Stop chasing happiness. The quest actually makes us less happy.
We go after things that we think will make us happy, but we are left feeling empty. We often put happiness out there in the future and we are in a constant state of seeking it so we end up never feeling happy now. The ego has no interest in being happy. The moment it actually finds it, its role is dissolved so it keeps you distant from happiness.
Happiness does not come from what you achieve or get, it is a state of being. You can be happy regardless of what is happening in your life, regardless of what you have or don't have. You must question your definition of success. You must question your definition of happiness.
We are spiritual beings having a human experience.
I would like to add the more spiritual you become in your awareness, the more you are connected to your humanity. You embrace at a deep level the value of ‘all of you.’ The thoughts, the feelings, the joy, and the depth. You become totally comfortable with your-self. It is essential as a Difference Maker to be comfortable with yourself.
Life is an ongoing destination of learning, yet there is an arrival place — it’s called happiness. With happiness you draw from the core of your being, which is produced and renewed from ‘something’ much greater than who you are. Even though your life may take many twists and turns, the inner happiness you experience is always a non-negotiable.
Because everyone has self-awareness, human beings know what it means to be happy or unhappy. This feeling is so basic that seeking happiness comes naturally. Yet for some reason happiness proves elusive, and feeling that you can find permanent happiness can seem futile.
If we look closely, however, there are three ways to be happy. The first two arise in everyone’s life; the third is rare. But the third way is the only one, after centuries of seeking, that has stood the test of time. Every age is challenged to rediscover the third way, including our own time.
The first way to be happy is to follow your impulses without judging them, taking life as it comes from moment to moment. This is the way of babies and small children. They are motivated by the next thing that occurs to them, and they have little ability to predict what will turn out to be a sad or glad experience. Impulsiveness lingers in many people after they become adults, but the vast majority of people move on to the second way of being happy.
CHASING OUR FEELINGS
ORIGIN OF UNHAPPINESS
Many situations come in our lives, which take us to this unimaginably delightful level of happiness, yet no matter how marvellous the experiences are, they never last. They are transitory.
TRUST THE HIGHER POWER
History is filled with powerful forces that change the face of the Earth, and right now we are experiencing one, an explosion of a new coronavirus that has upended daily life. Forecasts of a changing world are in the air once the pandemic is over, but no one really knows what the reset will be, if there is going to be one.
I think the best reset would be over happiness. There is an unquenchable drive for humans to seek happiness, but this means very different things at different times. A day laborer hauling stone to build a cathedral in the Middle Ages was happy, even inspired, by backbreaking physical work that never changed and ended with the breakdown of the body.
That way of being happy is unimaginable to modern people. In developed societies, our formula for happiness generally involves the following: physical comfort, ample leisure, scientific medicine, higher education, endless distractions through entertainment and social media, and a steady supply of consumer goods. In the developing world these values are dominant, not as what people already have but what they aspire to have.
Happiness is a byproduct of you being present for you and of radical self-acceptance. We need to access a deeper understanding that we are a creator generating our happiness…
We often put happiness out there in the future and we are in a constant state of seeking it so we end up never feeling happy now. The ego has no interest in being happy. The moment it actually finds it, its role is dissolved so it keeps you distant from happiness.
Happiness does not come from what you achieve or get, it is a state of being. You can be happy regardless of what is happening in your life, regardless of what you have or don't have. You must question your definition of success. You must question your definition of happiness.
Does money buy happiness? Experts will tell you “no, of course not,” but according to a new survey, 90 percent of the top 1 percent of U.S. household income earners—those who earn $500,000 per year or more—claim to be “completely” or “very” satisfied with their lives overall.
If money doesn’t buy happiness, then what’s going on here?
The Difference Between Wealth and REAL WEALTH
The 1 percent that are completely or highly satisfied with their lives are embodying what I call “living in a state of REAL WEALTH” rather than just a state of monetary wealth. Monetary wealth is unsustainable in terms of supplying happiness since it relies entirely on external factors to provide fulfillment. REAL WEALTH is deeply satisfying since it goes much deeper than that.
Inside all of us is a confusion of ideas and expectations that have been built up over the years through our experiences, books we’ve read, movies we’ve seen, opinions of people who seemed to be “in the know,” and endless other sources.
Much of this “information” is distorted, irrelevant, or just plain wrong. Nevertheless, these are the ideas that precede us into any situation, coloring what we see, and making us compare and judge reality against the picture in our minds.
