Dear Friends,
Thank you for being here.
I began this blog a few weeks ago to share insights from my new book, The Middle Theory. In my first blog I asked three questions:
1. What is happiness?
2. How do we achieve this sought after condition?
3. Once achieved, how do we make it last?
I think you would agree that these are three very important questions. In my first blog, I answered the first question. If you haven't read that blog as yet, please consider reading it before you proceed. Thank you.
So, let's have the question again...
How do we achieve this sought after condition? How can we be (not feel) happy?
Let's first agree on what is not happiness. Happiness is not simply a feeling. Happiness is not being successful. Happiness is not having a lot of money in the bank. Happiness is not being physically healthy. Happiness is not having a lot of really great friends....happiness is not anything outside of you.
Now I know many of you have heard this before. Perhaps you are a little suspicious of this idea. It is very important that we know what happiness is not, because if we do not we will continue to chase after happiness as though it is playing hind-and-seek with us.
Happiness is, as described in The Middle Theory, attaining a condition of balanced awareness.
What is balanced awareness? It is a heightened state of awareness that allows us to love fully, ourselves, others and the very "isness" of each moment. So let's rephrase the earlier question:
How do we attain a balanced state of awareness?
Aha, that's the question! Accept for a moment that there is such a thing as a "balanced state awareness". Perhaps you have had moments in your life when you felt completely at peace with reality, where your entire being seemed to be in sync with the flow of life's currents--its events, its unpredictable happenings. Imagine that this harmonious moment is your continuous experience of life. Imagine that! Now you understand what it feels like to attain a balanced state of awareness. But remember, this state is beyond feeling....it is beyond anything that we can see or touch; it is your essence.
To attain a balanced state of awareness requires different things depending on where we are at in our spiritual journey. Ultimately, however, we pass through the same "lands". Here they are:
1. The land of doubt
2. The land of search
3. The land of sacrifice
4. The land of service
5. The land of true understanding
6. The land of acceptance
7. The land of certitude
8. The land of love.
Note that the "land" of love is number 8, the last land - the ultimate place to be. Given this, a simple answer to the original question is this: be love. Decide right now - don't delay for a second - to be love. Start by knowing that you are an unfathomable creation of an All-loving Creator. Know that no matter what your troubles are, you are loved by your Creator. Know and love this very moment. It is what it is. You are here, thinking, reading, questioning, examining....loving. Be love! Be love everyday, as much as you can. When you notice that you are not being love, stop whatever you are doing. Sit for a while. Pray or meditate. Take a deep breath. Just stop doing and consciously decide to bring whatever you are doing into alignment with your desired condition of "being love." If we make a serious commitment to be love in every moment, gradually, as we pray and meditate daily to deepen our awareness of our own thoughts and motives, our actions (our doings) will manifest our condition of being - we will be loving to ourselves and to others spontaneously and with ease.
So, that's it. To be happy, we have to be and manifest love. Haven't we heard this before? It's amazing how we often overlook simple wisdom when we are in the land of search.
I will end by saying that I love you. I love that you are here existing with me. We are brothers and sisters of conscious existence.
Look out for my next blog....I will answer the third and final question:
Once achieved, how do we make it last?
Yes, we do not arrive when we achieve a balanced state of awareness. As blissful as this state is, we can, if we do not constantly bring our doing into alignment with the "beingness" of love, fall from grace, so to speak. Knowing how to remain in a state of balanced awareness is very important.
Be love.
Deshon
