I can’t tell you the number of times every day I hear from clients in my practice, “All I want is to be happy.” And they don’t know why they are not happy, they claim to be healthy, to have a good family, a good job that pays them lots of money, a good marriage. Other than the usual ins and outs of life they really have nothing to complain about—but they are not happy.
I then ask them if they think there is meaning in their life, or purpose, invariably they say “No.” Sometimes they ask, “What is that? Isn’t the meaning and purpose in life to be happy?”
No, it is not.
Happiness is only one of the many states of being we encounter in a whole and complete life, and if we become unhappy simply because we think we are not happy as often as we believe we should be, we have missed the point.
We have been on this “happiness” kick for quite some time, and once again I have to say I think it is part of the agenda—maybe originally an unconscious part of a movement in society to focus on acquiring “things.” But that has always been a central part of the formula in the agenda’s effort to control. Again, maybe it was an organic result of our natural tendency to focus on the flesh—the physical attributes of living through the senses, and an innate desire to “instantly gratify” those senses at any opportunity offered. Check out Huxley’s A Brave New World for a view of a dystopian culture in the future that focuses entirely on the satisfaction of primal urges through the senses. Huxley had it figured out almost 100 years ago.
There have been scads of books written on happiness. Most of them conclude that the pursuit of happiness through the acquisition of physical objects (consumerism) is a dead-end pursuit, and, like a shot of heroin, will send you on a high for a moment that quickly wears off. Most people have some idea of this and understand that obsessive consumerism is typically a road to oblivion. But again, a lot of people have not figured this out yet (need I say “young people?”), considering our entire society is based on consumerism. Try getting away from it for even 10 minutes. If you don’t go out into the woods or barren desert with no cell phone, you won’t be able to. That is about the only way to detach yourself from the world that is trying to entice you to consume.
So, even if we could remove the curse of consumerism and instant gratification from our lives, wouldn’t our central pursuit still be the state of happiness?—continual happiness? Yes, typically it would be. Even deep spiritual interventions have the goal of happiness—if you are one with God, or Jesus, or Mohammed, you will be happy. Shouldn’t the word “happy” be replaced with “content” or even “peace?” It certainly should be, because that is what I believe most of the religious traditions mean by the word “happiness.” “Contentment” and “peace” have very different meanings to “happy.”
If we are fully enlightened, are we even allowed to be happy? Of course, we are. Being happy is one of the most precious gifts of being a living creature. Should we expect to be happy all of the time? No, of course not. That would be a curse. Should we expect to be content or at peace all of the time? Yes, I believe that is indeed possible and should be a goal we all strive to attain.
I spent a large part of my life studying the works of Ernest Holmes and The Science of Mind. I studied Phineas Quimby, Emma Curtis Hopkins, Joel Goldsmith and others as well. The surface level of what I gleaned from this study was to “think positively”—to avoid focusing on darkness in the world and see only God’s love and beauty as reality. What is found in the depth of these philosophies is quite a different matter. I will not go into this in this article as it would take a book to even begin to explain what I mean. Suffice it to say that the true message behind all of this is that the material world is a manifestation of our thought and consciousness—and not reality.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Shrew Views to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.