The Lost Art of Happiness

The Lost Art of Happiness: An End to Searching

If an-other wants to know what I mean by happiness, just get the idea of smiling inside, This somatic reference will quell most cognitive chatter the word may evoke. From this smile I learn it needs no reason and I go on to find it has no bounds. It dissolves even the boundaries between I and not I.

Here is an apparent paradox … I am the experiencer, yet without experience, I am not. Without an object, subject does not exist. Therefore it may also be said this way: I am my experience. (see: dependent origin)

I experience the "other" in a similar way. Outside of experience, the other does not exist. Experience is, and outside of experience, nothing is. I am my experience of the other and therefore we are inseparable.

The experience of myself as a pure experiencer is still an objectification, though very subtle. That I exist outside of this can only be inferred, never proved. The greatest evidence for my existence is that when I disappear into the nothingness, I then reappear – as a continuation of experience – very much analogous to the cycles of deep sleep and wakefulness. (This is related to memory)

Identity (like the meaning of life) is determined solely by my judgments. Without judgments, identity is very fluid, boundaries appear and dissolve. I suspect I am boundless, yet in this I also suspect that other and I could both merge and disappear.

In death I reason I will either disappear or continue to exist or alternate between the two, and the latter I suspect is true. If there continues to be experience there would be a boundary shift and that is all.

The whole of experience points to my desire to be happy in one form or another. Happiness, joy, bliss - whatever one might call it – is its own justification, it needs no reason or cause beyond its own will, intention or desire.This is behind all ideas of liberation, heaven or enlightenment as I see it. If there is any immortality worth having it lies in this unconditioned happiness without reason or qualification.

This lies beyond all distinctions of spiritual vs mundane. Happiness evolves itself as desires endless urge to fulfillment. Happiness evolves itself through myriad forms and beyond into formlessness of pure being.

Given that desire is self evident, happiness is self fulfilling. All else is the mechanics of a game. Be honest with your desires and cultivate happiness directly - independent of circumstances - are the meta rules of this game.

To believe in un-happiness is simply to adopt an illusory belief, which complicates the game and is absolutely unnecessary to its enjoyment. As a game, one could say that unhappiness is simply cheating and prevents the game from flowing and completing seamlessly. The game played by the meta rules ends with happiness, which is also where it started, if observed closely.

For example; the game of love is the relational expression of my subjective happiness. I can not truly say I love if I find no joy in it. As I lose my joy, its object becomes adulterated.

If I confuse the purpose of the game with love, or peace, or self knowledge, or freedom and other fine desirable things, I find I can not have them and can not share them. None of these are available in any purity without happiness. Why? Happiness is their end too. And the end is the cause of the beginning - meaning happiness is the cause of all things that reflect it.

Deus est beatitudo per essentiam
(The essence of G-d is happiness.)

© Arjay 2011