BEING AWARE OF BEING AWARE
HAPPINESS – Rupert Spira
Aristotle taught us. All people desire lasting peace and happiness above all else.
In order to fulfill the desire for happiness most people engage in a relentless search in the realm of objects, substances, activities, states of mind and relationships with others.
This universal belief that happiness is dependent on objective experience is understandable because whenever a desired object is acquired or an unpleasant situation is avoided, happiness is briefly experienced.
As a result, these people set out again and again in hopes of repeating the experience of happiness.
But there are some who eventually begin to recognize this dilemma and begin to question whether objective experience can ever really be the source of the lasting happiness and peace for which they long.
And eventually after trying many things only one possibility remains – to turn the mind around upon itself and begin to investigate its essential nature.
The turning of the mind away from the objective content of experience toward the source or essence from which it comes is the essence of meditation or contemplative prayer.
It is the process that is described in the story of the Prodigal Son, in which the son leaves the security and comfort of his father’s kingdom, explores all of the possibilities that the world, or objective experience, has to offer in terms of pleasure and satisfaction, and eventually realizes the futility of the search. Finally, he turns around toward the source of happiness – symbolized here by his father – which was in fact, always available to him but seemingly out of reach due to his exclusive fascination with the drama of objective experiences.
In this surrender or turning around, we cease being obsessed with our suffering and become interested in the nature of the one who suffers, the one we have always called “I”. We turn away from the objects of experience an instead investigate the nature of the one who experiences. “Who am I?” or “What am I?”
Peace and Happiness are never objective experiences that the mind has from time to time; they are the very nature of the mind itself, but never completely extinguished by it. Happiness is our essential nature, apparently obscured much of the time by the clamor of objective experience.
It is for this reason that all of the great religious and spiritual traditions indicate, in one way or another, that the ultimate goal of life – lasting peace and happiness – resides within us and is equally available to all people, at all times, and in all circumstances. It cannot be acquired; because it is already there; it can only be revealed.
BEING AWARE
All objective experience is known. We are aware of our experience. It is not possible to have an experience without being aware of it.
Thus being aware is the continuous element in all experience.
All objective experience – thoughts, images, feelings, sensations and perceptions appears and disappears but the experience of being aware never appears and disappears.