UNCONDITIONAL HAPPINESS We are all engaged in the pursuit of happiness. From the most basic drives of survival, to the most refined tastes for art, intellectuality, and love, we seek that which fulfills us. We naturally seem to seek this outside of ourselves. Perhaps our early conditioning as dependent children receiving love and nourishment from outside led to the view that happiness is external, that it must be pursued and attained. Perhaps this tendency is another of “Nature’s Traps,” keeping us in the world until we become wise enough to know better. Seeking fulfillment outside of ourselves is the materialist attitude about happiness. Whether the concern is survival, power, sensation, nurturing, significance, love, or creative needs, happiness becomes conditional upon achieving, attaining, or possessing something outside of ourselves. Even creative needs depend on successful execution and recognition before fulfillment can be attained. Successful satisfaction of needs becomes a condition for happiness. We defend our ownership of the means to satisfy needs, whether a career, person, place to live, or self-image. We become dependent on these possessions, fearing their loss. We become anxious and resentful about our dependence, often unconsciously. We learn to hate the possessions that are supposed to bring us happiness, feeling that they actually own and control us, instead of the other way around. Of course, legitimate needs must be met, but I am talking about something else. We have built a need system that is addictive, neurotic, and artificial. Our needs have gone beyond simple and basic human requirements, but we still look to the satisfaction of these exaggerated needs for happiness. They become the source of happiness. It is unfortunate that much New Age emphasis is on learning how to more effectively get what we think we need to be happy; in other words, how to better satisfy addictions. What we need is to learn how to get rid of the addictions. The purpose of spiritual life in general is to get us to the point where we no longer assume that anything from the outside will be a source of happiness. Of course, we will still have activities, relationships, and possessions, but instead of regarding them as sources, we regard them as expressions of happiness. To the extent that we can do this, we are freed from dependency, poverty consciousness, and dualistic experience. When we know that nothing from the outside can significantly and permanently help us find happiness, we are freed from the sense of lack. When we do not lack anything, we feel complete as we are and have entered abundance consciousness. This condition has no dependence whatsoever on our possessions; it is a state of mind. Abundance consciousness serves to attract fortunate circumstances, exactly because we do not feel that anything is lacking. We acquire material resources and harmonious relationships but are not dependent on them and do not fear their loss.
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 12:48:55 +0000