The Quest for Happiness

This quest for happiness goes on endlessly because man is vainly searching outside for something he has lost and will never find if he continues his pursuits in the world of senses.
(Swami Vishnu-devananda, page 305)

An aha Moment

I had what one would refer to as an aha moment or at least something close to it yesterday.  I had that sense of 'break through' and it lead to a certain upping of my mood and a lot of relief from the heaviness I was carrying. The experience  really wasn't heartfelt or soulful in the beginning...it was very cerebral, in fact....but after the 'aha'  I felt it everywhere.

I was reading Swami Vishnu-devananda's The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga and as I read the chapter on Self as Existence, Knowledge and Bliss it was like , "I get it!!!  I really get it!!! He was writing about pain and suffering and why man was on a constant never ending search for happiness and why instead of finding it...he suffers and feels miserable. Now I wrote about this several times but there was something about his teaching that took me a little further into this understanding.  I really can't explain it other than that.

The  Reasons for Suffering

Man suffers because he is confused about what he is looking for and where to find it.

There are two main reasons for this confusion, according to the author: a sense of "I-ness" and a sense of "mine-ness. "  The I-ness is the mistaking the transient body for the self.  If we are attached to that ideology we will suffer when our bodies disintegrate ( and they all will) , when we age and get sick or when we or someone we love dies. The 'mine-ness" is our attachment to things of the external world...even relationships.  If we see that we are not full and complete without these things we will suffer as they get lost, break down  or get  taken away. (and they will as is their nature). Attachment brings suffering.

I look at this I-ness and this mine-ness as ego lies. Lies we subscribe to, perpetuate, build upon and cling to...  even when they create nothing but suffering. With this suffering...ego trains us to seek outside ourselves for happiness in the I and the mine.

Looking for a golden Needle

Swami relays a story about an old woman who lost a golden needle in her bedroom.  Her friend was called over to help her look for it, but not in the bedroom where she lost it but in the garden.  They fruitlessly searched and searched for hours in this garden for the 'thing' that the old woman so loved. Finally her friend asked, "Why are we looking out here and not in the bedroom?"  The old woman responded, "Because there is no light in my bedroom.  I need to search where there is light so I can see."

Hmmm!  How many of us are relying on our bodily senses and identifications to help us find what we have lost...even if that dependence takes us far away from where the lost thing is?  We look outward instead of inward. We use our senses instead of vision.

What is it that we are looking for? 

According to ancient scriptures we are looking for Sat-Chit-Ananda: the Being, the knowledge and the bliss that is the Self. That is what we lost and that is what we long for.

Where is it? 

Where we lost it...inside us...not out there in the external garden we are searching in.  We need to go back through the bedroom door of our mind's where it is and always was.  The happiness we are looking for is inside. 

Not only that...It is us. Somewhere inside we know that. We know we are naturally peaceful and joyful.  Pain is not a part of our nature. Otherwise we wouldn't be searching.

The Analogy of Boiling Water to Explain that pain is not our nature

The author also uses analogy of boiling water.  When we ask why is the water, boiling over an open fire, hot? It shows that water is not normally hot.  If water is always hot we would simply know it as water and not question its character. Yet water is not inherently hot...and something in us knows that thus the question.  If water is hot...something made it hot. What was that something?  In this case it was its union with fire that made it hot. Take it off and away from the fire it returns to its natural temperature.

Why is man suffering?  If I ask that question that indicates that it is not man's natural tendency to suffer.  "Pain is not the nature of the soul." Something is making it suffer. We inherently know that and that is why we search for its opposite: peace, happiness and joy.

Yet we often do not realize what that thing that causes us to suffer is.  What is that something?: The ego and its need for "I-ness and mine-ness".  So if we take away the "I" and "mine"...we return back to our natural state which is pure knowledge, bliss and joy and Being.

We often do not know what we are looking for. We want happiness  but not the same happiness ego wants.  though we spend a good portion of our lives, if not all of it, looking for the things ego tells us will make us happy.  We will not be able to find the thing we seek that way.

The true happiness is in the Self (ananda).  We want to Be, to exist, to live...and that is the sat.  We want ultimate knowledge and that is the chit.  What we really want, then, is not a golden needle or anything else the world provides...we want Self.

As long as we are looking for happiness outside the Self (the sat-chit-ananda) we are looking  in the wrong places.  That is the only reason we can not find it. If we are suffering at all...it simply means we are looking in the wrong place.

Get out of the garden and go back to the place where what you lost is. Turn the gaze inward and we will see it was never lost!


Whatever suffers is not part of me.
ACIM-W-248

All is well

References:

ACIM

Swami Vishnu-devananda (1988) The Complete Illustrated book of Yoga. New York: Three Rivers Press