Happiness – A Journey of Purpose

Aum Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya

Haribol.

So, the talk tonight: Happiness – A Journey of Purpose.

We live in a pretty extraordinary time. Mankind has not seen anything like this ever in their history. We have been influenced so profoundly in terms of where we look for happiness, how we define happiness. There has been, in more modern times, a—pretty much, a wholesale abandonment of hundreds and thousands of years of tradition and wisdom, and we have become little consumer maniacs.

We live in a time in a world where society’s health is judged by consumer confidence. When people are not spending money and consuming stuff, it’s considered that the economy is in bad shape, the country will be in bad shape, and it’s going to be a disaster. So, it’s a savage metric, whether everybody’s confidently consuming things or not; and the perfection of the manipulation of people through advertising and messaging, where we are offered this idea.

Well, let me just step back a little bit. In advertising there is a common understanding—and we’re talking about advertising agencies and big executives—there is a recognition that every single person is feeling empty, and what you have to do in advertising is associate your product or your service with something that will fill up the emptiness. That’s the model. And so all of the offering is based upon exploitation of an emptiness that most people feel in different ways and to different degrees. How healthy is that for people, and for the prospects of actual peacefulness and happiness? It just doesn’t bode well if this is what we have become, this is what everything has become reduced to.

And then there is the promise that by stimulating my senses, look at this, taste this, smell this, touch this, try this, that you will find happiness. There is this equation—or equating rather, happiness with things that actually are quite shallow. Yeah. I mean you give a little kid a lolly, a candy, and they’re just like, “Yaah!!” We know that that’s not real happiness. Or no? We don’t know that? We’ve lost the plot that bad? You look at the kid, and you know that’s—it’s okay, it’s entertaining them for a while. It’s given their tongue a little bit of “Blibliblia,” a little bit of a flash, but it’s not real happiness. But really, what’s the difference between that and the sophisticated lollies or sweeties or toys of people that are meant to be adults?

So there’s this fundamental problem where we have been kind—we’ve been funnelled into this way of thinking and this style of living, and now there’s all kinds of problems. People equate all environmental problems with oil. You know how dumb that is? That’s just like, no! It’s about consumption. The problem is people’s patterns of consumption, and the ideas of what is the purpose in life, that my life is all about just consuming and acquiring, and that’s where I’m going to find purpose and fulfillment and happiness. That is so shallow and unfortunate.

And so we live in this time where—we have never seen the speed at which the senses are stimulated and the offerings are coming of different things. You know this little tiny thing here [holds up phone], this is like—this is amazing. When I when I got my first computer, it had a hard drive, and that was just like whoa! because up to that time it was just floppy discs. It had a hard drive. You know how big my hard drive was? 640k. I can remember when the first 1 megabyte hard drive came out, and everybody was like, whoa! They couldn’t believe it. Now all of a sudden people have access to terabytes of information.

And when we look at this thing here, it’s like we look at it like it’s like, oh, it’s just our phone, or our device, and oh, I can do all these things on it, and I have fun with it, and I “communicate” with it. And it’s just like, I’m sorry, you don’t understand that on the other side of this device there are massive arrays of super-computing aimed at you. Every time you touch the screen, that information is grabbed. Every time you type in a search, and then you even backspace and erase something, that information is got. They build amazing psychological profiles of every single person that’s on the internet and then that’s marketable information, for you to be exploited.

It’s like we’ve lost the plot, and we are not living lives that are actually purposeful and are directed towards really good and healthy outcomes—and that will primarily be spiritual outcomes. The foundation for all authentic spiritual teaching is the understanding that you and I are eternal spiritual beings. This body that we are temporarily occupying is not us. This is somewhere where we’re hanging out for a while, and we may have lost the plot and tend to overly identify that this this thing is me. Well, I’m sorry, no it’s—you have a limited time that you’re going to be hanging out in this thing.

And the only truth about so-called life in a particular body is that it comes to an end. It doesn’t last. The only thing that you can count on is that you will what-they-call die. Well, the good news is that you actually never die. You just move on, and the thing that you leave behind, the body, that dies. And if I could just understand that for a few moments or a few weeks or a few months, then it would be like, “Well, why am I spending all my time responding to the urges of my body and mind, but not catering to me, the spiritual being, and my needs?”

