Mind & Happiness 49
What is Happiness ?
What is the one thing that all sentient Existences desire ? Is it not Happiness ? In the final analysis, are not all our desires just various forms of our one fundamental desire to be happy ? Is not our fundamental desire for Happiness the essence of every form of desire that we may ever have ? Our desire for Happiness is the driving force behind all the countless forms of effort that we are always making. We do not do anything – whether through Mind, speech or Body – that is not driven by our fundamental desire to be happy. Each & every one of our actions is motivated by our desire to be perfectly happy.
For whom do we desire Happiness? Do we not each desire Happiness for our self ? First & foremost, we each want our self to be happy. Though we may also want other people to be happy, we want them to be happy because seeing their Happiness makes us feel happy. All our actions of Mind, Speech, & Body are impelled by our desire for our own Happiness.
However unselfish we may think our actions to be, they are still all motivated by our desire for our own Happiness. Even if we sacrifice our time, our money, our comforts, & conveniences, or anything else that is precious to us, in order to do some altruistic action, whether to help some other person or to support some noble cause, the ultimate driving force behind such sacrifice is our desire to be happy. We do altruistic actions only because doing so makes us feel happy.
Because we feel unhappy when we see other people suffering, we are ready to do anything to alleviate their Suffering, even if by doing so we seem to cause some Suffering to our self. We feel happier Suffering to help other people than we would feel if we did nothing to help them. In fact we may derive positive Happiness from our Suffering, because we know we are undergoing it for the sake of others.
Taking this to an extreme, some people actually choose to suffer for the sake of Suffering, because they cannot feel happy unless they feel that they are Suffering. They derive pleasure by undergoing what appears to be Suffering, because for them that seeming Suffering is not really Suffering but is only a form of pleasure. Whatever extreme form our desire may take, whether some truly noble altruistic form or some deeply perverse masochistic form, in essence it is still only a desire for our own Happiness.
Why is our desire for our own Happiness the fundamental & ultimate cause of our desire for the Happiness of other people ? Why do we desire their Happiness primarily because it contributes to our own Happiness ? Why, in other words, do we ultimately desire our own Happiness more than we desire the Happiness of others ?
We are primarily concerned with our own Happiness because we love our self more than we love any other person or thing. We love other people & things because we believe that they can contribute to our own Happiness. We love each of them only to the extent to which we believe that they are able to make us happy, & if we thought that they did not or could not in some way or other contribute to our Happiness, we would feel no particular Love for them.
The above themes & 2500 pages more are freely available as perused or downloaded PDF’s, the sole occupants of a Public Microsoft Skydrive “Public Folder” accessible through www.jpstiga.com
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http://jstiga.wixsite.com/nonduality/
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“There is no Creation, no Destruction, no Bondage, no longing to be freed from Bondage, no striving for Liberation, nor anyone who has attained Liberation. Know that this to be Ultimate Truth.”
– the “no creation” school of Gaudapada, Shankara, Ramana, Nome – Ajata Vada
for very succinct summary of the teaching & practice, see: www.ajatavada.com/
Nonduality and Science 