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Nondual
Highlights: Issue #2917, Sunday, September 2, 2007, Editor: Mark
Happiness As A Role vs. True Happiness
"How are you?" "Just great. Couldn't be
better."
True or False?
In many cases, happiness is a role people play, and behind the
smiling facade, there is a great deal of pain. Depression,
breakdowns, and overreactions are common when unhappiness is
covered up behind a smiling exterior and brilliant white teeth,
when there is denial, sometimes even to one's self, that there is
much unhappiness.
"Just fine" is a role the ego plays more commonly in
America than in certain other countries where being and looking
miserable is almost the norm and therefore more socially
acceptable. It is probably an exaggeration, but I am told that in
the capital of one Nordic country you run the risk of being
arrested for drunken behavior if you smile at strangers in the
street.
If there is unhappiness in you, first you need to acknowledge
that it is there. But don't say, "I'm unhappy."
Unhappiness has nothing to do with who you are. Say: "There
is unhappiness in me." Then investigate it. A situation you
find yourself in may have something to do with it. Action may be
required to change the situation or remove yourself from it. If
there is nothing you can do, face what is and say, "Well,
right now, this is how it is. I can either accept it, or make
myself miserable." The primary cause of unhappiness is never
the situation but your thoughts about it.
Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking.
Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral, which
always is as it is. There is the situation or the facts, and
there are my thoughts about it. Instead of making up stories,
stay with the facts. For example, "I am ruined" is a
story. It limits you and prevents you from taking effective
action. "I have fifty cents left in my bank account" is
a fact. Facing facts is always empowering. Be aware that what you
think, to a large extent, creates the emotions you feel. See the
link between your thinking and your emotions. Rather than being
your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them.
Don't seek happiness. If you seek it, you won't find it, because
seeking is the antithesis of happiness. Happiness is ever
elusive, but freedom from unhappiness is attainable now, by
facing what is rather than making up stories about it.
Unhappiness covers up your natural state of well-being and inner
peace, the source of true happiness.
The Background Unhappiness
The ego creates separation, and separation creates suffering. The
ego is therefore clearly pathological. Apart from the obvious
ones such as anger, hatred, and so on, there are other more
subtle forms of negativity that are so common they are usually
not recognized as such, for example, impatience, irritation,
nervousness, and being "fed up." They constitute the
background unhappiness that is many people's predominant inner
state. You need to be extremely alert and absolutely present to
be able to detect them. Whenever you do, it is a moment of
awakening, of disidentification from the mind.
Here is one of the most common negative states that is easily
overlooked, precisely because it is so common, so normal. You may
be familiar with it.
Do you often experience a feeling of discontent that could best
be described as a kind of background resentment?
It may be either specific or nonspecific. Many people spend a
large part of their lives in that state. They are so identified
with it that they cannot stand back and see it. Underlying that
feeling are certain unconsciously held beliefs, that is to say,
thoughts. You think these thoughts in the same way that you dream
your dreams when you are asleep. In other words, you don't know
you are thinking those thoughts, just as the dreamer doesn't know
he is dreaming.
Here are some of the most common unconscious thoughts that feed
the feeling of discontent or background resentment. I have
stripped away the content from those thoughts so that the bare
structure remains. They become more clearly visible that way.
Whenever there is unhappiness in the background of your life (or
even in the foreground), you can see which of these thoughts
applies and fill in your own content according to your personal
situation:
"There is something that needs to happen in my life before I
can be at peace (happy, fulfilled, etc.). And I resent that it
hasn't happened yet. Maybe my resentment will finally make it
happen."
"Something happened in the past that should not have
happened, and I resent that. If that hadn't happened, I would be
at peace now."
"Something is happening now that should not be happening,
and it is preventing me from being at peace now."
Often the unconscious beliefs are directed toward a person and so
"happening" becomes "doing":
"You should do this or that so that I can be at peace. And I
resent that you haven't done it yet. Maybe my resentment will
make you do it."
"Something you (or I) did, said, or failed to do in the past
is preventing me from being at peace now." What you are
doing or failing to do now is preventing me from being at
peace."
The Secret of Happiness
All of the above are assumptions, unexamined thoughts that are
confused with reality. They are stories the ego creates to
convince you that you cannot be at peace now or cannot be fully
yourself now. Being at peace and being who you are, that is,
being yourself, are one. The ego says: Maybe at some point in the
future, I can be at peace -- if this, that, or the other happens,
or I obtain this or become that. Or it says: I can never be at at
peace because of something that happened in the past. Listen to
people's stories and they could all be entitled "Why I
Cannot Be at Peace Now." The ego doesn't know that your only
opportunity for being at peace is now. Or maybe it does know, and
it is afraid that you may find this out. Peace, after all, is the
end of the ego.
How to be at peace now?
By making peace with the present moment. The present moment is
the field on which the game of life happens. It cannot happen
anywhere else. Once you have made peace with the present moment,
see what happens, what you can do or choose to do, or rather what
life does through you. There are three words that convey the
secret of the art of living, the secret of all success and
happiness: One With Life. Being one with life is being one with
Now. You then realize that you don't live your life, but life
lives you. Life is the dancer, and you are the dance.
The ego loves its resentment of reality.
