Happy Where I Am...

“What I have learned is that there will ALWAYS be somewhere else you will want to be happy. And as we chase this illusive happiness somewhere else, we miss the opportunity to be happy right where we are.”

In last month’s newsletter I mentioned my partner and I are considering moving to a new home. We have begun to look at varies properties. Each time we see a new place my partner asks me “So, what do you think?” To which I respond, almost without exception, “I can see myself living here.” My partner asked me once why I seemed to be so ambivalent regarding where I lived. How was it I could see myself living almost anywhere?

I explained that I have been training myself to be happy where I am instead of trying to figure out how to be happy somewhere else. We can always find reasons to be happy somewhere else, with something else, or someone else. Why not be happy where I am? I have learned that my efforts, if any are required, are better spent on being happy where I am, rather than trying to figure out how to be happy somewhere else. What I have learned is that there will ALWAYS be somewhere else you will want to be happy. And as we chase this illusive happiness somewhere else, we miss the opportunity to be happy right where we are.

Awakin.com recently published (June 8, 2015) a short piece from Eckhart Tolle where he spoke about a similar state of being. Here is what he had to say…

J. Krishnamurti, the great Indian philosopher and spiritual teacher, spoke and traveled almost continuously all over the world for more than fifty years attempting to convey through words - which are content - that which is beyond words, beyond content. At one of his talks in the later part of his life, he surprised his audience by saying, "Do you want to know my secret?" Everyone became very alert. Many people in the audience had been coming to listen to him for twenty or thirty years and still failed to grasp the essence of his teaching. Finally, after all these years, the master would give them the key to understanding. "This is my secret," he said. "I don't mind what happens."

He did not elaborate, and so I suspect most of his audience were even more perplexed than before. The implications of this simple statement, however, are profound. 

When I don't mind what happens, what does that imply? It implies that internally I am in alignment with what happens. "What happens," of course, refers to the suchness of this moment, which always already is as it is. It refers to content, the form that this moment - the only moment there ever is - takes. To be in alignment with what is means to be in a relationship of inner nonresistance with what happens. It means not to label it mentally as good or bad, but to let it be. Does this mean you can no longer take action to bring about change in your life? On the contrary. When the basis for your actions is inner alignment with the present moment, your actions become empowered by the intelligence of Life itself.

To be happy where I am is the ‘alignment’ that Eckhart Tolle is referring to above. To be happy where I am is to ‘not mind what happens.’ As Tolle puts it… “to be in a relationship of inner nonresistance with what happens.” The physical structure I live, the house, condominium, or apartment, has little, if anything, to do with my internal state of happiness. Cultivate an alignment with inner nonresistance to life and you will know happiness, peace, and joy.

Shanti, Namaste, Agapé,