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A Rude Awakening

At some point in our life, (often it’s called a ‘midlife crisis’), we suddenly discover that we’ve been working and slaving our entire lives, and we don’t even know what we’ve been working for! This is usually a rude awakening, and leaves one with the feeling that the entire first half of one’s life has basically been a mindless rush toward . . . something.

The reason for this is that most of us haven’t examined what we really want from life. We’ve just accepted the current societal norms, which say that life is about amassing wealth, security, friends, good health, and if possible, fame. Even as adults, we blindly call people ‘successful’ if they’ve done well in these categories – despite the fact that these same people might have drug abuse problems, shaky relationships, and a generally troubled life.

Even if we could have security, wealth, health, and fame, would we know what to do with these things? Humans have a remarkable ability to adapt to almost any situation. This means that you are capable of enduring tremendously terrible situations. But it also means that if you acquire a million dollars tomorrow, it will only seem like a lot of money for a short while. Soon you’ll adapt, and a million dollars will seem like the same amount of money you have right now. You can see this in your own life if you have improved your financial situation over the past ten years. You might have thought, ten years ago, that if you were making your current yearly income, you’d have no financial worries. But if you’re like most people, you will have adapted to your situation and will still have financial troubles, even if you’re making much more than you did ten years ago.

What We Think We Want

Even if we think that true happiness lies in our inner attitudes, the truth is that most of us will continue dedicating almost 100% of our life energy toward the societal definition of happiness. This means that we’ll try to better our relationships, finances, self-image, and reputation, hoping that if we just arrange things perfectly, we’ll finally be excited to wake up each morning.

But in our myth of happiness, we can always have more. It’s a never-ending quest. I might think I want a house in the Bahamas, but once I’ve had it for a while, it will seem normal, and I’ll think it would be even nicer if I could have a private island all to myself. And once on my island, I might get tired of the long boat-ride and plane commute back to the States, so wouldn’t it be nice if I had a private jet?

Even if we don’t have such grand dreams (if you think you don’t, would you take the island and jet if it was offered right now?), we live in a culture where our constantly improving technology offers us something ‘better’ each year. Buying into this, we tend to spend enormous amounts of money (and unless you have passive income, life energy) trying to keep up with this game by buying new cell phones, computers, cars, and kitchen appliances on a regular basis. Again, it’s the same never-ending game of acquire, acquire, acquire. What if you were playing a game you could never win? Would you still play?

As Happy As You Can Be

But in reality, there is a ‘high point’ or ‘end-all’ level of happiness. That is the process of Awakening, and beyond it, your life can get no better.

This is not a state of mindless bliss, nor is it a state of ‘peace’ or ‘equanimity’. It’s a state of being Present, of being fabulously aware of the utter beauty of this world. It is the one state of being where you will actually be able to say – “There is nothing I wish I could change in my life”.

Often, on this website, I use the ideas of ‘peace’ or ‘happiness’ to describe the end-goal of Awakening or Enlightenment. But . . . surprise! . . . if we look carefully, we’lll probably find that that’s not really what we want either.

For instance, what about people who love adventure? Their idea of heaven isn’t going to the spa – it’s careening down a rocky mountain path on their bike.

There are many ideas of what constitutes happiness. But there is one that we can all agree on – Happiness is being present to experience our personal idea of happiness.

Being Present

Happiness, then, is about being present in each moment. When we can experience our actual circumstances (instead of being perennially distracted), we suddenly discover that life is more amazing than we ever could have guessed. Whether we define happiness as having abundant wealth, perfect peace, or high adrenaline, we’ll find that no amount of these things will satisfy us, since we’re too distracted (on very deep levels) to really enjoy these things.

If we’re present in our lives, we find that each moment is immeasurably valuable, and we’re able to enjoy a much broader range of situations than we ever thought possible. And there is a remarkable side effect. When we’re present, we stop our endless craving. And when we’re not spending all our energy on craving, we find that it’s actually much easier to acquire the ‘things’ we wanted in the past. In fact, we’ll often be amazed at how much we struggled in the past, and at how little that struggling got us!

How do we be present? Now that’s the trick, isn’t it? It requires a dismantling of the shells we’ve put around the world. We’re simply no longer able to see what’s actually going on, because we live in a world of imagination.

A good place to start is with the Enlightenment Handbook. This five-part series will give you an introduction to Awakening, and familiarize you with many of the resources this website offers.

There is one thing in life which is truly worthy of our attention — and that is this present moment, right Now. Discovering our relation to the present moment gives us an entirely different way of approaching life — a way in which our problems are no longer problems. All other pursuits simply take us in endless circles, but discovering this very moment is truly the ‘meaning to life’.

Explore posts in the same categories: Understanding Dualism, Being Present

This entry was posted on Friday, June 15th, 2007 at 2:56 am and is filed under Understanding Dualism, Being Present. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be queued for moderation and posted as quickly as possible.