The spiritual being—they use an example in some of the ancient texts of like a bird in a gilded cage, a cage that’s beautifully decorated and golden, and the owner is just like so happy and so obsessed with the cage that the bird is forgotten, and the bird is suffering from serious malnutrition. And they liken this to what’s going on with most people in this world, where there is this enormous focus on stimulating the body and mind, but I, myself, are not touched. I, myself, feel empty, I feel alone. I desire something wonderful, and I search for it, but often search for it in all the wrong places.

Are we doing okay so far? Or is this a bit too—this is not what we came for? I, yeah, we don’t do the rainbows and the unicorns. This is the reality of things. But it’s necessary to be very real about life, about these truths, because if we want to taste happiness, then we have to be intelligent and question, “Is what I am currently doing fulfilling me and providing me the happiness that I desire?”

As I mentioned earlier, we live in an extraordinary time, where people have everything at their fingertips. I mean, I’m an old dude. I’m 70 plus already. My grandparents spent time living in houses with dirt floors, wooden planks were the walls, and they put pasted newspaper there to insulate them. That wasn’t that long ago. The world that we live in now is in a world of such abundance. There’s so much consumption of so many things, and there’s so much unhappiness.

There is a chronic epidemic of terrible unhappiness, depression, mental illnesses and suicide. It hasn’t been like this before. Even when people were starving and involved in tribal wars and everything, you didn’t get this degree of terrible suffering, like this type of suffering, and people just wanting to commit suicide because somebody is not treating them in the way that they think they deserve to be treated. It’s—and I’m not making light of it at all, it’s necessary to look at things in in a very direct manner.

Happiness is your eternal right. The nature, the very nature of the soul—in Sanskrit the word is a wonderful word, atma; this word atma literally means the self. There is a recognition that the body is not truly the self, this is something I’m temporarily inhabiting. There is a recognition that within there is a person, a seer, an experiencer of things, that is spiritual in nature. And part of the nature of the living being, the spiritual being, is to exist in a state of happiness, of spiritual happiness, not of Coca-Cola happiness.

I mean what a! It’s pathetic: they’re going to twist a cap, and the bottle pops open, and bubbles come out, and then the slogan is, “Open happiness,” and nobody even thinks that’s weird. I’m mind-blown—not at the ad, I’m mind-blown that people can look at it, and maybe think it’s possibly true, or if they don’t think it’s true, it doesn’t bother them. It’s like, whoa! This is astonishing.

No. You are an eternal spiritual being, while you can stimulate the body, and the body and the mind can have so many sensual experiences, it doesn’t fulfill me in the core of my being. It doesn’t generate the experience of happiness that I desire. Because this is the reality, then we have to consider that in my life, if I would like to come to experience great and transcendental happiness that never diminishes, that never leaves, that is manifest from within; even when I may be going through extreme difficulty, one can still have an internal experience of great spiritual wonder and great spiritual happiness; but if I am going to get to that place I have to look at it like a journey, a journey that I am going to undertake. And every step I make along that path needs to be purposeful, it needs to be thoughtful, it needs—we need to be following in the footsteps of authoritative transcendentalists who show the way to the experience of great transcendental, or spiritual, happiness.

There’s a couple of verses in the—a very ancient text called the Bhagavad-gita that introduce some pretty radical ideas.

Modern advertising, of course, is based upon the principle that you’re empty, and so I stimulate that, so you have a great hankering for something, then I dangle something before you and promise you that this experience, or this item, or the whatever, this is what you’re looking for, this will fulfill you. But then when I try it, I might get a little flash, and it’s like, “Ah, yeah, that was amazing!” Thirty minutes later, an hour later, two hours later, a day later, it’s like a big zero. There is no lasting taste, there is no lasting effect.

In the ancient yoga system they actually encouraged a person not to be distracted and disturbed by the different experiences or things that were offered.

I just having a little thought about New Year. I don’t know if you folks are the kind that hang out at New Year, you stay up until midnight and do the big countdown like they do downtown? And everybody’s down there, then they’re like watching the clock, then at like 10 seconds to go, everybody’s going 10, 9, 8 and then they get down to zero, “Happy New Year! Yaah!” And it’s like nothing’s happening, nothing’s happening to you, you’re not really experiencing anything. You’re just shouting, and jumping up and down, and kissing people, and glugging alcohol, but it’s not like there’s really anything happening. It’s like an artificial creation of what is happiness or what happiness is meant to be.

