Recently PG forwarded an article to me. It was as if I was reading my own thoughts about life. Everybody has a simple choice to make, being happy or being sad; this choice I strongly feel can be made independently of the events happening around us. This might sound difficult and high philosophy, but I have often found this natural and I really hope that in future we never so bogged down with the events happening that we are unable to make this choice for us.
Read on.
+Fasih
The highest spiritual path is life itself. If you know how to live daily life, it all becomes a liberating experience. But first you have to approach life properly, or it can be very confusing. To begin with, you have to realize that you really only have one choice in this life, and it's not about your career, whom you want to marry, or whether you want to seek God. People tend to burden themselves with so many choices. But, in the end, you can throw it all away and just make one basic, underlying decision: Do you want to be happy, or do you not want to be happy? It's really that simple. Once you make that choice, your path through life becomes totally clear.
Most people don't dare give themselves that choice because they think it's not under their control. Someone might say, "Well, of course I want to be happy, but my wife left me." In other words, they want to be happy, but not if their wife leaves them. But that wasn't the question. The question was, very simply, "Do you want to be happy or not?" If you keep it that simple, you will see that it really is under your control. It's just that you have a deep-seated set of preferences that gets in the way. […]
It's not a question of whether your happiness is under your control. Of course it's under your control. It's just that you don't really mean it when you say you're willing to stay happy. You want to qualify it. You want to say that as long as this doesn't happen, or as long as that does happen, then you're willing to be happy. That's why it seems like it is out of your control. Any condition you create will limit your happiness. You simply aren't going to be able to control things and keep them the way you want them.
You have to give an unconditional answer. If you decide that you're going to be happy from now on for the rest of your life, you will not only be happy, you will become enlightened. Unconditional happiness is the highest technique there is. You don't have to learn Sanskrit or read any scriptures. You don't have to renounce the world. You just have to really mean it when you say that you choose to be happy. And you have to mean it regardless of what happens. This is truly a spiritual path, and it is as direct and sure a path to Awakening as could possibly exist.
--Michael Singer from "The Untethered Soul"
Read on.
+Fasih
The highest spiritual path is life itself. If you know how to live daily life, it all becomes a liberating experience. But first you have to approach life properly, or it can be very confusing. To begin with, you have to realize that you really only have one choice in this life, and it's not about your career, whom you want to marry, or whether you want to seek God. People tend to burden themselves with so many choices. But, in the end, you can throw it all away and just make one basic, underlying decision: Do you want to be happy, or do you not want to be happy? It's really that simple. Once you make that choice, your path through life becomes totally clear.
Most people don't dare give themselves that choice because they think it's not under their control. Someone might say, "Well, of course I want to be happy, but my wife left me." In other words, they want to be happy, but not if their wife leaves them. But that wasn't the question. The question was, very simply, "Do you want to be happy or not?" If you keep it that simple, you will see that it really is under your control. It's just that you have a deep-seated set of preferences that gets in the way. […]
It's not a question of whether your happiness is under your control. Of course it's under your control. It's just that you don't really mean it when you say you're willing to stay happy. You want to qualify it. You want to say that as long as this doesn't happen, or as long as that does happen, then you're willing to be happy. That's why it seems like it is out of your control. Any condition you create will limit your happiness. You simply aren't going to be able to control things and keep them the way you want them.
You have to give an unconditional answer. If you decide that you're going to be happy from now on for the rest of your life, you will not only be happy, you will become enlightened. Unconditional happiness is the highest technique there is. You don't have to learn Sanskrit or read any scriptures. You don't have to renounce the world. You just have to really mean it when you say that you choose to be happy. And you have to mean it regardless of what happens. This is truly a spiritual path, and it is as direct and sure a path to Awakening as could possibly exist.
--Michael Singer from "The Untethered Soul"
3 comments:
nice one bhiya
What crap!!! So, basically you are advocating that one completely divorces oneself from reality.
Its a biological and evolutionary thing. On biological terms, happiness is a signal given to your brain/nervous system when external/internal to your body stimuli are perceived to be favorable to you. Unless, your nervous system is not functioning properly, say in clinical depression and there are drugs to alleviate that condition.
Even a dog is happy when you coddle it and will be not happy if you kick it. Its what evolution has given all higher animals. Dont know if this can be extended to all animals with a central nervous system. But is clearly visible in most mammals. The idea is the brain is telling you if you are not "happy" then external stimuli is unfavorable to you and you should do something to change it.
Not following your evolutionary impulses may not be the best thing to do in this case. So, e.g. if my boss is screwing me and me am in la la land and super duper happy, then its not in my best interest:-). Whats in my best interest is to know that I am unhappy, find the reason for it and then act to rectify that situation.
Do me a favor, before you fall for any of this philosophical crap think about it rationally and scientifically. Given your intelligence you will find rational answers to be far more intellectually satisfying.
-BS
P.S: Yes I do stop by your blog when I have absolutely nothing better to do.
@Neo:
Neo, the term "happy" in the article was not intended to be used in the sense of "jumping around with a huge smile on the face".
Happiness is of two kinds: inner and outer. Inner happiness is when you are at peace with yourself. Outer happiness is what you experience when you get a big reward, eg. a double digit hike in salary in the current financial crisis.
As you mentioned, it will surely be crazy if someone goes jumping around with a big smile on his face even if his boss is screwing him up. But this is only an outward show of displeasure/pleasure as the case may be. If you want to handle the situation properly, it is very important for you to be at peace with yourself. Otherwise you could take a decision that is not really in your best interests. I am sure that even scientific people will try to avoid things like anger and hatred while taking important decisions. It is very important for people to be calm even under bad conditions. And this can happen only if you are peace with yourself at all times no matter what happens. And this peace is nothing but inner happiness.
So, as you also said, outer happiness always depends on your external circumstances. But inner happiness is under your control. And we must always make the best possible efforts to keep our inner happiness intact, under all circumstances.
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