Once you decide you want to be unconditionally happy, something inevitably will happen that challenges you. This test of your commitment is exactly what stimulates spiritual growth. In fact, it is the unconditional aspect of your commitment that makes this the highest path. It’s so simple. You just have to decide whether or not you will break your vow. When everything is going well, it’s easy to be happy. But the moment something difficult happens, it’s not so easy. You tend to find yourself saying, “But I didn’t know this was going to happen. I didn’t think I’d miss my flight. I didn’t think Sally would show up at the party wearing the same dress that I had on. I didn’t think that somebody would dent my brand-new car one hour after I got it.” Are you really willing to break your vow of happiness because these events took place?
Billions of things could happen that you haven’t even thought of yet. The question is not whether they will happen. Things are going to happen. The real question is whether you want to be happy regardless of what happens. The purpose of your life is to enjoy and learn from your experiences. You were not put on Earth to suffer. You’re not helping anybody by being miserable. Regardless of your philosophical beliefs, the fact remains that you were born and you are going to die. During the time in between, you get to choose whether or not you want to enjoy the experience. Events don’t determine whether or not you’re going to be happy. They’re just events. You determine whether or not you’re going to be happy. You can be happy just to be alive. You can be happy having all these things happen to you, and then be happy to die. If you can live this way, your heart will be so open and your Spirit will be so free, that you will soar up to the heavens.
This path leads you to absolute transcendence because any part of your being that would add a condition to your commitment to happiness has got to go. If you want to be happy, you have to let go of the part of you that wants to create melodrama. This is the part that thinks there’s a reason not to be happy. You have to transcend the personal, and as you do, you will naturally awaken to the higher aspects of your being.
In the end, enjoying life’s experiences is the only rational thing to do. You’re sitting on a planet spinning around in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Go ahead, take a look at reality. You’re floating in empty space in a universe that goes on forever. If you have to be here, at least be happy and enjoy the experience. You’re going to die anyway. Things are going to happen anyway. Why shouldn’t you be happy? You gain nothing by being bothered by life’s events. It doesn’t change the world; you just suffer. There’s always going to be something that can bother you, if you let it.
This choice to enjoy life will lead you through your spiritual journey. In truth, it is itself a spiritual teacher. Committing yourself to unconditional happiness will teach you every single thing there is to learn about yourself, about others, and about the nature of life. You will learn all about your mind, your heart, and your will. But you have to mean it when you say that you’ll be happy for the rest of your life. Every time a part of you begins to get unhappy, let it go. Work with it. Use affirmations, or do whatever you need to do to stay open. If you are committed, nothing can stop you. No matter what happens, you can choose to enjoy the experience. If they starve you and put you in solitary confinement, just have fun being like Gandhi. No matter what happens, just enjoy the life that comes to you.
As difficult as that sounds, what’s the benefit of not doing it? If you’re totally innocent and they lock you up, you might as well have fun. What good does it do to not have fun? It doesn’t change anything. In the end, if you stay happy, you win. Make that your game, and just stay happy no matter what.
The key to staying happy is really very simple. Begin by understanding your inner energies. If you look inside, you will see that when you’re happy, your heart feels open and the energy rushes up inside of you. When you aren’t happy, your heart feels closed and no energy comes up inside. So to stay happy, just don’t close your heart. No matter what happens, even if your wife leaves you or your husband dies, you don’t close.
There is no rule that says you have to close. Just tell yourself that no matter what happens, you’re not going to close. You really do have that choice. When you start to close, just question if you’re really willing to give up your happiness. You should examine what it is inside of you that believes there’s some benefit to closing. The slightest thing happens to you, and you give away your happiness. You were having a great day until someone cut you off on your way to work. It got you really upset and you stayed that way the rest of the day. Why? Dare to ask yourself that question. What good came from letting it ruin your day? There was no benefit. If somebody cuts you off, let go and stay open. If you really want to, you can.
If you take on this path of unconditional happiness, you will go through all of the various stages of yoga. You will have to stay conscious, centered, and committed at all times. You will have to stay one-pointed on your commitment to remain open and receptive to life. But nobody said that you can’t do this. Staying open is what the great saints and masters taught. They taught that God is joy, God is ecstasy, and God is love. If you remain open enough, waves of uplifting energy will fill your heart. Spiritual practices are not an end in themselves. They bear fruit when you become deep enough to remain open. If you learn to stay open at all times, great things will happen to you. You simply have to learn not to close.
The key is to learn to keep your mind disciplined enough so that it doesn’t trick you into thinking that this time it’s worth closing. If you slip, get back up. The minute you slip, the minute you open your mouth, the minute you start to close and defend yourself, get back up. Just pick yourself up and affirm inwardly that you don’t want to close, no matter what happens. Affirm that all you want is to be at peace and to appreciate life. You don’t want your happiness to be conditional upon the behavior of other people. It’s bad enough that your happiness is conditional upon your own behavior. When you start making it conditional upon other people’s behavior, you’re in serious trouble.
