Unconditional Happiness

A love we all share equally is for the experience of happiness, fulfilment, completeness, wholeness, contentment. With a careful enquiry into the nature of our experience, it is evident that each of these words refer to the same, one, identical experience. For the purposes of simplicity and ease of communication in this contemplation together, feel a fusion of all the flavours of these words in the one word 'happiness.' Happiness is fulfilment, completeness, wholeness, contentment. For that is our experience, one completely fulfilled experience of wholly content happiness.

By tuning-in to humanity at large, with the intention of gauging the mental and physical activity rippling through the majority of the population, we can see that this one experience of happiness is the goal of almost every desire that arises. The desires which are not oriented towards acquiring happiness would be those that flow from an already present experience of happiness. These latter desires would be for sheer celebration of happiness, rather than an attempt to capture it.

If we are nakedly honest with our self, we can see that in our seeking of happiness the goal is not just to have a fleeting taste, rather the longing deep within us is to discover a happiness that lasts continuously, uninterruptedly, unconditionally. And this longing is based on a true intuition. There is such an experience of unconditional happiness available equally and indiscriminately to all, and it is closer than our breath. It is where we already are. So how do we validate this postulate?

In a rigorously scientific investigation we would validate a postulate by observing the evidence of our direct experience, so here in this contemplation our intention is the same. Our intention is to discern the validity of the following words by experiencing the truth of them. The true nature of unconditional happiness can only be validated by our experience of it. Our self is the ultimate authority as to the nature of its experience, as such, only 'I' can know with clarity, in the honesty of my own council, that I am experiencing unconditional happiness.

The interest here, therefore, is not to explicate a conclusive theory about what happiness is, which would be a mere reorganisation of the content of the mind. Instead the interest is to directly reveal a living experience of unconditional happiness, beyond the mind, that can be undoubtedly confirmed by our self. After all, experience is of true import when it comes to happiness. A conceptual depiction of happiness, however neat and tidy, does not deliver the goods. Only our direct experience of happiness is absolutely satisfactory. It is ultimate satisfaction itself!

If happiness seems to be absent right now, we are, whether we acknowledge the fact mentally or not, in the process of seeking it - we are wanting - because we have already defined our self as lacking happiness. 'Happiness is absent right now' is a thought we are believing to be true, and implicit within this belief is the definition of happiness as something that can come and go.

There is a prolific tendency in our world culture to believe that happiness is an objective experience, that is, an experience exclusively dependent upon a specific object of perception, like a thought, emotional state, physical sensation, sensory stimulus, circumstance, or relationship. We believe, as such, that without this object, happiness is utterly absent and inaccessible in the presence of now. Thus, it is believed that happiness is conditional, apparent in some moments and not others.

In some radically absurd cases we believe that happiness emerges from the object of experience, like a happy juice oozing from a newly picked fruit. For example, in the statement, 'I will be happy when I have a new car', we are identifying happiness with the car, as if they are one and the same thing. Hence, the car itself - metal, oil, rubber, dials and its composite collection of atoms and molecules - is believed to be the source of happiness, or that somewhere in the physical structure of the car is a switch which has the facility to actuate happiness for us. If we check the evidence of our experience delicately, it is clear that we have never witnessed happiness emerging from an object. Happiness is always experienced within our self, at the presence of our self.

It is easy to discern the absurdity of believing that happiness has an innate existence within the molecular structure of an object like a car or pair of shoes. Yet, having discerned this absurdity, we may continue to subscribe to a subtler absurdity. On a subliminal level we may believe that happiness is dependent upon another type of objective experience, that is, a special configuration of the mind and body.

In this case, our belief dictates that happiness appears somewhat like this: the object - the car - symbolically represents happiness in our mind, and so, the arrival of the car acts as a precursor, initiating a mechanism whereby the mind affirms to itself 'happiness is now present'. This thought then signals the body to produce a flood of pleasurable neurotransmitters, triggering smiles, bursts of laughter, sensations of ease, relaxation, etc. In turn, we believe this combination of the affirmation of thought and the pleasurable state of the body is what happiness is. Our mind equates this combination with happiness, and through repetition, it further reifies the idea that happiness can be experienced only when the mind and body are exhibiting particular, predefined qualities.

This a more refined definition of happiness than the one that was dependent upon physical objects, yet it remains on the same level, that is, the level of temporal conditions. If we are believing in this definition, our happiness continues to be conditional. It seems to be dependent upon the state of the mind and body. We may refine our definition of happiness further and affirm to our self that happiness is based solely on our state of mind, yet even this is a conditional form of happiness, and will never last.

The mind is constantly changing, and therefore, we cannot ceaselessly maintain the belief or affirmation that 'happiness is present'. Such a thought is inevitably destined to vanish entirely or be replaced by another thought. If we look back through our life, ostensibly we have entertained and believed multiple thoughts of what happiness is, and we have never been able to hold onto any of those thoughts, rendering them absolutely still so as to filter our entire experience through them uninterruptedly. All thoughts of happiness are unstable, for all thoughts are unstable.

