“Love, peace and happiness are inherent in the knowing of our own being. In fact, they are the knowing of being. They are simply other names for our self.”
~Rupert Spira
I was a seeker of happiness for many, many years. I really wanted to be happy, but I was anxious, sometimes depressed, had ongoing struggles in relationships, and just couldn’t figure out how to be at peace.
I kept looking everywhere I could think of—in books, years of therapy, retreats, people, adventurous travels. I would get bits of happiness mostly from exciting life experiences, but I wasn’t at peace inside.
As soon as I was happy for a while, the feeling would wear off, leaving me searching once again. It was a cycle that seemed to have no end—searching, finding, losing it, searching, finding, losing it—but I kept at it.Somehow I knew there had to be a solution. Were we meant to always struggle in life? Was happiness an elusive goal?
I had been attending many retreats with spiritual teachers, and finally I had a light bulb moment.
I realized that I wouldn’t find peace by waiting for it, hoping for it, or by hearing about others’ experiences with it. I needed to do exactly what the teachers were suggesting I do, which was to look within.
I saw how I had sat in these retreats just like a baby bird in a nest, beak outstretched, starving, waiting to be fed that morsel of food that would finally bring me to peace.
I had assumed I didn’t have the peace and happiness I was looking for. And now I know differently.
Thankfully…gratefully…I discovered that sustained happiness is possible.
As I turned inward toward my inner experience, I saw how focusing on familiar thought patterns and consuming emotions kept me from noticing something essential: the sense of just being that is the fundamental reality of every moment.
And with a brightly burning fire to know, I started returning my attention to this beingness, over and over.
Every time I noticed I had moved away and into my thoughts, there it was again…at the heart of the moment…the peace, the relief, the relaxation, the spaciousness that holds everything with complete ease, the undisturbed, ever-present field of being aware.
It was a huge revelation for me. I stopped looking outside myself and into the world for happiness. I was drawn to being quiet, and things slowed down. The harsh edges of the patterns softened. I started enjoying the human experience of my everyday life.
I tell you this story not to give you something you think you don’t have, but to inspire you to turn your attention inward to explore your own experience.
- Get to know where your attention goes that makes you suffer;
- Get to know what thoughts you’re believing that make you think happiness is not for you (hint: what these thoughts are telling you is false);
- Relate to your experience with kindness and curiosity (put down the fight and struggle);
- Question everything you think is true;
- Surrender everything about your personal self to the endless field of stillness and peace.
You’re not going to find lasting peace and happiness out there in the world. And no one can give you what you already are.
Be exhausted by the layers of belief and critical inner voices that overrun you. Look beyond all thought to the true freshness of the moment.
And here you are: whole, unbroken, and infinitely at peace…