Love and Happiness: Self-awareness Can Bring Happiness

By Swami Bodhananda

The very concept of God has given rise to many theological disputes and religious warfare. In fact, God is an enduring in-depth experience in the midst of ever-changing mental and sensate experiences - God is the inexhaustible source of love, harmony and peace.

Happiness is sought by everyone. But the search is not focused in the right direction. We waste precious time seeking happiness in the mirage of objects, places and people; in relationships and ideologies; in possessions and wanton indulgences.

Some seek happiness in caves, in mountains or on the shifting sands of deserts, practising severe penance. Our rishis called them extroverts - those who seek happiness in the objective domain with wasteful efforts, disregarding the subjective.

In fact, happiness is a function of the subjective. But to seek happiness in the subjective domain is impossible, because the subjective can never become an object of seeking. That means to seek happiness in either direction is to miss happiness.

That realisation makes the seeker spontaneously detached, silent and contemplative. Meditation means all that. So meditation is the only door to happiness. Meditation means just ‘to be happy'.

A group of American tourists were visiting Japan. They made it a point to visit as many Buddhist temples as possible and participate in all their religious practices. In one of those temples they were introduced to a Zen master.

The Americans, puzzled by the rituals, said: "We visited many of your temples and participated in many of your practices, but we don't understand what your theology is." The Zen master roared with laughter: "We have no theology or philosophy, we simply laugh and dance."

Kavya Kanta Ganapathi Muni, a Vedic scholar and devotee of Shakti, once approached Ramana Maharshi and asked: "Bhagavan, what is true meditation?" Maharshi said: "Watching the source of thought is meditation."

The source of thought is Self. Ignoring the Self is unhappiness. Being conscious of one's ignorance is meditation. Thought projects time veiling consciousness. Identifying with time is unconsciousness and the cause of suffering.

Consciousness is bliss, which is transcendence of time. Consciousness is awareness of the self as the light in which thoughts, feelings and sensations shine and responses happen.

How far is consciousness from the phenomenal world? How far is the Creator God from creation? Is bliss opposed to body experiences? Can happiness be an enduring experience in the ups and downs of actual living? Living in constant awareness of one's spiritual nature while interacting with the world is experiencing happiness moment to moment.

Sri Narayana Guru said: "To act with awareness is freedom and to act without awareness is bondage." The difference bet- ween freedom and bondage is awareness. Self-awareness is true awareness with reference to which the thought projected world is seen as a myth - as just a narration of an imaginative mind.

"Tell me," demanded the king, turning to his bewildered minister, waking up from an afternoon siesta. "Just a while ago I was a butterfly. Now, on waking up, I find myself to be a king. Which of these two experiences is the truth?"

The minister replied: "Your Highness, doubtless, you are king - not a butterfly." The king was not convinced. He said: "O minister, how do you know? It might be that I am the king in the butterfly's dream!"

Happiness in every day life means walking wakefully in this dream world. Self-awareness helps find true happiness.

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See also: Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul)