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Post by Thoithoi O'Cottage on Oct 19, 2014 8:10:26 GMT 5.5
There are planes of happiness. The happiness Gautam Buddha was after is of a different order than what the common people want in everyday life, that is, Gautam's happiness lies on a different plane than that of everyday happiness. Yes, once you have attained the state of everyday happiness which all common human individuals are struggling so hard to attain, you, according to the depth/level of your consciousness, may remain there satisfied or want to move to another level of happiness, a finer one. States of happiness, thus, are hierarchical, and what's at the next level in the hierarchy reveals itself only when you reach the level beneath it. This makes the pursuit of happiness an endless journey, and, ironically, most of us are sad from following happiness and tired from following rest.
This is because most of us become fed up with what once used to be happiness, to the attainment of which we even dedicated all we could--our intellect, wisdom, wealth, and physical effort, among others. The happiness Gautam searched was one that never decomposes. In Osho's word, such happiness, or rather bliss, is one you remain ever satisfied with but always remain wanting more of it.
That happiness or bliss (as they want to call it) is of the highest order/plane, and I am not the right person to talk about that if you want to know more about it. Being a mortal of a far lower order, I would write about the simple kind of happiness for people with some consistent passion in life when they are no more happy with the daily circumstances they find themselves in day in and day out.
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Post by Thoithoi O'Cottage on Oct 19, 2014 8:46:35 GMT 5.5
Nature has wired us so intelligently that our body and mind detect things which are not right for us. For example, you feel pain when a pin pricks one of your feet while working in your garden, and alerted to what's wrong this way, you can pay attention to the injury to your body. If your body did not give you that pain signal, you won't know about the injury immediately and thus you may haved continued to work in the dirt, making it possible for germs to get into the the injury--you know the whole story.
Another example is that your body trembles when it is very cold. By way of shaking, your body tries to generate some heat to counterbalance the external temperature. In another sense, you feel cold and you know you are trembling. That way you see you have to do something about this.
Your mind also gives you signals when things are not right for you psychologically. You remain doing the same thing for hours, days, weeks, months, or years. No change. This routine bores your mind, and that negatively affects how your body performs. This way your mind tells you that you need to do something about this--to make some change.
If you feel sad, worried, depressed, afraid, ..., then your mind is telling you something about your affair is not right and you need to do something to set everything right again. Your involuntary mind just gives you the signal and it is you--the conscious you--to do what is necessary. Your concious mind can join your involuntary mind and feel together very bad and low, walking down the path of depression. Or, you--your conscious self--can take the cue/signal from your involuntary mind and start acting against what is wrong, the only way to get back to the healthy state of mind. If you cannot fight it alone, you can take the help of your family or your friends, or even a psychiatrist if no other person can help you out of that.
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Post by Thoithoi O'Cottage on Oct 19, 2014 9:37:00 GMT 5.5
The key to happiness (in the ordinary sense of the term) is to do what you enjoy doing and sharing what you have done with your family and friends or people who have the taste for it. Such things are those you love/appreciate and love doing. You may get money and praise from it, but your motive is not the returns. Your pure motive is your pure love of it and doing it.
For example, if you love poery for its own sake, reading poetry and sharing the poems you love with your friends right for it will add happiness value to doing that. If you love yourself writing poetry, try writing a few lines or even a full short poem. Maybe a haiku or two would be nice. Writing, for who love writing, is a very nice experience of being oneself, and thus, having written a few lines of poetry, or a poem or two (short or long) has much happiness value to your mind--it simply relaxes your mind and makes you happy. Once you have written something, you can share it with the person or people you think is/are right for that kind of thing, whose opinion on that kind of thing you value. Talking with them about your poem would be a very good experience indeed. Thus, you derive two kinds of happiness from this exercise--from writing and from sharing what you have written.
Whatever kind of person you may be, you can do this exercise. If you are a scientific type, say an engineer type, you can build some simple device--you enjoy doing that--and when you are done, you can show your friends what you have made. The surprise you give them, the praise you receive (though it was not your motive) will surely make you happy.
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Post by Thoithoi O'Cottage on Oct 19, 2014 10:04:57 GMT 5.5
Whatever sort of a person you are, just think what you enjoy doing. Just do that and it will make you happy.
While this is a very simple method, most people just don't give themselves some time to discover what they, in their deepest depth of heart, love and enjoy doing. This may be because we are told to take primary care of our our financial affairs and most of us beleive everything will be fine if we have enough money. Money, however, is a powerful thing and when you have money it opens doors to several many thing you never ever dreamt of living or doing, which means that money can hijack you easily from your desired lifetyle, with your full consent. Once money controls your mind, you can no longer attend to your inner call answering which will make you happy. In fact, when we invest all out daily time and effort in ensuring our daily material needs are met, we are left with no time to deal with the calls and demands of our true selves inside. When we neglect our inner selves like this for days, weeks, months, and years, tension builds up in our subconscious mind and that rubs against our consciousness, giving us some restlessness despite in a perfect material position.
If you ask Bill Gates if he is fully satisfied, meaning if he is happy with no trace of sadness/restlessness, he will have to say something about it. Money or material wealth is important/essential, but there are other things essrntial to happy life and money cannot replace them or make them redundant.
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Post by Thoithoi O'Cottage on Oct 19, 2014 11:06:49 GMT 5.5
There is also another thing that quietely but very strongly makes us tensed--procrastination or the habit of not doing what you know you should do at the right time but keep postponing it.
Postponing cannot vanish your having to do what you should do. It does not either reduce the amount of time to be taken in doing it or the discomfort you will experience when doing it (if you really don't like it). By postponing finishing it off, you keep in your mind what you need to do longer and bear (untill you have done it actually) the full weight of your not liking it and not doing it when you should be doing or have done it. You mind translates that wight consciousness simply as tension/worry draining your physical and mental energy. Why worry? Yes, it is worry because the fact that you have not done something what you should have already done it keeps nagging at your mind and this feeling keeps you restless. Above that, if your procrastination is blocking the progress of something which involves other people, the cost of your procrastination is even bigger and it has its corresponding volume and intensity of worry.
Therefore, for the sake of our mental health, if for nothing else, it is always good to do things at the right time. Procrastination has nothing good about it; it is just destructive.
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