Happiness: Now or Never

The happiness you seek is the happiness you are. – Rupert Spira

The desire for happiness is universal amongst humanity. Despite the diversity of backgrounds, cultures, and conditioning every one of us wants to be happy. However diverse our individual thoughts, actions, and strategies may appear, this desire is at the core of what motivates us and influences our decisions and behavior.

With even scant awareness you will notice how this yearning for happiness is always running in the background, like an ever-present sense of longing seeking fulfillment no matter the circumstances. Why is this do you suppose? And why, even when we acquire some object of our desire, or some situation works out the way we had hoped for, or somebody’s behavior matches our expectations, there is only fleeting satisfaction, followed very soon by a resumption of this yearning? Why is it that, like the Rolling Stones song, we just can’t get no satisfaction? Once again, paradox is at play in this conundrum and the answer is a reversal, an inside-out perspective of dissatisfaction.

Here's the background and the truth. We have grown up to believe we are separate and distinct people, in a world of discrete objects, all of which appear outside and apart from us. The well-being we seek seems to be a matter of getting what we want by acquiring these objects, conditions, circumstances and relationships that will satisfy this pervasive feeling of lack and not enough. The seeming satisfaction we experience when we acquire some desired object is actually due to the sense of lack coming to an end, not from having the object itself. You can notice this with children (of any age). When you give them a toy that they dearly wanted, they are happy immediately, even before they have opened the box, or started playing with it. Your boss tells you that you will be getting a raise. You are immediately delighted, even though you haven’t enjoyed the fruits of the increase. The separate self rises with desire, or any sense of lack, and recedes when the sense of lack recedes in reaction or even the anticipation of getting what you want. This is a powerful insight that can redirect us from the endless and futile search for the ultimate object (person, place, or thing) that will finally make us happy, to the source of real fulfillment.

The separate self is a false self; it's not the truth of you or me. The true self, the soul of us, is connected to the totality, and knows only wholeness. Although we forget or overlook this sense of our true being, it remains our deepest nature. It cannot be diminished, tarnished, or lost. This sense of wholeness, or at least the memory of this wholeness, is never completely obscured, and seeps into our awareness even when we are seeking ephemeral satisfaction in the world of objects. This sets up a conflict between a belief that we are only a fragment of the whole and the inner knowing of our essential wholeness, which shows up as this feeling of dissatisfaction. We long to return to this essential wholeness that is at the core of our being, and we confuse the world’s appearances as the path that will get us there. But alas, it never does. It can’t. This path only takes us farther from our true home, and only strengthens the separate self identity, and perpetuates the feeling of lack and dissatisfaction.

We can continue to play out this illusion but many of us who’ve experienced a lifetime of seeking but not finding, and have been exhausted by pursuing its false promise of fulfillment, have chosen the inward way to wellbeing. When truth is our priority for living, then we question the false authority of the separate self that claims the answer is out there and turn our attention toward the presence of our very own inner being. Here we find the stripped-down sense of existence, without labels or expectations. It's simply the sense of being... period. Not being something or somebody. Simply being. It’s called by many names, awareness, consciousness, true nature, essence, and more. By any name, it is the truth of you, and it is self-satisfied, whole, not lacking in any way. The good news is that this sense of self is always present. Unlike the world of objects, it does not come and go. It remains undisturbed and fully available in every moment. It is prior to thought, before perceptions. It is the truth of you, and it's only recognizable in this moment. The invitation to life mastery is clear. Stay home, drink from the well of the presence in this precious moment. Here we find soul satisfaction and an end to the pursuit of happiness.

Peace and blessings,

Rev. Larry