Happiness

You want to be happy. You want to find peace. That's why you are searching on the spiritual path. That's why you read all this, practice meditation, and so on.

Your life is bound with responsibilities, with uncertainties, with fears and desires. You hear all this talk about Enlightenment as a "way" to be rid of all this, to somehow deal with life in a better way.

The teaching of Advaita, in fact the essence of any "spiritual" teaching, is not a way of better dealing with life, of finding peace or happiness.

The teaching is simply to point you to the fact that you are ALREADY at peace, already full of happiness, already FREE. The suffering you know is only an apparent veil over this already-present peace, happiness and freedom.

Anytime you are uncertain, fearful or full of desire, you are referring that to a central character in your life story - ME. I am afraid, I am uncertain or doubtful, I want this or that...

The teaching points out that there is no ME - this reference point is false and just a mistaken assumption. Who is afraid? There is no ME to be afraid. Fear arises, but to WHO? Uncertainty arises, doubts and desires arise, but WHO is having these experiences?

There is no doubt that something is going on - a feeling or sensation is there and we've labeled it FEAR or DOUBT or whatever. But what if you don't label it when it arises? Isn't it just a thought, a tightness in the chest or a sensation? Isn't this sensation just an "object" or appearance in awareness?

In fact, isn't the very sense or feeling of I-AM-NESS just an object that arises in thought? When you say "I am afraid", doesn't this sense of "I am" arise with the knowing of the sensation you've labeled fear?

Have a look at this closely. Stop all conceptual identification for a moment, stop assuming that "I" is real for a moment, and watch the mind. Notice how this "I AM" asserts itself.

In all this mechanism of appearance, the reality is seemingly obscured. The reality is - you are ALREADY FREE, you ARE happiness, you ARE peace. You will NEVER stop the sensations from arising, but you can know that the "I" that it's all based on is false, a fiction, a shadow. What can these objects stick to if you're not there? What is really obscuring the inherent peace, freedom and happiness?