These false beliefs shape the world we experience so that old pains and problems are reseeded into every new moment; their unseen influence is one of the reasons why we find ourselves so often re-living certain unwanted experiences over and over again. We may blame some outside condition for our discontent, but the fact is most of what troubles us about life, does so because we “believe” it’s not supposed to be like that!
All of this is particularly true when it comes to our human relationships. Our relationships with others, especially with our partner in life, are fraught with expectations, need, and false beliefs.
Is there enough?
The Practice:
Feel already full.
Why?
One slice of the pie of life feels relaxed and contented. And then there is that other slice, in which we feel driven and stressed. Trying to get pleasures, avoid pains, pile up accomplishments and recognitions, be loved by more people. Lose more weight, try to fill the hole in the heart. Slake the thirst, satisfy the hunger. Strive, strain, press.
This other slice is the conventional strategy for happiness. We pursue it for four reasons.
INTEND TO BE HAPPY
You need to experience life from a positive perspective. We must keep positive qualities on the top, on a priority basis.
Hi Dear One,
The most critical variable in whether or not we experience happiness is not our external circumstances but our internal state — our state of mind.
Think about that for a moment…
Our state of mind determines our emotions, which in turn determines whether we respond creatively to external conditions or whether we react in the same old, less than optimal, habitual patterns.
What does that mean?
It means that when you master the art of living in a high frequency state, it becomes harder for others to push your buttons.
You become neutral and stop taking offense to things that would normally drive you crazy and make you react negatively.
As a result… you feel better… happier… more at peace.
As energetic beings we are constantly vibrating at various frequencies.
Do you ever feel unlovable? Does it ever feel as though true love eludes you?
You see others who are happy but you can’t seem to find that same happiness for yourself.
If you ever feel unlovable or undeserving of love, you may have an unconscious program running that says you are not worthy of love.
This unconscious program affects your operating code which will inevitably attract situations that prove it.
We all live by codes
Without exception, everyone operates by one of these two basic codes.
The Buddha said, “I would not be teaching this (a path of awakening) if genuine happiness and freedom were not possible.” While this is our potential, we each have deep conditioning to get stuck in feelings of fear, deficiency and separation from others. These talks explore the two interdependent pathways of undoing the conditioning that blocks our potential. In Part I we will look at how we can intentionally arouse states of wellbeing, and with practice, develop them into ongoing traits that bring presence and joy to our lives. In Part II, we will investigate how to cultivate an unconditional presence, and the radical acceptance and love, that are the grounds of true happiness and inner freedom.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) makes many claims, some quite futuristic, others just around the corner. Somewhere in the middle lies the prediction of human behavior, with the attendant claim that if people are predictable, this could be the future of well-being.
To predict when someone is going to get angry, sad, afraid, or tense is already well within reach. AI is developing readouts of muscle activity and related bodily responses that indicate what the brain is going to do. Going a step further, at the MIT Media Lab they’ve taken enormous steps into translating thoughts—i.e., words in our heads—into signature brain signals. These signals can be digitized, and suddenly, a thought in your head can be sent to Google’s search engine via Wi-Fi, allowing you to search the Internet simply by thinking.
If you put these breakthroughs together, a new model of human behavior emerges, one based on predictability and reading the signals originating in the brain that attend predictable behaviors. AI experimenters get very excited about the notion that the brain, and the behavior it triggers, can be mathematically reduced to equations that in essence turn people into a complex of algorithms. The excitement is justified, because anything that can be expressed logically is understandable in computer language.
I love this message, I find that it is so true.
You can never have a happy ending at the end of an unhappy journey; it just doesn’t work out that way. The way you’re feeling, along the way, is the way you’re continuing to pre-pave your journey, and it’s the way it’s going to continue to turn out until you do something about the way you are feeling.
—Abraham
I remember times in my life where I would tell myself…
I just want to be happy!!!
But then I wouldn’t do anything different…
there was no change…
no movement…
no happiness.
I would blame it on circumstances…
on people…
on bad energy…
on addiction…
“I WANT.”
Five simple letters. Two words. Yet, there are probably no other two words in the English language that cause such powerful suffering.
The pull of wanting is immensely strong. Like an emotional black hole, it can drag you away from the light of grace and into the darkness of need. You become detached from the present moment. Instead of experiencing the joy, meaning, and peace that is your natural state, you endlessly orbit the bottomless pit of want, a thrall to an emptiness that can never be filled.
In short, these two tiny words equal pain and frustration. Let me show you how: