Simple Happiness

Being Happy is easy, once you eliminate what makes you unhappy.

Happiness it is such a simple thing. Yet in the realm of emotions, simple does not mean easily attainable. Particularly as we have been taught to be rewarded for a more complex intellect. All our effort to get good grades in school and be successful, has largely been an effort to think more complexly. This includes having a lot of serious opinions. Thus pushing away being simply happy. In our complex opinions , we get lost in emotions of frustration, anger, sadness, jealousy, and…. well,,,, you have the idea. We are no longer just happy.

If you are to change our emotional state then it seems that a shift in attitude would be in order. After all, if we are in a different emotional state, a different attitude is present. But if we are to change our attitude, then perhaps it would be easy to start with changing an opinion. Now switching sides on an opinion, that can sometimes be tough. I don’t know too many people who just up and switch political parties. So lets start with shifting our opinions on things that have less emotional investment. And then we can build from there. Once you are able to shift your opinions you will find it easier to shift your emotions.

What can you find in your inventory of opinions that you could let go of, or change? For instance, an opinion about the weather. How tough would that be? Try it. When you notice an emotional reaction to the weather, see what the opinion is and just as an experiment, decide to not believe your own opinion.

Then maybe try it about what someone else is wearing. Continue practicing on these little ones. Then, maybe work up to what your opinion is about someone else. Then, maybe don’t believe the opinions you have about yourself. Try it just as an experiment.

You might try these shifts with other people. Where you might instinctively disagree with someone, catch it, and just for practice, agree with them. You don’t need to do this in cases that are critical to your life just things about the weather, politics, fashion, or a sporting event.

You might find that after a while that your attitude about the weather has changed. And your attitude towards other people has changed. You might also find that how you treat yourself has changed. What will sneak up on you though, is more of a simple feeling of happiness.

When I entered into the process of transforming my personal dream, I did so to be happy, no matter what. I soon stumbled upon a man who was happy, don Miguel. What I found out about him was that he rarely had an opinion in his head. I found that he is a very simple man. He has the capacity to be complexly brilliant, no doubt about that. He use to be a medical doctor. But he prefers to be simply happy instead. I think this is a brilliant decision, but that is just my opinion.

Here is another trick to help you let go of opinions.

Whenever possible and appropriate try the following. When someone asks you for your opinion, let your response be, “I don’t know.” You might also do this even when you have a ready opinion to share. Doing this then will be even more helpful in letting go of your opinions.

One of the ways we are often asked for our opinion is by people first giving us theirs, and then they ask us to agree with them (or sometimes disagree with them). This is a perfect time for “I don’t know.” You may find that tossing the conversation back in their court will take off some of their surprise and possible discomfort. A simple way to do this is to ask them a question in return such as: “I don’t know, I hadn’t thought about it. What do you think about it?” or “I don’t know. But can tell me how you came up with your point of view on the issue.”

If we practice letting go of our opinions we will find we have changed quite a bit. With out our opinions, we let go of the attitude of being right. We also let go of the attitude of others being wrong. We also don’t need to carry around all those justifications to prove those points of view. In this way life is becoming simpler. If we let go of our well justified and defended complex opinions, certainly we will change. But perhaps this is what will make us simply happy.

Personal Power of Responsibility

Nobody can determine what you believe but you.

The Greater Our Sense of Responsibility, the Greater our Personal Power
Throughout history humans have tried to place responsibility for their unhappiness outside of themselves. Most societies have long held the assumption that the ruling body needs to change in order for the human condition to change. This method has been tried unsuccessfully by hundreds of generations, each in turn trying to impose their particular form of “illumination.” Despite these efforts the human condition remains largely unchanged – societies filled with conflict and fear, and individuals suffering in pain. These conditions have become so familiar that it’s hard to recognize the pervasive levels of fear and the consequential suffering that we accept as a fact of life.

To put the responsibility of your happiness outside of yourself, places all the power over your own happiness in someone else’s hands. We commonly give this power to friends, lovers, family members, political institutions, and other organizations. Along with this power we set up certain expectations of those we have empowered. This is a perfect set up for disappointment, frustration, and all the emotions of suffering. It is the recipe for a broken heart.

When we take responsibility for our own happiness we relieve others of the burden of our expectations. They are then free to be what they want to be, without the fear that they will be punished emotionally or made to feel guilty for letting us down. We can accept people as they are, not as we “need” them to be in order to hold our shell of happiness. We can love them as they are, and don’t need them to be anything else. Taking responsibility for your own happiness leads you to unconditional love.

