“Just sit there right now.
Don’t do a thing. Just rest.
For your separation from God
is the hardest work in this world.”
~Hafiz
The world is a wonderful, beautiful, amazing place filled with a fantastic array of objects and situations. I love the world!
But I also know this essential truth: we will never find peace and happiness by being attached to the objects of the world.
If you are waiting for happiness to arrive at some future time, or you think you’ll find it once something in the world changes, then you’re setting yourself up to continue searching—and suffering—forever.
This way of living actually delays your happiness. It makes you believe that the peace and ease you long for are not available to you now—which is just not true.
It keeps you trying to change the objects of the world—relationships, other people, work situations, even your own thoughts and feelings—so that maybe, hopefully, finally, you’ll be peaceful and happy.
Looking for happiness in the objects of the world is doomed from the get-go. Why? Because it’s the nature of these objects to change.
- You hit a rough patch in your relationship, and you’re on the lookout for a new partner who will finally be the one.
- You’re settled in your work, and your company gets restructured.
- You plan your travels, and your flight gets cancelled.
- You get lost in troublesome thoughts and feelings, hoping they will finally disappear so you can relax.
See how it works? If you’re attached to the world being a certain way, you’re bound to be disappointed.
And thinking more about yourself and your problems will never lead to the peace you’re looking for. Because the world isn’t reliable and your thoughts just add more stories.
It’s worth considering: is what you’re doing actually getting you what you want?
While you’re busy focused on moving around the puzzle pieces of your life, you’re missing out on the open secret—the silence of being, the stillness that’s always here at the heart of all the noise. It’s the open endless field of aliveness that the objects of the world arise in.
You don’t need to move one millimeter from where you are right now to discover it. Land your attention—and your whole heart—here, in the spacious openness of being aware, and let the objects of the world be.
It’s like being a fish in the ocean wondering where the water is—overlooking the fact that it’s right here and everywhere.
If you’re serious about happiness, then don’t looking for it in the world. Because all you’re doing is perpetuating your struggles.
Instead, turn inward toward your inner experience. Discover the opinions, needs, and fears that keep you divided from yourself and the happiness you seek. As best as you can, give up your attachment to them.
They’re not helping you anyway because they’re distracting you from finding what you’re actually longing for.
Coming home to yourself, you’re poised to realize the true source of happiness, what remains when you lose interest in all objects. You in your glory: pure and open…profoundly relaxed…unconditionally available to everything…free of any viewpoints…empty…silent…loving…
Then, attached to nothing and steeped in love, the world becomes your playground.
