We all want to be happy. We all strive for it, reaching out and find it constantly evading our grasp. Happiness is not resignation. It is not even contentment or satisfaction. When we search for it, it can seem to be always one step defferred. So what is happiness, and how can we let it be part of our lives?
The sages have told us, across cultural borders, that true happiness can only be found within. At a core layer, behind and irrespective of varying degrees of suffering or boredom, hardship or luxury, this living happiness is revealed when we open up to its presence, rather than ‘doing’ stuff in order to get to it. It’s here and now, it’s zero distance, and it’s not competing with anything.
At first the movement from seeking to allowing can seem counterintuitive. It can feel impossible that in order to fall into the very thing we’ve designed our lives to attain, we have to actually stop trying. Yet the way to happiness is a reverse direction. It’s a way inside, to the existential, clear sun, that shines regardless of atmosphere and thunderclouds on our emotional horizons. It’s a radical acceptance that happiness is here, also when we are discontent, also when we feel imperfect and also when we suffer. Below, are four existential pointers to the way of un-doing, un-making and least effort: the way of happiness.
1. Happiness is always here and now.
Actually everything that is anything is in the here and now. Even our memories take place in the now. Our future dreams are happening in the now. Also, happiness is here, at the core of ourselves, if we are ready to open the connection. It can be enough to evoke the feeling of happiness from some time when we were unconditionally happy. Just reliving the feeling in the present moment (without making the feeling dependent on a story or situation) helps to reopen the way to the natural happiness that is always there at the core of you.
2. Happiness is not the opposite of suffering.
Somehow in the formation of our belief systems, we fell for the idea that it is impossible to be happy and to experience pain or suffering at the same time. In this, we made our happiness dependent on “stuff” – whether the stuff of personal circumstance or the stuff of our hearts. It is not like that. On inquiry, you might notice that happiness is there, even when we face some of our most challenging times. It is there, even when we are cut to the core in sorrow. We can be happy and suffer at the same time. Although suffering might awaken us to practise the art of opening the way to the happiness which is always there, it can never negate it. On the other hand, the gentle allowance of a fine depth of inner happiness, irrespective of situations, does have a direct impact on our experience of hardship.
3. Opening the way of happiness is an art.
When we begin to open the way between our surface selves and the innate happiness which is always there, we could experience an increase in sorrow or pain. This is because we are becoming increasingly more authentic and true to ourselves. This allows frozen areas in our being to begin to defrost and tell us their story. It could be they have been frozen for decades. Hold fast, and allow the way of happiness, recognizing that this happiness is here, regardless of whatever feelings and emotions are surfacing. We never did actually leave the home of happiness. We just forgot it was there.
4. Happiness is truly our purpose.
For those of us troubled by feelings of guilt or perhaps shame, it can seem almost criminal to allow happiness within ourselves when we are surrounded by the suffering of others. We misguidedly believe that if others suffer, then we should also suffer, or at least repress our happiness – to do otherwise would be selfish. This is not the case. An open way to inner happiness is liberating to those who are in pain. It shows them a light of being which exists despite their trials. It is uplifting and a signpost to the well-being which is still there deeply hidden within themselves. In fact, compassion for others is most authentic when it arises out of unconditional happiness of being. Happiness is so closely connected with purpose that when we are attuned and manifesting purpose, we manifest happiness into the world. Whatever the shape of our individual passion, this happiness is what connects us in service to all others, whoever they are.
