Your pain, your darkness, your greatest fears and shadows are the doorways toward your spiritual enlightenment.
Within the cobwebs, the dust, the dirt, the dank and rancid confines of your deepest pain, is the key to everything you’ve been searching for.
But most of us don’t understand that the only way around pain is through the pain.
Our age-old conditioning whispers in our ears that happiness can only be found when we improve this bit of ourselves, change that person, move to this place, get that job, reach this age, obtain that degree … and on and on, ad infinitum.
And there is a certain addictive quality to playing the happiness game. There’s always a new thrill to pursue, a new drama to play out, a new thing to obtain. Quite simply, the pursuit of happiness gives you something to do, so it makes you feel like you’re spending your time meaningfully.
In fact, most of our behavior is driven by the drive to chase happiness.
We chase the “ideal” relationship because we feel it will complete us. We chase higher-paying jobs and more money because we believe it will bring us more comfort and security which we believe will give us happiness. In wealthy countries, we buy things we don’t need which we believe will make us happy.
But once we reach or obtain what we’ve been pursuing, what happens? How long do we remain happy? Sure, we may feel happy for a week, a month, or even a single moment. But then the feeling passes, and we’re on the treadmill again, peddling frantically for the next “source” of happiness.
And the sad thing is that we often enter this exhausting rat race completely unconsciously and impulsively....<<<Read More>>>...
