OK I am gonna come right out and admit there is no key to anything let alone to happiness. Further more there is no happiness at all. There is ecstasy and there is contentment. Happiness is an elusive idea that is making everyone in the western world so unhappy....
I like to simplify things in a deep way (yes, I meant to say this haha) Once you have spent a sufficient amount of years trying to understand yourself, analyze yourself, go in, go deep then you need to let all of that go and get out of yourself. Look at others, look how you can serve and help, look for ways to listen, to be there for others. Lose your self importance! The most important realization I have had about happiness has been to let go of my self.
So here are my steps to attaining "happiness":
1. Forget about your Self. We live in a ME-CULTURE, ME-SOCIETY. Everything revolves around our own happiness, our own spirituality, our own enlightenment, self healing, self realization, self, self, me, me. The pursuit of enlightenment has become one of the most selfish and self serving behaviors I have observed in my life. It's a trap and a prison that has been laid out by the NEW AGE literature and so many have fallen into it.
Let me explain. We have all heard the concept of the HUNGRY GHOST REALM. A place of insatiable desire/hunger that cannot be fulfilled. Chasing a physical satisfaction, an addiction with a body that does not fully emerge into the physical realm. So physical fulfillment becomes an elusive, self serving desire for satisfaction that can never be attained. So what does all of that have to do with our desire to grow on a spiritual level? Trying to attain happiness through a self serving desire to achieve spiritual growth can become an elusive place where happiness cannot be achieved... THE HUNGRY GHOST REALM. The desire to achieve enlightenment is in fact a selfish desire to begin with. And that's where the trick is because we go into spirituality with this new found enthusiasm to grow when in fact this can turn into a selfish motive. In Buddhism desire is the cause of all suffering. And the key is to seek liberation through enlightenment without attachment to the "wanting" .
Letting go of your self importance will liberate you. It will not make you less important or diminish your significance as a soul instead it will liberate you enough so that you stop being a victim and become a glowing, serving, caring, loving, burning with inspiration creative heart :D You will not grow to know yourself less just because you think about yourself less. You will instead realize that your purpose here is to grow through serving the whole rather then separating yourself from the whole and you will grow to "SEE" yourself from a deeper place. You will grow to know yourself on a soul level. And the illusion of separateness will vanish.
2. Stop looking for happiness outside of yourself. Stop looking for external validation. Everything you need is within and yoga is here to teach you that. All you need is your body and you can delve deep into the layers of your consciousness. Just be quiet and observe. Don't draw conclusions as that's from the mind.
3. Stop looking for happiness period. You are already happy! You are where you need to be at this moment. And you are missing out on your lessons for as long as you are reminiscing about the past or day dreaming about the future. You are here and now, the sun is caressing your skin daily, the air is bringing vitality to you now, the sky is as blue as ever (minus the chemtrails), and your body is serving you 24/7 so that you can breath, move, smile, taste, think, love and be ecstatic.
4. Be empty. Allow the constant chatter in your head to dissolve into nothingness. Unhappiness is a state of thinking and not a state of being. There is a stream of your own consciousness that can step out and away from the chatter and simply observe the chatter happening. It is called "the witness"
5. Realize that you are here with a mission and a purpose. And everything else is insignificant. You are here to serve and contribute to the growth of all of humanity and all of your problems are nothing in the great scope of all things.
We are all in fact evolving. And part of your evolution is serving.
Think about your problems from a 200, 300, 1000 year perspective. Would they matter? 99% of them won't. So in essence you are happy. You just need to realize it :)
Love is the only thing that matters and the only thing that will matter 10,000 years from now. And I am speaking about universal love, true love that emanates from your heart, deep divine love.
NAMASTE
LOVE YOU ALL
EXCELLENT ADDITIONS BY YOU GUYS:
An idea:
Stop worrying about things you can not change an accept them how they are.
Change the things that bother you if you can, instead of postponing it.
And have the wisdom to separate one from the other!
Oh and: Making other people happy makes you happy! But try to apply the "can not change thing".. Some people are resistant :D
...most of the unhappiness we feel comes from the fact that we "constantly seek happiness itself."
Thank you so much, Ali! Very deep... XO :)
ReplyDeleteLove and Blessings :)
DeleteThis is an amazing article! Thank you for this :)
ReplyDeletethank you!!! love :)
DeleteAn idea:
ReplyDeleteStop worrying about things you can not change an accept them how they are.
Change the things that bother you if you can, instead of postponing it.
And have the wisdom to separate one from the other!
Oh and: Making other people happy makes you happy! But try to apply the "can not change thing".. Some people are resistant :D
so true. postponing things only makes them seem a bigger problem than they actually are :) so all in all things are simple hehe
ReplyDeleteThank you for this beautiful article, Ali. I agree with your every word. Namaste
ReplyDeleteLilla thank you! LOVE
Deletethis is great ali. are you a philosopher or a counselor? lol you sound like one. i agree with you, most of the unhappiness we feel comes from the fact that we "constantly seek happiness itself."
ReplyDeleteJayzel excellent - i added your words to the article :) aren't we all philosophers hehe XOXO
DeleteNow I can say why 'Happiness is an elusive idea that is making everyone in the western world so unhappy..' thanks
ReplyDeleteHappiness is a journey not a destination :) love.
ReplyDeleteWeiting