So we live in a time, we live in a society, we live in a world, where there are so many offerings and promises of happiness; and in the ancient texts they advise—I’ll read this one:

“A person who is not disturbed by the incessant flow of desires — that enter like rivers into the ocean, which is ever being filled but is always still — can alone achieve peace, and not the man who strives to satisfy such desires.”

Is that a radical idea? I mean, because all the messaging we’re getting is, if you desire something, you’ve just got to have no sense of guilt or shame or—no barriers, just go for it. Oh, there’s a company that does that, “Just do it!” No reservation, no thought. If a desire springs, and of course, the desire has been planted in my mind by other forces, it’s not self-generated, but it’s there, and then I’m fixated, and I’m focused on it. And I think that by chasing it and achieving it, I will find that peace, of like, “Aah this is it, this is what I was looking for.”

It’s like somebody thinks, “Now it’s so cold here, let’s just go to Fiji and lie in a hammock on the beach.” That’s pretty good for a couple of days, try it for a couple of years, and see what it does for you. It’s amazing how something can at one time appear to be offering so much joy, and that same thing can become quite distasteful.

Let’s say somebody loves a particular type of music: “Oh, when I hear that song I just love it, my heart just flies, I just love it!” Okay, we’re going to do a little experiment. We’re going to tie you to the chair and put some headphones on, and that’s the only piece of music that you’re going to hear for the next 48 hours. A couple of hours into it, how’s that working out for you? It’s kind of like, well, why does something that, when I just experience it occasionally, can be so heavenly, but then, when I’m constantly bombarded with it, it can not only not provide that uplifting and a happy feeling, it can now become like torture.

What’s your favorite food? Okay, let’s put you in a room, and that’s all you’re going to eat for the next week, that same thing over and over again, that which went from, like, “Wow, I love this,” to, “Stop it! Please, something else. I need something else,” It’s—

But we’re not analytical. We don’t look at that, and think about it. We just move to the next thing that’s offered to us, the next thing. And here we’re having this message, no, no, no, no, no, you need to learn to tolerate the continuous influx of desires. You need to learn to tolerate it, like the ocean remains still even though these vast rivers are always rushing into it with so much water. It’s not like the ocean becomes turbulent and rises and over floods. It remains steady; the example is used. And so, they’re asking that we actually learn to also become like this.

Don’t be shallow. Don’t just chase that which is superficial, that which is very temporary, that which doesn’t provide the lasting happiness that we seek. The state of peacefulness is actually foundational for beginning to taste happiness. If your hearts are constantly ravaged by emptiness and desire and always looking for something new, the new thing, the new experience, what it does, it takes you away from an inward journey, a journey of self-discovery, of coming to know your true self, and finding, discovering, the wonder of what is called self-realization and God-realization.

When a person is overly distracted by all of these different things around them, then there is no attempt to calm down, sit down, become a little centered and focused, and really contemplate what is in my interest. We have been encouraged to be overly responsive to emotions. People don’t act with the thought of, “How should I respond to this? What’s in my best interest? What’s in their best interest? What’s a good way forward, that’s going to make my life better?” The tendency is just to impulsively respond to emotions, particularly anger, but greed, envy, lust, fear, all of these things. We impulsively respond to things, and it becomes difficult to not do that, if that’s all we’re doing.

They have a word in Sanskrit: it’s called atmarama, atmarama. It means one who is completely self-satisfied. What an extraordinary idea. What does it mean, self-satisfied? This is just—this is a foreign idea. If everybody became self-satisfied, the economy would implode; and maybe people would consider, “Okay, what do I really need here?” rather than always, “…what I want”.

So, another verse I will just read:

“One who is not connected with the Supreme can have neither transcendental intelligence nor a steady mind, without which there is no possibility of peace. And how can there be any happiness without peace?”

These are very challenging ideas. It’s not like you’ve been given an order or a directive, but you’ve been offered an opportunity to contemplate on something that’s quite profound, that could become some impetus for me to consider a new direction in my life, a purposeful direction, where I am seeking a very clear outcome, and I’m constantly making judgments, I’m discerning, “Is it in my interest to go this way? Is it in my interest to go this way? What will be the long-term outcome?”

