The search for happiness

The search for happiness is suffering. There is no happiness outside, beyond you. Live in harmony with what actually is, not with what you imagine.

We project ourselves into a world of our imagination, built on memories, desires, and fears. And gradually we find ourselves imprisoned in it. The veil that prevents you from seeing yourself is the mind clinging to memories. It holds power over us as long as we trust it. Believe in the illusion. Don’t fight it — just stop paying attention to it. Deprived of attention, it will slow down and reveal the mechanism of its operation. Once the nature and purpose of the mind become clear, it won’t be able to create imaginary problems. Break the spell and walk free.

When a body is born, all sorts of things happen to it, and we take part in them because we identify ourselves with the body. Like a person in a movie theater who laughs and cries along with the picture, even though they know perfectly well it’s just a play of light and they’ve been sitting in their seat the whole time. The nature of imagination is such that it identifies itself with its creations. You can stop it at any moment by withdrawing your attention. To break the spell, it’s enough to shift your attention from the screen to yourself. This can be achieved by consistently studying yourself. Without religions, without philosophies, without texts…

You can be anyone, lead any lifestyle — that’s not the point. Are you a slave to your imagination or not? The secret of imagination is that it seems real. Whatever decision you make, whatever work you take on, it will invariably be based on assumptions passed off as facts. Instead of searching for happiness outside, search for it within. Give yourself time to think these things over. Old patterns must be erased without creating new ones. You must recognize yourself as the motionless, silent witness of everything that happens.

Is this — giving up an active life? Not at all. Children, family, work — it all happens one way or another. Life lives you. Flow without resistance, solve problems as they come, be attentive in both small things and big ones. A state of tender detachment and goodwill without expecting anything in return. Love, clarity, and kindness will make everything orderly and happy. Sounds vague, but if you think about it, it becomes clear that it’s the mystical that makes us happy.

Gradually, consciousness moves into a higher dimension from which everything is seen more clearly and intensely. The person you become at birth and cease to be at death turns out to be a temporary vessel. You are not the sensory, emotional, and intellectual personality gripped by desires and fears.

“Who am I?” — this is the fundamental question of all philosophy and psychology. Look into it deeper.