Stop Creating Unhappiness!

This contemplation explores the recipe of unhappiness with the first ingredient being "wanting what is not here" and "trying to get rid of what is here" based on our preferences! We are constantly fighting what is happening and trying to manipulate it into conforming to a romantic idea of how people/situations/things should be.

And the second ingredient is the projection of happiness/peace in the future leaves us miserable in the now. Somewhere in the future, there is happiness - long-lasting happiness - is what we romanticize but never verify the truth behind it.

Here we explore this mechanism and recognize the agency of pulling back the happiness projected into the future and infusing it into the Present.

Transcript

And let's sit comfortably.

Once our comfort is taken care of,

Then we don't have this annoying thought in our mind about not sitting properly,

The weather being too hot,

Too cold.

So it's an important aspect of this practice to be comfortable.

If we talk about the word happiness,

And I've had these kind of conversations with some of my friends.

Somehow happiness,

Because of the way it has been used in so many diverse connotations,

Usages,

Happiness means different things to different people.

That's why I've changed the word happiness to a more neutral word,

Which most of us will agree upon,

Namely peace.

All of us desire peace.

Not only desire,

Deeply desire,

Long for peace.

But since we have not been taught what peace is,

How to get it,

How to keep it,

What does it look like,

Feel like?

We have romanticized peace and projected it into the future.

I'm using peace and happiness interchangeably,

By the way.

So there's a pursuit of peace.

There's a pursuit of happiness.

And this romantic idea that we are going to find happiness,

We are going to find peace and it's going to be happily ever after.

This is the dream that we have been sold right from childhood.

That's when we started learning about unhappiness.

We never learned about happiness and peace,

But we did learn about unhappiness.

In a very weird,

Across the board way,

We all learned about unhappiness.

How to strive and wait for something to happen in the future and that brings us happiness.

And then we do it again and again and again and again.

So most of the life we are pursuing and once in a while we find some bits and pieces of happiness,

Of peace.

But that's not what I am after.

Happiness and peace is something fundamental.

Just like when we were kids,

Infants,

Babies,

Happiness was every day.

Crying was the punctuation that was separating happiness or punctuating happiness for that matter.

But it's the other way around now where happiness or fulfillment of our desire punctuates our unhappiness,

Our struggle,

Our seeking,

Our desires,

Our suffering.

And as long as we believe in this model of happiness,

Of peace,

We will continue to get the same moments of punctuation of happiness,

Of peace and pursuit of happiness for the rest of the time.

So in today's session,

I want to explore this.

Explore this scam that we have all subscribed to and question if it is working or not and if it is not working,

Can we do something about it?

If this model of pursuing happiness and getting maybe a glimpse of it now and again just to keep us in the game,

Because if we did not find even fleeting moments of happiness,

We would rebel long ago.

We would have rebelled long time ago.

But there is some respite that we receive now and again.

And that's what keeps us in this game.

That's what keeps us believing in this model.

That,

Oh yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah,

You know,

This worked in the past.

I was happy.

I was ecstatic.

I want that again.

So maybe I need to run a little longer,

A little harder.

But what if the reason this scam continues,

This illusion and delusion continues is because we only look at those fleeting moments and commit to a lifelong journey of suffering and pursuing unhappiness.

What if instead we see that what we get in those fleeting moments is here even now.

Believing that we will be happy in the future is unhappiness in the now.

And we don't really formulate it in such a sophisticated way to ourselves that,

You know what I'm deciding to be unhappy now so that I will be happy in the future.

No,

We don't do it this way.

The way we operate is at a thought level and at a feeling level or sometimes at a thought level or a feeling level where we wish things were different.

That's all.

That's all we do.

I just,

I don't want this.

I want something else.

Or I really want that.

That's what we say to ourselves and that's how we start running and pursuing.

The moment we say I don't want this and the moment we say I want that,

We are unhappy.

We are unhappy with what we have and we are unhappy with how things are.

And we think that there will be this romantic period of our life where once we find something it's going to be everlasting.

Whereas the everlasting,

If it was something that we are pursuing,

If it was everlasting,

If it would be everlasting even now,

It would be present even now.

And it is the recipe for unhappiness.

If we stop cooking unhappiness using this recipe,

The default state is happiness.

That's the beauty of it.

We have to stop following the recipe of unhappiness and the default state becomes happiness,

Becomes peace.

But that would be too simple.

And then what about all the other illusions that we have been involved in?

So we want to continue.

We want to tell ourselves that,

You know,

It's not that simple.

We have to work hard.

But what if what I just said was true?

And the only way to find out if it is true or not is to verify it for ourselves.

Verify by checking,

Am I projecting happiness in the future by saying this should be done sooner?

I don't like this.

Let's change this.

Let's get that one.

And until that happens,

I will be tensed.

I will be agitated.

I will be irritated.

And check when you're talking to your friends.

What kind of words you use?

Do you say,

Oh,

I'm very busy.

I'm very stressed.

It's very stressful at work.

You know,

I'm looking forward to this vacation.

I can just relax there.

Those are the signs that we are projecting something in the future.

Whereas most of the life happens now,

This mundane everyday life happens now.

What if things were just perfect?

Like one of my trainers like to say this all the time.

She says,

We are a masterpiece and a work in progress at the same time.

Just like that,

Things are just perfect and can be improved at the same time.

You know,

It is stressful at work.

And the moment we accept it,

It becomes perfect.

And once we realize that we can do a little bit to improve it,

Then it becomes a work in progress as well.

And this applies to everything.

But we have to recognize our tendency of dismissing what we have,

Aspiring for what we don't have and then putting our happiness,

Peace,

Relaxation,

Calm at ransom until this particular thing goes away or that particular thing comes to us.

And the irony is that if it comes to us,

It will eventually go away.

And then the cycle will eventually continue.

So we have to see through this magic show that is trying to distract us.

That if I'm aspiring for something to come to me,

It will also go away.

Why?

Because everything always changes.

And this is something we all know.

Nothing that we have experienced in our lives is there anymore in the same way we had experienced them.

So we can't put our happiness and peace at ransom for something to happen or not happen.

Instead,

We could see through this mechanism of suffering,

Mechanism of unhappiness.

And then ask ourselves,

Can I be happy with the way things are?

Can I accept the way things are while trying to improve them?

Just this one single instruction and more than instruction,

It's a suggestion.

Just this one thing can drastically improve the quality of our lives.

As I'm trying to explain you the mechanism of unhappiness,

One more thing that pops up in my mind is this tendency to constantly complain,

Constantly find faults.

This is a very important pointer in recognizing how we create and cook up unhappiness.

Again,

I'm not saying that we should manipulate what is happening by saying everything is beautiful.

No,

I'm not saying that.

And I'm sure you understand.

We all have friends who,

No matter what you say,

They keep complaining.

They keep finding faults,

Especially family members.

Maybe we do it sometimes too.

And complain is contagious.

And see how you feel.

Complaining is good as long as there is a solution to the complaint.

Otherwise,

See how it makes you feel.

Can you complain and be happy?

Very rarely.

That kind of complaint has a very different texture.

Complain means I don't like it.

And I don't like it is one of the key,

Key ingredients of unhappiness.

What if that's the way it is now?

But this is what we can do to improve it.

So you see the problem.

You acknowledge it,

You accept it,

And you work towards a solution.

So the majority of the time goes in the solution,

Not on the problem.

And that's the beauty of this instruction.

That even if we encounter unpleasant situations,

Accepting it,

Accepting them and trying to find a way to improve,

If they need to be improved,

Suddenly puts us out of that mechanism of unhappiness and towards fixing something.

Fighting it only drains our energy.

Fighting it as in fighting what is happening,

How people are,

How situations are,

How things are.

And if we keep fighting,

We are fighting something invisible.

Guess who's going to end up drained and exhausted and frustrated and unhappy?

Us.

It's important for us to recognize this mechanism and slowly,

Diligently unpack this mechanism and infuse it with this understanding that there is no happily ever after.

The happily ever after is now.

So we take agency,

We take the freedom,

We take the control that we have projected into the future,

Bring it in the now and exercise it.

And I'm telling you,

It will be so much more fulfilling.

The helplessness that we fear will just disappear because helplessness comes from lack of freedom because we have ended up projecting it in the future.

So if we take back that agency,

That freedom,

We can do whatever we want with it.

And we always have the choice to either project into the future or take back from the future.

It's not whether we can or not.

It's whether we want to or not.

What I'm asking requires a lot of courage.

But it is totally worth it.

Thank you.