The journey to take complete responsibility for your own happiness requires that you take responsibility for all your emotions. This is an act of power that the victim mind makes to become a Warrior of the Spirit. After this, the Warrior never blames anyone for their own emotions. The Warrior knows that he or she is completely responsible for every emotion in their life. With that responsibility comes the personal power to win over the emotions of fear that cause suffering and choose love. When a Warrior recovers enough personal power, he or she, has the keys to unconditional love.

The truth is that you are completely responsible for your life. So often we forfeit the power of this responsibility through acts without awareness. A simple off hand comment such as, “He makes me so mad,” is such a simple way to give up this power. It is like casting a magical spell with the power of your word to give someone else control over your own emotions. This is black magic we use against ourselves when we are not aware of our actions.

Recovering your personal power is not an intellectual exercise. It requires action in changing your words, your habits, and your point of view. With enough personal power you can change your whole dream. You can change your dream to one of Heaven of earth. You are responsible for everything in your dream, and that gives you the power to change it.

Service as a Spiritual Practice

Spiritual service is most beneficial when it lessens self importance.

One does not enter the gates of heaven by works alone, but by grace. In the apprenticeships of students to monasteries, ashrams, and mystery schools of all sorts, the students would be required to work for their stay. They would scrub the floors, wash the clothes, make the meals, and clean up afterwards. All of this work gives the appearance of servitude to the teachers and masters.

The reverse actually holds more truth. The masters are serving the apprentices with something much greater.

The apprentices work is not to do the job of form, or task at hand. Their real work is the inner work of becoming humble, of releasing their self-importance. It is through performing these tasks that the apprentices have the opportunity to face their own selfishness.

It is not the service to the master that is bringing them closer to heaven. It is the destruction of their self-importance that is taking them there. In letting go of their own personal point of view, they have the opportunity to grasp something greater. Initially the apprentice’s view may be one of resentment. He may think he is above doing the laundry. He may resent his teacher for having to make his meals. These acts of service allow the apprentice to see all the places that he is selfish. When the apprentice has healed himself of selfishness, he can begin to serve selflessly.

The master serves the apprentice by tasking him with chores so that the apprentice can deal with his own selfishness. Helping to free the apprentice from his selfishness is a far greater service than scrubbing floors.

It is through practicing service with the intent that our self-importance be diminished that we progress to selfless service. Selfless service is action without any expectation or want of recognition or reward. It is through practicing selfless service that we come to grace. It is through grace, that we will enter Heaven on earth.

You do not need to travel far to find a place to practice. You can be in service to your spouse. You can be in service to your boss. You can be in service to other drivers as you commute to work. A true master is in service all the time. The people you are in service to do not need to know. If you find that you want to be recognized for what you have done, you are dealing with your own selfishness.

If you have a need to tell them, it is only because your self-importance wants to be recognized. When the urge for this appears, acknowledge it, but do your best not to act on it.

The truth is that your service is not really for anyone else. Your works are to diminish you own personal importance. The world will benefit a small amount from your works. You will benefit a thousand fold if your works bring you to grace and into a life of heaven on earth.

Are Emotions Important

The Quality of our Life is Measured in Emotions, Love, Happiness, vs. Fear, Shame, Anger.

Emotions: The Key to Changing the Quality of your Life
Why is it difficult to change our habits? Often we notice our own disruptive habits, want to change them, and yet don’t. Habits may be as extreme as abusive behaviors with alcohol or relationships, or as simple as repeated negative thoughts and judgments.

All the logical intellectual understanding of why we should break our disruptive habits are known. If we know so much, and we know exactly what we want to change, and we decide we really want to change, why is it still so hard? Why do we so often not make a permanent change?

A pop new age answer is that to change your habit, you just need to change what you believe. That is a concise and tidy answer, but how does it help a person who wants to get out of an abusive relationship. Why not just drop the intellectual concept of not being worthy and pick up the concept that one is worthy and deserves better? While it’s a nice idea, I just haven’t seen it happen yet.

What keeps people trapped under these concepts is the emotional attachment they have to these beliefs. The anchor that holds these beliefs in place is emotion. It is the emotion of unworthiness that holds the belief of unworthiness in place. We can cast the concept of unworthiness away from our mind with an affirmation, but it doesn’t change how we feel about ourselves. But when a person feels that they are truly worthy, then they really believe it. It becomes more than a concept, it becomes your nature. When you feel worthy, you really believe you are. Often when people go back to an old behavior, even after breaking a habit, it is because they are reverting to an old emotional state.

It is my experience that changing emotions is not a simple task. It is more than putting on a happy face. That’s making the outside prettier but doesn’t last, and doesn’t change how we feel deepd down. To make deep down changes requres changing core beliefs and point of view.

