Hope for Happiness??

I always say the purpose of life is to be happy.  There are no guarantees about the future, but we live in hope.
-Dalai Lama ( the calendar)

The Problem with the word Happiness

I am always cautious with the word happy.  It is just a word doing nothing but pointing a finger at something deeper but the word itself has always seemed too superficial to me for some reason.  Happiness seems to be an ego word, representing something conditional and gained by seeking outside the Self.   I prefer joy, peace, compassion, love....to happiness.  Just me, I guess,  and the way the word resonates inside me ( it doesn't lol).  Now I do use it, a lot,  knowing that others look at it differently.

So anyway...the purpose of life is to be happy ( i.e.  joyful, open, alive, peaceful, grateful,  enthusiastic, inspired, compassionate and loving). And if we are not feeling it now in this present moment we "hope" that we will reach that "happiness" in some moment up ahead. 

The future as we all know can not be predicted, controlled, fixed or guaranteed to go a certain way.  As long as we seek happiness in it and depend on everything in the future working out a certain way, the less likely we will actually find this idea of happiness.

But as the Dalai Lama says we live in hope of finding it someday. Hmmm!  Hope is another concept that trips me up.  (My bad for contradicting the Dalai Lama) .

The Problem with the Concept of Hope

Now it has its merits for sure. I much prefer the feeling of so called hope over the feeling of despair...big time.  It is a nice feeling to  hope...it pulls us from the depth of defeat and makes one a little taller and more energetic.  That's good. There is no doubt about that but hope again takes us away from the present moment to the future where we assume, project, and wait for this thing called happiness. It is still a future projection.  The hope we are looking for is usually  based on conditional outcomes, depending on  something to change in our external environments  to make us happy, is it not??

Does that not deny the truth that all we need to be happy is right here , right now regardless of what is going on around us or to us?

See...I have this conditioned notion right now that I need "hope" to get me through tomorrow and the upcoming days and weeks.  Most people, if they knew what I had going on, would say, "Be positive!  Don't give up hope. Things will work out!" I myself, would probably say that to someone having the same experience.

Yet, things may or may not have the outcome others would deem necessary for happiness. Yes, things may work out positively and that is great.  Everything may be just honky dory after tomorrow which will definitely make feeling peace a lot easier, let me tell ya.


But....

 At the same time I know, after all my seeking truth, that my peace does not have to  be dependent on what happens tomorrow.  My waiting for a positive outcome tomorrow is not going to allow peace ( my version of happiness) to flow through me right now.  Let me rephrase that...it is not going to connect me to the feeling of peace that is flowing through me right now.

Does that make sense?

Hope is a higher energy frequency than defeat is.  (Don't get tripped up by that 'energy' word...you know how tired and listless you feel in defeat and despair...compared to the skip in your jump when you are optimistic and hopeful...right?  That's energy!)  You want that energy. But it is not "hope' that you need.

Just Don't Close!

You want the opening it provides. You do want that higher energy coursing through you and your Life.  You do want to feel grateful, in awe of Life, enthusiastic...what his holiness refers to as "happy". Our purpose is to keep that energy flowing in us and others. 

All I am saying is that we just need to tap into that feeling that is already in us, always will be in us...right here, right now!!! We don't wait until things turn out a certain way and hope for the best!!!  Regardless of any possible outcome we open up now to this feeling.  As long as we are not feeling it (whatever word you choose to use to describe it) ...we are simply closing up to what is there.  It has nothing to do with what is going on around us or to us.  We simply decide to be open ...which is translated  by most people as ...we decide to be happy unconditionally.  (Singer, 2007)

Hmmm!  I am willing to be happy (i.e. joyful, peaceful, grateful, open, alive, enthusiastic, compassionate, loving etc.) unconditionally regardless of what tomorrow's outcome is.  I don't need hope.  I just need to stop closing.

All is well.

Michael Singer ( 2007) the untethered soul. Oakland,CA: New Harbinger/NoeticBooks