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IF I was ever asked the question ‘What is the secret to happiness?’ the one piece of advice I would give is very simple – call off the search!
Now what do I mean by ‘call off the search?’ The only answer I can give is like the Ronseal Varnish advertisment — do exactly as it says on the tin! Call off the search.
You see if we are searching for happiness the one thing that we can be sure of is that we will never find it, we may as well be trying to herd rabbits.
Ultimate happiness is a state of Being and as such is not something that you can search for.
Yes, I agree we may get short term ‘happiness’ from material things like holidays, cars, houses, relationships etc, but the truth is that the type of ‘happiness’ that arises from all of these things is transient and just like night follows day, it will pass.
No, true happiness can only be accessed through the present moment. This reality is the reason for the massive surge in the practice of mindfulness in the Western World.
For thousands of years this reality has been recognised as the essence of the Buddhist religion, and is the meaning behind the message of Jesus Christ when he said “I Am The Way”.
It is also the essence of that extremely popular book by Eckhart Tolle called ‘The Power of Now’ which has sold over 30 million copies worldwide.
As the old saying goes ‘All roads lead to Rome’ then all of the above mentioned ‘practices’ along with the advice of many more sages of the ages, are all saying the same thing. That the only access to True Happiness is through the present moment.
The funny thing about the present moment is that just like happiness you can never search for it, you can only access it through The Now.
The key to solving this is to work on the quality of ‘The Now’ in our lives. That involves practicing acceptance and gratitude of all things just as they are in this very moment. This ultimately is where the solution lies, but like everything else takes awareness and practice in order to reach this realisation.
A great example of this lies in the Symbol of The Cross and The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
Jesus chose to accept His fate i.e To Die by Crucificion in order to save our souls. Being the Son of God, He could have come down from The Cross, but no He chose Acceptance without blame “Father forgive them for they know not what they do”.
Through the Acceptance of the present moment, no matter how difficult, He demonstrated the way towards The Ressurection.
Thus The Cross as demonstrated by the manner in which Jesus thought us acceptance of all things in the moment is a most Powerful symbol to all Christians and Believers that Crucifixion and Resurrection (Ultimate Peace and Happiness) are flip sides of the same coin.
This reality will soon be celebrated on Easter Sunday. In the meantime – Call off the search and Be Happy.
Next week I am going to write about — Gratitude Is The Key
