The Pursuit of Happiness vs the Realisation of Inner Fulfilment

The pursuit of happiness, outside of one's own self, is never ending. The mind, before it begins to be retrained with meditation, is attuned to searching for happiness outside of itself - in experiences, achievements, pleasures, praise, validation. If one of these is gained, any happiness achieved is short lived, only as long as it takes the mind to conceive of another, better option. You reach your ideal weight, and then decide you need new clothes to match. You book your trip to Bali, then start wondering what you will do when you get back. You save the money to buy the long desired dream home, then decide you need to start saving to renovate the kitchen so it's just as you'd like it. That elusive happiness never arrives. Instead we live trapped in a game of chase the carrot like hounds running in circles around the track. At some point, generally when we have gained many of the things we thought would bring that happiness - we find our partner, we get the ideal job, we have those beautiful children, we buy the house - we find that we are still feeling a nagging feeling of lack of fulfilment. Often accompanied by guilt, because how could we feel that way given all that we have. The more we have, the more we see that fulfilment can never be found outside of ourselves - in people, relationships, possessions, experiences or knowledge. There will always be more. Something better. The very wealthy realise this faster than most - when you have the entire field of carrots, there is nothing left to chase, and the nagging lack of fulfilment becomes a tidal wave that threatens to overwhelm - before you could at least convince yourself that the chase was worthwhile, and elusive happiness was achievable.

Often, it's about the time this realisation hits that we start to meditate. Once we have learned, it's important to remember that our fulfilment, our security, our sense of wellbeing, comes from within. The twice daily direct experience of that deep inner fulfilment, that experience which is hard to explain yet utterly satisfying (which is occurring even when we are releasing stress via thinking, though we may be less aware of it), is starting to awaken our mind and consciousness to the sense that we are not just that surface layer of external experience, but we are also this deeper layer of Self, the unbounded bliss of our deepest nature.

The mistaken intellect ("Pragya aparadh" in Sanskrit) however, has us convinced that happiness is to be found outside of ourselves - when I get the: insert individual flavour of perceived happiness ('perfect body', 'hot girlfriend', 'dream man', 'promotion', 'xyz bank balance', 'my business is where I want it to be', 'when Mercury goes direct again') - then I'll be happy, then I'll be ok. It's the equivalent of saying - I'll delay living, and being present in my life for the lessons, love and enjoyment it holds for me now - until a future point which is either short lived or never arrives. When someone criticises you, when things don't go your way, when you judge yourself for falling short of your own perceived idea of perfection, or acceptability - then you are identifying who you are, your sense of self worth and your happiness, with those external circumstances - your body, your bank balance, what other's think of you. Who you are is that deep layer of fulfilment and bliss, perfect as it is, in need of nothing and no-one. We are free to enjoy, and experience ourselves in interaction with those things, but we are not bound by them, or the shifting circumstances of them. We are not the wave, but the ocean itself. All the other waves of the ocean are also us.

We have a choice to live a life of object referral - where we continually refer to the external for our sense of self and the transient happiness and "wins" it brings, or we can live a life of Self - referral. We regularly experience that deeper layer of Self, awakening ourselves to that, and in those moments outside of meditation where we forget and find ourselves chasing the carrot, feel lost or overwhelmed when we do not gain the carrot or get given a tomato instead, or feel not enough through the habit of ignoring (ignorance in the true sense) the truth of who we really are, then we remind ourselves, we correct the intellect, we meditate again and remember that all is ok, we sense the deeper truth of things, we can let go of attachment, need, judgement and the exhaustion it takes to maintain those. That deep sense of security and fulfilment is always there. We take a moment of silence to see to what extent we can sense, outside of meditation, that quiet, inner contentment. It does not need to be created, or achieved, it is already there, to the extent we have realised it. This is the path of Self-realisation. Here lies true power, true freedom, true security. We can enjoy the chase, without attachment to the carrot. If we never arrive at the destination, we have still enjoyed the journey. We find stability. We find ourselves truly living, and discover our purpose which is the expansion of that deeper happiness which radiates from within.

Love and Jai Guru Deva*

Georgia x

*victory of light over darkness