The essence of happiness.

“Happiness is a choice.  You can choose to be happy.  There’s going to be stress in life, but it’s your choice whether you let it affect you or not.”  ~ Valerie Bertinelli; American actress.

     The crux of the  matter of the true essence of happiness is that happiness has no cause, so do not strain your mind, as most people do, thinking that you need to experience wealth, that you need to experience driving a better car, that you need to experience a relationship, marriage, traveling, a better job, more friends, drinking alcohol, experimenting with drugs, skydiving, bungee jumping, etc. etc., to feel happiness or experience it.  Happiness has no cause and it has no qualities or characters; for happiness itself is already a condition of existence within you, and it is what we humans call inner peace–i.e. a peace that is not just of the mind or intellect, or even created or forced upon by us, but a never-ending peace that just is existent in the depth of our hearts, and a peace which involves your whole existence and makes you feel whole and without fear and anxiety, when you pay attention to it and block your nagging thoughts from interfering that is.

      See, happiness has no cause, because whatever has cause in life at some point disappears–i.e. money runs out, relationships die of age or lose interest, cars break down and rust, your pets die, conversations do not last, the sunshine is not always there, your thoughts and emotions change, and so on and so forth.  There is a cause for each one of these things I have mentioned–for example, a relationship is caused by the desire to find another to share emotional and carnal interactions with, or sunshine is caused by the particular seasons and the specific qualities of the day in question.

     True happiness, which in itself is limited by the human word as all divinity is, cannot own qualities or traits, emotion or thought, because these have causes and therefore origin and are based upon desires to fulfill.  Whenever you find a cause to “happiness”, it is not true happiness because it is chained to a desire to fill a gap in your mind and heart, and when you feel like you need to fill a gap in your mind and heart then it means you believe yourself to be not whole.  See, when “happiness” has a cause and it fulfills a desire which is made in your thought first, then it is coming from outside you–i.e. money, a relationship, sex, a trip to another place, a new car, petting your dog, hugging your friend, admiring great art pieces, etc. etc., is coming from thoughts and actions you create and it is being fulfilled from the things or experiences happening outside of you.

     True happiness is the eternal existence you are beyond thought and flesh, and such thought and flesh are moody, prone to flaws and diseases, and the rest of the roller-coaster triggers from the outside and which thought creates, obstacles and mere pleasures.  Now, I need you to understand this really well, because this is a profound topic of life, and I know words can be deceiving or misleading.  See, I am not saying that economic growth, relationships, loving sex, friendship, family, and the strong desire to be better in all aspects of your life is not noble and productive, not at all; in fact, these are why we are here in the human flesh in the first place, for we are here to increase our capacities and experience all these, for we are here to learn to create from the immaterial to the material and enjoy our successes.

     What I am saying is that most people cannot raise above their own mediocrity and so wallow in sadness because they do not really understand what true happiness really is.  Because they search for happiness when happiness must not be searched, but happiness must be discovered within you.  This sounds like a cliche or some highly spiritual philosophy, but in fact it is not.  Think about your experiences as a child, maybe your first toy or your first kiss or something great that happened to you, remember how you felt based on the emotion and not based on the outside experience of doing something.  Now, think of your grown life, perhaps a new car or a new job or a new baby, remember how you felt based solely on emotions not based on the actual outside experience.  Does it have any difference the emotion in its core…??  I am not talking about the experience itself–i.e. receiving the new toy or expressing yourself in the relationship.  The emotion, for lack of a better word, wasn’t it one of freedom and complete absence of fear and anxiety, wasn’t it one of total inner peace…??  And wasn’t it the same condition felt in your heart whether the outside experience was different…??

     The experience itself of having the new toy, the relationship, the new car, and whatever it was, was a cause for certain pleasure and might have lasted a few hours, days, months, or even years.  These were mere triggers or pleasures you did search for or encountered in your life’s path in order to quiet your nagging thoughts of desire for a time, and thus experience the inner happiness or peace which was, and is and will be, already inside you.  Understanding this is the difference between living a roller coaster of emotions in your life and living always blissful just because you live another day and you choose to embrace who you truly are.

     This state of wonderful existence has been given many names on our planet, and love is one of them, but this is the true essence of love which is non-anxious, sensual, or jealous, or has any cause for existing within us at all; hence, this is love of your true self, of your divine self beyond the nagging thoughts of desire and emotional roller coaster of every day.  This is the essence of true happiness.  Embrace it.