Is happiness a state of mind?

If you have read my blogs over the past few weeks, I think you will see that happiness does not come from the objects that you see. The proof is that you don’t feel happiness in a car, house, or a marriage partner; you feel it in your own heart and that’s the place were it comes from. You may even have a sense that the source of happiness in incredibly deep; in fact it is unfathomable.

But here is a place where many spiritual aspirants get confused: is happiness a state of mind? This could be a state of no thoughts, or a state of holding on to specific thoughts, like a picture of a calm ocean, a blue cloudless sky or remembering something that really moves you. You can also envision happiness as being the lack of certain thoughts like those causing anger, fear or sadness.

A state of mind does not last
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But one thing I can tell you for sure: If happiness is based on a state of mind, it will not last. That’s because the mind is always changing. So many things can affect your state of your mind. A tiny change in the chemical balance of the body, or a disease such as Alzheimer’s can cause tremendous changes in your mind.

Thousands of situations can also cause a change in your mind like the birth of your child, the death of your mother, an attack on the streets of a city, or watching your dog get run over by a car. And then you realize that it wasn’t really your dog and your mind changes again. We classify some of these thoughts as happy, some as sad, and some as just being relieved.

Adjusting your thoughts is a constant battle
So the question is: are thoughts the cause of our happiness and misery? If your answer is yes then the purpose of your meditation would be to bring in the good thoughts and get rid of the bad ones. But since your thoughts are in constant motion, your meditations would feel like a battle, you against your thoughts, where when you are not looking, you lose. Or your meditations will feel like a leaky dam. As soon as you plug up one hole, another one will burst on through.

But if on the other hand, thoughts do not cause happiness then we have a chance of finding lasting peace. One way that you can determine if happiness is deeper than thoughts is to look at your-self when you're supposed to be miserable like at the time of death of a loved one. Of course your thoughts will be sad and you may even be crying. But is there a place of peace unaffected by the state of your mind?

Check your own experience
See if you can find this place of peace. It is like the depths of the ocean undisturbed by the storms above. You will notice that you did not have to change one thought to find this place of peace. It was there the whole time, and, taking you identity to be the thoughts, you just overlooked it.

Rather then changing your thoughts, what you are doing is returning to the place where you really stand. It is the still Awareness that sees the changing thoughts. Did you know that the reason that you can see change is that you stand in the stillness of your real identity, Awareness?

You are not an object
But because it is unobtrusive, you look right past your real identity and settle on your thoughts. The most basic of these thoughts is ‘I’. This is the ‘I’ that is attached to many of our thoughts such as, “’I’ am sad.” But to you the subject ‘I’ is just another object, it is not really you.

Like the objects that I started this blog with such as cars and houses, thoughts are just objects that you see; they do not define you. You are much deeper than a mere thought and you can discover this by returning to the state that you are in anyway. That is the source of happiness that was not created and can never be destroyed. Use your meditations to find your real identity, and you will discover how deep and how amazing you really are.

Then words like oneness, omnipresent, and omniscient will make sense because they will be your direct experience. You will then strip off the limitations of the mind like worn out clothes and return to your pristine original nature.

Feel free to ask questions
Now I want you to experience your true identity in its full glory. So please feel free to continue asking questions. I’m always glad to hear your reactions and clarify my answers. Unlike the path of faith, on the path of Self-Knowledge it is curiosity that destroys limitation and allows you to abide in your natural freedom.

If the comment section of this blog doesn't work, please send your questions and comments to michael@ananya.com. To find out where this all leads go to, www.light-up-your-life.com. And finally, if you enjoy these blogs please tell your friends.                                                                                                                                                  

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                                                                        Michael Gluckman