Why The Pursuit Of Happiness Doesn't Make Sense

There's a strange assumption baked into the idea of pursuing happiness, or even pursuing God: that it must be somewhere else, waiting to be reached. This talk is for anyone caught in that chase, still looking for what they haven't found yet.
Tiger points to why the pursuit itself might be the misunderstanding, and what changes when you stop searching outside yourself for something that was never actually missing.

Transcript

Yeah, The pursuit of happiness is interesting to me because it implies that it's not here. And in a way, It's like we must stress ourselves out to get it. These are all silly words, And I can see the phrase, The pursuit of happiness, Having value. But in another way. I can see how. Non-precised. It's like the pursuit of God. I can see how that can be helpful, But God is already here. Where are you going to go? What is there to pursue. How do I feel about the term seeker? I'm fine with it. In many ways, I'm fine with all these terms, But they're all two-edged swords. In many ways, It's like I could use that word to describe my own experience that I'm a seeker of the heart of God, But then I could also say that I am a finder of the love of God. And my game is to remember as much as I can. And so again, It's all fine. And every person is going to have a different relationship with the word. Which is also interesting and funny because so often we take our relationship with words and project it on other people. Which is like, You know, You can see somebody else. They say, I'm a seeker of God. And we can say, Oh, Well, You haven't gotten there yet, So you're not enlightened. You're still way behind. When really what they meant is I am a finder of God's love. And then you can distort that too. It's like, You know, Again, It goes back to what I was saying earlier. Like we project assumptions of knowing somebody says something and we assume we know what they said. You don't know what they said. You know your interpretation of what they said. And because of that, When somebody says something to me, I know that I don't really know what they're saying. And to know that I don't really know what they're saying on a mind level, The mind gets out of the way and I tap into the totality of what they are. I feel what they're saying. Rather than interpreting the words of what they're saying. Filter through my relationship with those words, Which is me getting in the way. I could make an extraordinary case of, In spiritual development, Why it's important that God is perceived as a separate entity. And in the same way, You can have a path that perceives God as something outside being drawn in, And you can have a path that perceives God as only within, Therefore, I am God. Both of those paths have enormous opportunity to be hijacked by the ego. Meaning if both of those were religions, They both contain equal possibility of people coming in and distorting them to manipulate the masses. And they both can be extraordinarily valuable. It just, It depends on the individual's journey. And if the individual's journey includes being manipulated by a institution, That's part of the learning process. So it's okay. As far as I'm concerned. Like religion, Again, I understand the radical distortions of the religious pointing or concept which can be used in destructive manners, But that's everything. And so I don't see religion as somehow more destructive than, Say, Politics. It's like the institutions themselves are full of human beings. So this deceit, This attempt to manipulate and control is going to be found wherever humans gather. And in the same way that religion could be destructive, It can be fundamentally transformative in all of the different potential paths.

Reviews

I wished i listened to this days ago 😩
Thank you so very much for your perspective on this topic it was very much needed .