Things are going to happen to you, and you’re going to feel the tendency to close. But you have the choice to either go with it or let it go. Your mind will tell you that it’s not reasonable to stay open when these things happen. But you have limited time left in your life, and what’s really not reasonable is to not enjoy life.
If you have trouble remembering that, then meditate. Meditation strengthens your center of consciousness so that you’re always aware enough to not allow your heart to close. You remain open by simply letting go and releasing the tendency to close. You just relax your heart when it starts to tighten. You don’t have to be outwardly glowing all the time; you’re just joyful inside. Instead of complaining, you’re just having fun with the different situations that unfold.
Unconditional happiness is a very high path and a very high technique because it solves everything. You could learn yoga techniques, such as meditation and postures, but what do you do with the rest of your life? The technique of unconditional happiness is ideal because what you’re doing with the rest of your life is already defined—you’re letting go of yourself so that you can remain happy. As far as your spirituality goes, you’re going to grow very rapidly. A person who actually does this every moment of every day is going to notice the cleansing of their heart. This is because they’re not getting involved in the stuff that comes up. They’re also going to notice the purification of their mind because they are not getting involved in the mind’s melodrama. Their Shakti (Spirit) is going to awaken even if they know nothing about Shakti. They will come to know a happiness that is beyond human understanding. This path solves daily life and it solves spiritual life. The greatest gift one can give to God is to be pleased with His creation.
Do you think God likes to be around people that are happy or people that are miserable? It’s not hard to tell. Just think about it by imagining that you’re God. You created the heavens and earth so that you can play and experience yourself, and n
ow you’re dropping down to check on your humans. So God asks the first human He sees,
“How are you doing?”
The human says, “What do you mean, how am I doing?”
“Well, do you like it here?”
“No, I don’t like it here.”
“Why not? What’s wrong?”
“That tree is bent in five places; I want it to be straight. This person went out with somebody else, and that person ran up a hundred-dollar phone bill. This person has a nicer car than mine and that person dresses funny. It’s just terrible. Plus my nose is too big, my ears are too small, and my toes are weird. I’m not happy with it. I don’t like any of it.”
So God says, “Well, how about the animals?”
“The animals? The ants and mosquitoes bite you; it’s a terrible thing. I can’t go out at night because there are all these animals out there. They howl and poop all over the place, and I just don’t like it.”
Do you think God likes listening to this? He says, “What do you think—I’m a complaint department?” Then He goes and visits somebody else, and again, He asks,
“How are you doing?”
This person says, “I’m ecstatic.”
God says, “Wow! Well, how do you like things?”
“They’re beautiful. Everything I look at just creates waves of joy inside me. I look at that bent tree; it just blows me away. The ant comes and bites me, and it’s just so amazing that a tiny ant could be brave enough to bite a giant like me!”
Now you guess who God wants to hang out with. One of the ancient names for God in the yogic tradition is Satchitananda—Eternal, Conscious Bliss. God is ecstasy. God is as high as it gets. If you want to be close to God, learn to be joyful. If you remain spontaneously happy and centered, no matter what happens, you will find God. That’s the amazing part. Yes, you will find happiness, but that’s nothing compared to what you’re really going to find.
Once you have passed through trial by fire, and you are thoroughly convinced that you will let go no matter what, then the veils of the human mind and heart will fall away. You will stand face-to-face with what is beyond you because there is no longer a need for you. When you are done playing with the temporal and finite, you will open to the eternal and infinite. Then the word “happiness” can’t describe your state. That’s where words like ecstasy, bliss, liberation, Nirvana, and freedom come in. The joy becomes overwhelming, and your cup runneth over.
This is a beautiful path. Be happy.
16
the spiritual path of nonresistance
One should view their spiritual work as learning to live life without stress, problems, fear, or melodrama. This path of using life to evolve spiritually is truly the highest path. There really is no reason for tension or problems. Stress only happens when you resist life’s events. If you’re neither pushing life away, nor pulling it toward you, then you are not creating any resistance. You are simply present. In this state, you are just witnessing and experiencing the events of life taking place. If you choose to live this way, you will see that life can be lived in a state of peace.
What an amazing process life is, this flow of atoms through time and space. It’s just an eternal sequence of events that take form and then instantly dissolve into the next moment. If you resist this amazing force of life, tension builds within you and gets into your body, mind, and spiritual heart.
It is not difficult to see the tendency toward stress and resistance in daily life. But if we want to understand this tendency, we must first examine why we are so resistant to just letting life be life. What is it inside of us that even has the ability to resist the reality of life? If you look carefully inside yourself, you will see that it’s you, the Self, the indwelling being, that has this power. It is called willpower.
