make you happy. Oh, you may feel happy for a few moments, minutes, hours, days, or even weeks, but it is an ephemeral, will-o-the-wisp state indeed! It doesn't last. But you don't need me to tell you that. You have experienced this "now you see it, now you don't" kind of happiness directly. All the striving to be happy, acquiring or achieving something "out there," does not provide a sustained state of happiness.
The world of form is a world of duality: on/off, good/evil, right/wrong, gain/lose, birth/death. In this world, everything is in a constant state of change. What comes into existence grows, changes, and eventually passes away. When we assign a person, a job or an object out there as the source of our happiness, we immediately become concerned that we may lose who or what we want. In the world of form, what you gain in one moment, you can lose in the next.
This fear of losing what we've got occurs even in the moment of experiencing what we always said would make us happy. Try out the following thought experiment for yourself: Recall a time when you were experiencing something really wonderful, something that fit all of your ideals of what would make you happy. It may have been in a relationship, or an activity of play or a situation at work. Let yourself really remember how remarkable and wonderful it was!
Now, look and see how long it took for the voice of the inner commentator to bust into the middle of the ecstasy and whisper, "it's never going to last!" or "it's too good to be true!" There it is, the fear of loss throwing a verbal turd into the punch bowl of your experience to make sure you don't get too carried away with being happy!
Another recipe that guarantees a life of disappointment, disillusionment, and suffering is to become attached to ideals of "the way it should be" instead of embracing fully the constant flow of life as it is. Then, instead of our actions being in harmony with the timeless NOW, we find ourselves continually acting from memories of the past or fears of an imagined future, concerned with gaining approval, gaining control, and gaining security.
Ask yourself the following question: "Are my present circumstances providing me with an ongoing and deep sense of inner peace, joy, contentment, and happiness that will remain no matter how these circumstances change?" If you cannot answer an unqualified "yes" to that question, the loss of happiness is only a matter of time. The world of things and circumstances is not the source of ongoing inner happiness.
You have no doubt heard the statement, "an optimist sees the glass as half full, and the pessimist sees the glass as half empty." This is usually followed by some platitude urging one to be an optimist. But the optimist is no more in touch with reality than the pessimist, and is being seduced by the same dualistic lie. Neither view is THE truth about reality. The glass is half full and half empty at the same time. To start to awaken from the myth of duality is to see the lie in the either/or view of life.
When we embrace both Yin and Yang, we embrace the whole. When that happens, we start to get an inkling of the good news about happiness.
The good news about happiness is:
NOTHING WILL MAKE YOU HAPPY.
Yes, the same words as the "bad news," yet distinct! The state of inner joy and happiness that we yearn for does not exist in the finite world of outer things, but only in the formless realm from which all form arises--- the realm of Being, of No-thing, This is the world of your own Divine nature where Unconditional Love dwells.
The fundamental question in all spiritual traditions is, "Who AM I?" You are not a limited, finite thing. That is just appearances. You are limitless Being, the open, sacred space of the I AM Presence expressed as YOU. You are No-thing. You are Everything. You are Awareness itself. When you are present to this truth of your Self, you experience the world as a Play of Consciousness, and recognize the truth in the Sufi statement "Wheresoever you look, there is the Face of God: everything is perishing except the One Face."
Then you are like the still center of a hurricane. In that stillness, an unchanging state of happiness that is LOVE itself emanates compassion and gratitude, and embraces the world with its Light. When you experience and dwell in this state, you are home.
The Core Wisdom courses and individual life coaching sessions are designed to guide you home to your true nature, and illuminate the principles for living each moment from your true Self with passion, freedom and joy.
(The above article is an expanded version of one that appeared in the July - September, 2003 issue of Open Exchange magazine)
-- Hal Isen
From Core Wisdom On-Line Number 33 - Aug. 20, 2003
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