One of the big tragedies in the world now is the prevalence of unhappiness born from false expectation, where people develop these false expectations of what life in this world is really like. We seek perfection, and the world is not perfect. That is a spiritual characteristic that’s connected to me as a spiritual being and to a spiritual dimension, a spiritual experience, but I expect perfection. I look for it. But there is no perfection to be had in this world. There might be wonderful things but there’s no perfection.

I want to try and make this my home, but I am a transient. I am in this body for a certain amount of time. I will have family and friends and relatives, things that I’m connected to, but only for a limited amount of time; and if my idea is that I can build a little kingdom of permanence where everything—we’re going to live happily ever after, that’s a disconnect from reality.

That desire to live happily ever after is actually a spiritual desire. It is a good desire. It’s nothing wrong with it. It’s a perfect desire. But when I target that desire at the material world and at the material experience, it’s like whoa, that ain’t going to work out so well. That’s not going to give you what you need.

This is a massive subject, and I’m going to bring the talk to a close, hoping to have stimulated some thought. And of course, what I am asking from you is to consider these ideas and principles, and for you, yourself, to begin a journey of purpose, to seek proper spiritual direction and guidance, and to engage in a more spiritually directed life, so that you will find the happiness that you seek and desire. It doesn’t just happen.

Everything that we do is the result of what? We contemplate, we think about it, and then from that comes desire. Then the desire becomes intense, and then it causes action, and then every action has a reaction. And sometimes I’m so foolish, I just get so fixated on the idea that if I do this I’ll become happy. And then if you ask the question, “Well, once you’ve done that, then will there be any consequence? Will there be any follow on from that?” “Uhh? Well, yeah, maybe this could happen.” “And then if that happens where does that go?” “Uhh, I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.” And that’s the way we have been very conditioned to just behave in this manner and not to take charge of our life, to live a life of real purpose and deeper meaning.

And a big part of that journey is to engage in the process of meditation, meditation on the use of this spiritual sound, this—The invisible potency of this spiritual sound is that it begins to lift the fog. It begins to dissipate the fog, so you begin to see things with more clarity. And as you begin to discover more about your own spiritual identity, the way that you look at yourself, the way that you look at others, the way that you look at the world, all begins to really change and transform, and you can come to a situation where you are truly at peace, even in the midst of a great storm, great calamities that come, that are part of living in this world, in this body. It’s not all just, happy, happy.

What do you think?

Audience: Very wise words.

Acharya das: Absolutely, wise words, and not a single one is mine. I am—I confess to being the biggest idiot on the planet, but my great fortune is to have had the wonderful association of genuine spiritual teachers that have shared with me wonderful things. But they cannot be experienced as wonderful unless we take them on board, we take the advice, we question.

One of the things that really blew my mind about the ancient Vedic culture is how, even from childhood, people were taught to question, to question everything. There was no person that gets angry when you ask a question they can’t answer. They will look for somebody appropriate to answer that, “Maybe you need to check with this person. I heard they are very wise.” But the idea of questioning is important. We should question our beliefs. We should question our chosen course in life, particularly if it’s not producing everything that we desire.

So, we will have a little chant, and after the chant if you want to ask any questions then I will do my best to answer them. Thank you very much.

I just stress one point: the spiritual journey, while there may be pilgrims that traverse the path together, it’s still an individual journey. It’s not a team undertaking. It is good to have association of like-minded people, because it reminds us, but the journey is ours to make. Nobody can do the walking for us. By inaction we are choosing to remain where we are, and for our life to continue as it is.

So I’ll tell you a little secret. You don’t have to be great and wonderful. You don’t need any special intelligence or anything. This process is a process of discovering your real self, of uncovering what is already there. It’s not something that—it’s not like scaling a mountain, where you have to become an expert in rope and high altitudes and ice and rock and such massive endeavor, then you’re going to struggle to climb to the top to conquer. This is going the other way, it’s the, what’s called, the descending path avaroha–pantha it is called, means to uncover what is actually there, to come to discover your real spiritual identity and to become immersed in that.

So I will chant the mantra, Aum Hari Aum, yeah? Yeah, I just checked with my boss that it’s all right.