What is reality? Whatever is. Buddha called it tatata -- the
suchness of life, which is no more than the suchness of this
moment. Opposition toward that suchness is one of the main
features of the ego. It creates the negativity that the ego
thrives on, the unhappiness that it loves. In this way, you make
yourself and others suffer and don't even know that you are doing
it, don't know that you are creating hell on earth. To create
suffering without recognizing it -- this is the essence of
unconscious living; this is being totally in the grip of the ego.
The extent of the ego's inability to recognize itself and see
what it is doing is staggering and unbelievable. It will do
exactly what it condemns others for and not see it. When it is
pointed out, it will use angry denial, clever arguments, and
self-justifications to distort the facts. People do it,
corporations do it, governments do it. When all else fails, the
ego will resort to shouting or even to physical violence. Send in
the marines. We can now understand the deep wisdom in Jesus'
words on the cross:
"Forgive them for they know not what they do."
To end the misery that has afflicted the human condition for
thousands of years, you have to start with yourself and take
responsibility for your inner state at any given moment. That
means now. Ask yourself,
"Is there negativity in me at this moment?"
Then, become alert, attentive to your thoughts as well as your
emotions. Watch out for the low-level unhappiness in whatever
form that I mentioned earlier, such as discontent, nervousness,
being "fed up," and so on. Watch out for thoughts that
appear to justify or explain this unhappiness but in reality
cause it. The moment you become aware of a negative state within
yourself, it does not mean you have failed.
It means that you have succeeded.
Until that awareness happens, there is identification with inner
states, and such identification is ego. With awareness comes
disidentification from thoughts, emotions, and reactions. This is
not to be confused with denial. The thoughts, emotions, or
reactions are recognized, and in the moment of recognizing,
disidentification happens automatically. Your sense of self, of
who you are, then undergoes a shift: Before you were the
thoughts, emotions, and reactions; now you are the awareness, the
conscious Presence that witnesses those states.
"One day I will be free of the ego." Who is talking?
The ego. To become free of the ego is not really a big job but a
very small one. All you need to do is be aware of your thoughts
and emotions -- as they happen. This is not really a
"doing," but an alert "seeing." In that
sense, it is true that there is nothing you can do to become free
of the ego. When that shift happens, which is the shift from
thinking to awareness, an intelligence far greater than the ego's
cleverness begins to operate in your life. Emotions and even
thoughts become depersonalized through awareness. Their
impersonal nature is recognized. There is no longer a self in
them. They are just human emotions, human thoughts. Your entire
personal history, which is ultimately no more than a story, a
bundle of thoughts and emotions, becomes of secondary importance
and no longer occupies the forefront of your consciousness. It no
longer forms the basis for your sense of identity. You are the
light of Presence, the awareness that is prior to and deeper than
any thoughts and emotions.
- Eckhart Tolle, posted to The_Now2
Q: How do I keep going on?
P: You have to leave everything behind. To go in, you leave
behind mind, ego, body, senses,, and manifestation. All of that
is not here in that instant of going in. Also, "I" is
not here.
Q: That's right.
P:"I" means mind. Mind means ego, ego means senses,
senses means manifestation. So, this inquiry is at the root of
the ego, and you say you have done it.
Q: Yes, but only for a moment.
P: Agreed! So lift up a step from this presence, and plant a foot
somewhere. Where will you plant it?
Q: I must try not to think about that.
P: You can think, do whatever you do. You have landed in the
ocean. Do whatever you want: think, talk, swim.
Q: But how do I let go, to go in?
P: You said you did it!
Q: For the instant of no-time.
P: Agreed! From that no-time you now want to go to time.
Q: No, I don't. I want to let go.
P: Time is mind, and time is past.
Q: I know.
P: For this instant of no-time you said you went out of time. Now
I want you to walk out of timelessness.
Q: Ah...
P: Now you have nothing to do. Ah -- that's it, now you've got
it. Don't think for this, or make any effort, and you are here.
You will always be here, and you have always been here, but you
were otherwise occupied. (laughs)
The past is a graveyard. All of your tears and suffering must
come from the past. If you unceasingly search for who you are,
there will be no room for the past to come into consciousness.
You are already occupied. Then there is no space for the past.
First, you disappear, then you will dive into the ocean of
ambrosia. Then whatever you speak will be poetry. Then there is
no one speaking.
- dialogue with Papaji, from Wake Up and Roar!
Unending Love
I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times...
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, it's age old pain,
It's ancient tale of being apart or together.
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,
Clad in the light of a pole-star, piercing the darkness of time.
You become an image of what is remembered forever.
You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the
fount.
At the heart of time, love of one for another.
We have played along side millions of lovers,
Shared in the same shy sweetness of meeting
, the distressful tears of farewell,
Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.
- Rabindranath Tagore
As flowing waters
disappear into the mist
We lose all track
of their passage
Every heart
is its own Buddha
Ease off ...
Become immortal
Wake up!
The world's a mote of dust
Behold heaven's round mirror
Turn loose!
Slip past shape and shadow
Sit side by side
with nothing
Save the Way
- Shih-Shu, posted to Mystic_Spirit
You Don't Have to Act Crazy Anymore
You Don't Have to Act Crazy Anymore -
We all know you were good at that.
Now retire, my dear,
From all that hard work you do
Of bringing pain to your sweet eyes and heart.
Look in a clear mountain mirror -
See the Beautiful Ancient Warrior
And the Divine elements
You always carry inside
That infused this Universe with sacred Life
So long ago
And join you Eternally
With all Existence - with God!
- Hafiz, from I heard God Laughing - Renderings of Hafiz,
translated by Daniel Ladinsky