Real change is not an intellectual process. If you want to change how you think and act, then start with changing how you feel. The key to unlocking and creating real change in your life is through awareness of your emotions. What we think, is not as important to us, or nearly as powerful, as how we feel about ourselves and our life. Our intellectual thoughts take us to where we are “supposed to” and “should” go. Using awareness to follow our emotins take us to love and happiness.

The Game of Life

Being a Toy in the Game of Life

When you become wise you become free again like a child.

Some time ago I had a dream. In that dream I was visiting a planet. It was a very strange planet. It was a planet inhabited by toys and I was one of those toys. These toys played all the time. But this isn’t what made this planet so strange. The strangest thing about this planet of toys is that most of them didn’t know they were toys. It was so strange because it was so obvious that they really were toys.

I looked around and began to just observe the toys. It was amazing what they pretended to be. They almost always pretended to be very serious. When they were serious they weren’t very happy. It didn’t make sense to me why a toy, that could be anything would pretend a role that wasn’t much fun. I was very confused. I studied some more.

I began to see one of the biggest games of the toys. I don’t know what they called it, but I called it, “I’m right and you’re wrong.” They played it very seriously. Some even played it to their death. Some toys would pretend to play the game as lawyers or teachers. Some toys played the game as parents. I think this is where the younger toys learned the game. It’s hard to tell because the toys played it almost all the time. Funny thing about the game is that it wasn’t fun and yet they played it so often.

Now there were some toys that played like real toys. Most of them were about 2 to 6 years old. They knew how to be what they were. They would play as a toy cop or robber and have fun. Then in a moment they would play as a cowboy or a fireman. In a moment they would switch roles and be something else. These were really master toys of playing all the time. They didn’t care what anyone thought of them. I noticed though, that as the toys got older they would start to play only one role.

I studied them some more. It seemed the toys would practice that one role as they got older until they were a master at just that one role. It was like they forgot how to be anything else. And they would take their role very seriously. These toys were very believable characters. If it wasn’t so obvious to me that they were toys, I probably would have started believing them. It was funny watching these toys play these very serious games.

But after a while I was tired of the “right wrong game”, the judgment game, the jealousy game, all those high drama games. Most the game I saw them play were no fun.

What is stranger is that I am still dreaming that dream. I see the world filled with people that could be having such fun playing at life. Instead they fill their life with serious drama and games that nobody wins. I can’t wait for all those wonderful toys to wake up from their characters and dream a better game of life.

Temptation and Illusions in the Mind

A subtle shift in point of view and we create suffering

Be watchful of the mind’s changing perspectives

It was a crystal clear night when I crawled into the sweat lodge. The sun had just set and the stars hadn’t yet made themselves known to the darkness. I had sweated before and I was once again among friends. The first few sweats had been the most difficult. Over time they had become easier, even enjoyable at times. I had thought I was just becoming use to them. In fact I was learning to win over the temptation of my own mind.

In the beginning the heat would almost overwhelm me. The steam from the water poured on the hot rocks made breathing difficult. At times the steam filled air had became so hot I could feel my mouth burn, and then my throat, as the air traveled towards my lungs. I immediately stopped inhaling only to realize that my lungs were empty. I learned to inhale ever so slowly so the steam could cool as it traveled. My mind would race with criticisms of the heat, the duration of the round, even why people were taking so long. “Didn’t they realize I was suffering over here!” “Couldn’t they hurry it up!” My thoughts were loud and unhappy.

Often my thoughts would run wild with the voice of a victim. “Why are they putting more water on the rocks?” “What are they trying to do to me.” “I need air, I can’t breath.” Other times I would be filled with happiness. The body would be pouring sweat, the lungs would be breathing softly, and I would be happy. I never knew what my experience would be.

This night in the lodge was different than any had been before. I sat in serenity for a while enjoying the flushing of sweat through all my pores. In a certain moment, the voice of the victim came in and wanted out of the heat. It demanded that people shorten what they said, so we could finish the round. The victim voice demanded that I forget what other people think of me and just exit in the middle of the round to get some cool air. I sat and listened to a voice in my own mind noticing the feeling of peace slipping away as I began to think it was mine.

I stopped listening and shifted my attention back to my lungs. The serenity strengthened. A few moments later the victim began complaining again. This time it was about the discomfort in my feet from the way I was sitting. I listened to it and the feeling began to slip away. As the feeling slipped the voice got stronger. As I listened more closely it took the opportunity to complain about other parts of my body. The feeling faded, and I watched it do so. I thanked the voice for its opinion and focused on my breathing. I was now the one choosing my own thoughts.

This was my bout with the temptation to suffer, to be a victim. The battle was over my own attention. As I shifted my attention, my whole experience shifted.

I crawled outside the sweat lodge and laid in the dirt staring at the night sky. So beautiful was the world, and so filled with possibility with the awareness to choose my point of view.