On Lasting Happiness

A little book I bought several friends recently, called ‘Power Freedom and Grace’ by Deepak Chopra is one I highly recommend and why I have copied out a few extracts from the chapter ‘What is the key to lasting happiness’. for you to read

          ‘There’s a saying that goes, “The river of life runs between the banks of pleasure and pain, and one bumps into both”. That’s not the problem. The problem occurs when we cling to the banks, either the positive one or the negative one. When we quietly reconcile ourselves to all the contradictions that life offers, when we can comfortably flow between the banks of pleasure and pain, experiencing them both whilst getting stuck in neither, then we have achieved freedom.

        Joy and sorrow, happiness and suffering are the play of opposites; they are transient because they are time-bound. Spirit, the essential you, is independent of the play of opposites; it dwells in the silent bliss of the eternal. And when you know yourself at this field of pure consciousness, then you are living from the source, which is bliss.

        That’s why the key to lasting happiness is to stop looking for it, and to know that you already have it. If you look for happiness, you will never find it. If you think it’s around the corner, then you will keep turning corners. The real key to happiness is to live and play in the field of intelligence that is beyond positive and negative. The field is your source, and it is magical, holy, joyful and free.

         Happiness and sadness are different faces of infinite consciousness. Both are transient, and you are neither, because you are not a state of consciousness. You are consciousness expressing all of these states. Why would you want to identify with a wave on the ocean or a mere drop of water when you are the ocean? You are not the ever-changing behaviour of the ocean. You are the water-i-ness of the ocean. And this water-i-ness doesn’t change.

Further on he writes

All experience in life is by contrast because the universe creates through contrast: light and dark, pleasure and pain, birth and death, hot and cold. If there were no contrast, there would be no experience. There is pleasure because there is pain, joy because there is sorrow, hot because there is cold, wealth because there is poverty, courage because there is fear and there is love because there is the opposite of love. Unless we know both, one is meaningless and cannot be experienced.

      The mind is made up of opposing energies that spark and create the fire of life. Inside us is both the divine and the diabolical, the sinner and the saint, the sacred and profane. Inside us is forbidden lust and unconditional love, the beatitude of paradise and the dark night of the soul. We are all these things because we are a field of all possibilities.

And further on

If your experience of yourself is object-referred, it is fear based and resistant to what is. If your experience of yourself is self referred, it is love based and accepting what is. Self referred people are natural and unaffected by the opinion of others. They are simple, innocent and childlike: Thank you God for making me just like I am. I have good things and I have bad things; I have all things in me. I am complete. Total self-acceptance means self forgiveness. When you forgive yourself and stop judging yourself, then you won’t judge others, and there will be less conflict in the world.

       All relationship is a mirror of the self. Those whom you are deeply attracted to or repelled by are both mirrors of you. Your are attracted to those in whom you find traits that you already have but want more of, and you are repelled by those in whom you find traits that you deny in yourself. Identify the qualities you admire in others, and the qualities that repel you. Write them down on a piece of paper. This is who you are. And if you accept yourself as you are, and love yourself as you are, you become immensely attractive because you are natural.

Further on

Whatever is happening around you is transient. If its joy and pleasure, you can be sure there’s a bit of opposite around the corner. If its suffering and misery, you can be sure there’s a bit of opposite around the corner, too. But in cosmic consciousness you are independent of the play of opposites; you are independent of both hope and despair. Hope is nothing but a sign of despair. When you say, “I have hope”, you are implying you are in despair. You have to go beyond hope and despair, and you can only do that if you ground yourself in the wisdom of who you really are … not just intellectually, but experientially.

        Anything and everything in existence can be mastered when you experience the truth of who you are. Once your mind is absorbed in the abounded nature of pure consciousness, you are no longer upset by the play of opposites. This is living from the source of lasting happiness… the source of power, freedom and grace.