Campbell Meditation Column – About Happiness
What does “happiness” mean to you?
Happiness can mean different things to different people: A comfortable position for the body, a sense of accomplishment, a temporary moment of forgetting all of the worries and smiling and laughing, taking a trip or holiday off from work, love, family, etc. People are constantly trying to accomplish that happiness.
Sometimes, that thing called happiness seems so far away. Even though happiness comes along, we cannot even enjoy it as we wish. Because it is happiness that could vanish at any time, we cannot just be grateful for it. Instead we feel anxious that it could vanish and when it does leave, we are disappointed and hurt, yearning for it to return. This is not true happiness. We blame the world for our unhappiness and we resent others for being happy while we are not.
But does never-changing happiness exist at all? It would be real if it does not change. Then, what on earth is real happiness? Does true happiness exist in the world?
In order to answer this question, first of all, we need to look back at the fact that the only creature that is not happy in the world is human. All the other creatures in the world live, doing their roles assigned by the world – as they are – according to nature’s flow. They harmoniously live just as they are. They do not even need to think about the word “happiness” but are happy, naturally.
Why can’t we, humans, live like them instead of having to endlessly search for happiness? What is it that makes us different from all the other creatures in the world? Maybe, the answer to these questions is too easy. It is our mind that we try to satisfy, always looking to possess something. The only difference between human and the rest of the world is the mind that only humans have. And this must be the reason why we cannot be happy and still continue to search for happiness endlessly.
Rather than striving to gain and possess more, putting everything down and letting it go – living with the mind of the world – would be the first step towards real happiness. When finding true happiness by letting go of the self completely, such happiness would possibly be delivered to us, as well as, all other people around us.
Now is the time when anyone can find true happiness and live happily with peace of mind. In order for that happiness to begin, we need to put “letting go” into action.