The crux of the problem is believing the definition that happiness is something objective, something that appears, lasts for some time and eventually disappears. We cannot derive unconditional happiness from a conditional object or event. The only source from which we can derive unconditional happiness is from that which is unconditional, meaning that which is ever-present. So, what is the only presence in our experience that is ever-present, unconditional? What presence does not appear or disappear?

The objective content of our experience is constantly appearing and disappearing. Thoughts, sensations and perceptions, which constitute the entire panorama of phenomena in the mind, body and cosmos, are transitory manifestations. The only presence which remains unchangingly and immutably present throughout the flux is our self, this presence of awareness. Thus, our self is the only presence at which, and as which, we can experience unconditional happiness, for it is the only unconditional presence.

The presence of our self is not dependent on any state of mind, emotion, bodily sensation, sense perception, or objective phenomena that comes and goes, for 'myself' is that which is ever-present, to bare witness to the disappearance of all these phenomena. The only way, then, to experience unconditional happiness is for it to be an intrinsic attribute of our self. So let's look at the intrinsic nature of our self, that experience of our self that remains when all that can disappear has disappeared, and see if it delivers the goods.

First, let's experiment with ceasing to refer to all the thoughts and definitions about happiness, and instead simply experience our self right now, unmediated by the mind. What would that mean in our experience of the present moment, and the experience of our self? We would simply have the reality of our self and this moment, experienced as what is really here. And how would that be? Try it out now. Simply experience this moment without labelling or defining it in any way.

...

How was that? You can't say that it was 'happy' or 'unhappy', for these are defined labels. Nor can you say that it was either 'good' nor 'bad.' Notice that all judgements, such as right and wrong, pleasant and unpleasant, and so on, are different ways of conceptually defining the moment. All these labels are not intrinsically present in the raw, naked immediacy of the moment. There is only the un-labeled, unnamed, undefined silence of pure experiencing.

Prior to the appearance of the thoughts which conceptually define the pure experience, there are no thoughts present, and thus there is no way for us to know anything conceptual about the experience. All we know is that the experience is present as what it ineffably is. And this is where the words offered here fade and dissolve into a humble silence, for they attempt to convey an experience that precedes their existence and transcends their domain. Only you, the one that really experiences, can know in the intimacy of your experience what the experience of pure experience is.

What is that? What remains of your experience when all conceptual definitions have disappeared?

Silence.

Right, staying true to this essential silence, can there be a problem, psychological suffering, unhappiness?

No. There is only silence.

And what is there in this silence? There is simply the experience of being present and aware, beholding the totality of the moment, without the idea of being 'unhappy', 'incomplete', 'lacking', etc. The pure experiencing of our self, without experiencing our self as something definable.

Now, what else can be known of this silent presence of awareness that I am? All concepts appear within my presence, and come after the already-here-ness of my presence, and thus I cannot be defined by any concept. I am not intrinsically defined by concepts, for there is no definition within me essentially to define. Only defintions can be defined. Only concepts can define concepts. They cannot define that which precedes their existence, that which transcends their domain, just as an object in a movie cannot define the screen within which it appears, for the screen is not bound by the definitions of the objects and characters in the movie.

So, without referring to concepts, we can enquire into the silence of pure awareness, to discern its nature. Invite yourself to silently meditate on and as the pure awareness that is aware here, now. What is its nature? What is your nature?

Silence.

For sure. As beautiful and evocative as this word is, "silence" doesn't adequately represent the experience, right? For, in the experience of the absolute silence of the mind, there is not even the concept of 'silence', nor the thought which says, 'there is an absence of sound' or 'there is an absence of concepts.' There is only what there is. You know what I mean.

Ok, so to probe gently deeper into this silence, what is the present reality of our experience if we remove all thoughts, by not referring to them? Is there really any resistance to or separation from the experience of all that exists? Check now.

There is no resistance to the moment, for there is no belief in the definition of 'resistance' to the moment, nor is there any sense of 'separation' from the moment, for 'separation' has not been defined. Moreover, there is no operative belief in a fundamental subject-object division of reality, thus there is only the experience of total oneness, silently experiencing itself, as our self.

Being one with the totality of Reality, there is no possibility of resisting what is present, for what is present is made of the very same substance as our self. The trees, the sky, our human companion, the sensation in the chest, a thought floating by, are all experienced as made of our self, Reality. That experience of oneness is, in fact, unconditional happiness itself, for oneness is infinite, and being infinite, it is absolutely devoid of lack or limitation, for all apparent time. That is what happiness is, the absence of any sense of lack, restriction or limitation.

Our self, this one substance of Reality, is what we always and already are, infinite and unconditional happiness.