Will is a real force that emanates from your being. It is what makes your arms and legs move. They don’t just move randomly by themselves. They move the way they do because you assert will to make them do so. You use the same will to hold onto thoughts when you want to concentrate on them. The power of Self, when it is concentrated and directed into the physical, mental, or emotional realms, creates a force, and we call that force “will.” That’s what you use when you try to make things happen or not happen. You are not helpless in there; you have the power to affect things.
It’s amazing to see what we end up doing with our will. We actually assert our will in opposition to the flow of life. If something happens that we don’t like, we resist it. But since what we’re resisting has already taken place, what good is it to resist? If your best friend moves away, it’s understandable that you don’t like it. But your inner resistance to that event for years to come does not change the fact that they did, indeed, move away. It does not do anything to the reality of the situation.
The fact is, it cannot even be argued that we’re resisting the actual situation. For instance, if somebody says something that we don’t like, obviously our resistance won’t stop them from having said it. What we’re really resisting is the experience of the event passing through us. We don’t want it affecting us inside. We know it is going to make mental and emotional impressions that will not fit with what’s already in there. So we assert the force of will against the influence of the event in an attempt to stop it from passing through our hearts and minds. In other words, the experience of an event does not stop with our sensory observation of it. The event also has to pass through the psyche at an energetic level. This is a process we experience every day. The initial sensory observation touches our mental and emotional energy pools, creating movements in the energy. These movements pass through the psyche much like physical impact ripples through water. Amazingly, you actually have the ability to resist these movements of energy. The assertion of willpower can stop the energy transfer, and that’s what creates tension. You can wear yourself out struggling with the experience of a single event, or even a single thought or emotion. And you know that all too well.
Eventually you’ll see that this resistance is a tremendous waste of energy. The fact is, you’re generally using your will to resist one of two things: that which has already happened or that which hasn’t happened yet. You are sitting inside resisting impressions from the past or thoughts about the future. Think of how much energy is wasted resisting what has already happened. Since the event has already passed, you are actually struggling with yourself, not with the event. In addition, contemplate how much energy is wasted resisting what might happen. Since most of the things you think might happen never do, you are just throwing your energy away.
How you deal with your energy flow has a major effect on your life. If you assert your will against the energy of an event that has already happened, it is like trying to stop the ripples caused by a leaf dropped into a still lake. Anything you do causes more disturbance, not less. When you resist, the energy has no place to go. It gets stuck in your psyche and seriously affects you. It blocks your heart’s energy flow and causes you to feel closed and less vibrant. This is literally what is happening when something is weighing on your mind or when things just get too heavy for you.
This is the human predicament. Events have happened and we continue to hold their energy inside of us by resisting them. Now, when we face today’s events, we are neither prepared to receive them nor capable of digesting them. This is because we’re still struggling with past energies. Over time, the energies can build up to the point that a person becomes so blocked that they either blow up or shut down completely. This is what it means to get stressed-out or even totally burned-out.
There is no reason to get stressed-out. There is no reason for blowing up or shutting down. If you do not let this energy build up inside you, but instead allow each moment of each day to pass through you, then you can be as fresh every moment as you would be on a stress-free vacation. It is not life’s events that are causing problems or stress. It is your resistance to life’s events that is causing this experience. Since the problem is cause
d by using your will to resist the reality of life passing through you, the solution is quite obvious—stop resisting. If you are going to resist something, at least have some rational basis for resisting. Otherwise, you are irrationally wasting precious energy.
Be willing to examine the process of resistance. In order to resist you first must decide that something is not the way you like it. Plenty of events make it right through you. Why did you decide to resist this one? Something inside of you must have a basis for deciding when to simply let things pass through and when to assert willpower to either push them away or cling to them. There are a billion things that don’t bother you at all. You drive to work every day and you hardly notice the buildings and trees. The white lines on the road don’t stress you out at all. You see them, but they pass right through you. Don’t assume, however, it’s that way for everyone. Someone who paints street lines for a living could get very stressed-out if those white lines were not even. In fact, they could get so stressed-out that they refuse to drive down that road anymore. It’s clear that not all of us resist the same things or have the same issues. This is because we don’t all have the same preconceived notions of how things should be or how much they should matter to us.
If you want to understand stress, begin by realizing that you carry around with you your own set of preconceived notions of how things should be. It is based upon these notions that you assert your will to resist what has already happened. Where did you get these preconceived notions? Let’s say that seeing azaleas in bloom stresses you out. Surely that doesn’t bother most people. Why does it bother you? All we need to know is that you once had a girlfriend who grew azaleas, and she broke up with you when they were in bloom. Now every time you see azaleas in bloom, your heart closes. You don’t even want to go near the things; they just create too much disturbance for you.
The Untethered Soul Page 15
