The One Secret to Happiness.
{Photo via Pinterest}
By Nadia Ballas-Ruta
In both Buddhism and Hinduism, the mind is often referred to as the monkey mind.
It jumps from one thought to another and sometimes the thoughts are not even related. You start off thinking about ice cream, and the next thing you know, your mind is contemplating whether blue is really your favorite color… or is it green?
Ever notice that when someone decides to commit suicide by shooting themselves, they either put the gun to their head or in their mouth? No one ever points the gun to their heart. Most of our suffering is caused by the chatter that arises in the head or that spews out of our mouths.
No one is immune from having to deal with these realities.
We often do our best to censor our words in such a way as to not offend others but we do not censor the chatter that arises in the mind. And let’s face it… the chatter in our head likes to bring to our attention what is wrong in our lives or in the lives of others.
What is fascinating to note is that our feelings are separate from our thoughts. Many think that our thoughts affect our feelings but often the reverse is true. If you feel unhappy, your thoughts will be unhappy.
One cannot think oneself into happiness… if that were so, our world would be a very happy place, given the thousands of books written on the subject. Affirmations work to a certain degree but if you are a cynical person, you can affirm until you are blue in the face.
If your feeling is not buying it, it is not going to work.
Here is a secret about happiness: at its core, happiness is truly just inner peace. How to do you find inner peace? That is relatively easy to explain.
A challenge to master, but you can begin to chip away at this mountain with one concept: what causes most people to not have inner peace is that the reality of their life does not match the expectation of what they think their life should be like.
And you know what else? In my experience, I have yet to meet someone whose life matches their expectation. The irony of life is, to quote the Rolling Stones, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometime, you just might find, you get what you need.”
As for myself, my reality has never matched my expectations but I have always experienced what I desired.
People often get so hung up on the particulars of how something should look, they forget the essence of what they desire. For example, let us say that your idea of a perfect mate is that they are of a particular height with a particular hair and eye color and that they love what you love.
So you meet someone who loves exactly what you love, but they do not have the right hair color or are the wrong height. So here is a shot at a really great relationship, but the person does not match all your criteria… what do you do?
Unfortunately, I have known people to pass on such a person because of something as trivial as height or eye color. And then they wonder why they have not met the perfect mate!
The Universe sends you what you need, and your experiences will be much more pleasant if you aim for essence, instead of being too focused on the packaging.
And let’s be clear here, packaging does not just mean physical looks. It can be a salary, a location… basically anything that keeps you stuck in your misery. However, when you let go of expectation and hone in on figuring out the essence of what you want to experience, magic occurs.
When I turned thirty, I gave up on the idea of meeting the right person and getting married. I was so fed up with the whole dating scene that I no longer cared. On my birthday, I told the Universe that if It wanted me married, then it would have to make it happen, because I was done trying.
Later that day, a friend gave me a book as part of my birthday present.
To make a long story short, that book led me to meeting my husband. If you had told me that on my birthday, I would not have believed you.
You see, when we get stuck in our expectations or insistence that things have to look one particular way, we narrow our vista of the options around us. There is nothing wrong with having goals but focus more on the essence of what you want to experience. Let the Universe deliver the results to you.
Often, our own worst enemy is ourselves, and we get so worked up when our lives do not look like what we expected. It is okay to feel disappointment that your current status does not look like what you wanted, but dwelling on the disappointment is never a solution. It will just keep you stuck.
When you are frustrated with your reality, take a deep breath and just relax. It is easier to see clearly when your mind is not in turbo mode. Look at the things in your life that you love. You may realize that what you have, at its core, may be exactly what you wanted but in a different form.
Or maybe what you want has not yet arrived. In that case, you cannot force it to come, so just be in the moment. Enjoy what you have now because let us say that you wish to make more money and find a job which pays you more but comes with more stress.
You may end up missing the days when you had more time to enjoy life.
I want to end this post with a story from India in the hopes that it will hit the message home.
A businessman went to the beach and saw a fisherman sitting in a beach chair enjoying the view of the ocean. The businessman asked the fisherman why he was not out in the ocean fishing. The fisherman replied that he preferred to fish at night because it was less crowded.
The businessman said that if he fished during the day, he would make more money, to which the fisherman replied, “But what would be the benefit of more money?”
The businessman quickly answered that if he had more money, he could buy a motor boat and make even more money. And with more money, he could just sit on the beach and watch the ocean. The fisherman replied that this was exactly what he was doing now.
The businessman realized his error and walked away.
If you want inner peace, let go of expectations of what you think your life should look like at any given moment. Life will bring you what you need, and therefore, focus on the feelings you want to experience. If you want love, then focus on love and not the package in which the love should come.
If you want a job that utilizes your full talents, focus on feeling fulfilled. If you want to write the best book in the world, focus on writing the best story and don’t worry whether it will get published.
Our society is so consumed with end results that we forget the journey. Enjoy the journey. Embrace who you are. Own up to what you want and desire. Don’t worry about how it will get here… that is not your job… that is the Universe’s job.
And you know what? Every single day the Sun rises in the East and sets in the West without any help from you and without fail. How many human beings can claim a 100% error-free track record?
*****
Nadia Ballas-Ruta is a spiritual writer and vocal advocate for bringing spirituality back to its core. She is the product of a mixed-ethnic and religious marriage. As a result, she was free to pick whichever religion she wanted to follow, and the concepts of God and the Divine became huge subjects of fascination for her. At age 25, after pursuing various worldly goals, she began to ponder over what was the meaning of being alive. With that one question, an intense spiritual journey began. It is still going strong. To her, spirituality is not a hobby… it is a way of life. You can read more about her work at Covenant Of The Soul. You can also follow her on Twitter and Instagram, or contact her via email.
{Aim for Essence}
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