Friday, February 22, 2008

What exactly is Happiness?

With one more month of winter scheduled, it is time to begin to spring clean and prepare our inner self for the seed of inspiration-that is what ever inspires you. Since November of 2007 I have been inspired by Happiness. Yes Happiness! With this inspiration I turned to my book shelf and found the book "Happiness is a Choice" by Barry Neil Kaufman. My Soul seemed to scream-"Read it Again!" In practicing to listen to my inner voice, I snatched the book from the top shelf and proceeded to read it for the third time. As I read the words painted by Kaufman I became even more inspired about my inner desire to be Happier. This fueled my curious self to learn more about What exactly is Happiness?

This curiosity, backed by my inner desire for greater understanding of what is happiness, lead me to facilitate a home study happiness class. This class was already put together by Kaufman and The Option Institute. As I prepared for the class I began reading other books such as The How to Happiness and Happy for No Reason, I also ventured back into my book shelf and found an Australian Author Michael Rowland who wrote Absolute Happiness which stimulated my desire even more.

The essense of my learning thus far is that Happiness is simply a feeling and we can choose this feeling at any given moment! This feeling comes from within us and requires no external stimulus. It is the biological experience of our life force freely flowing through us uninhibited by negative thoughts, suppressed negative feelings or any restrictions in our body. This is the state of Absolute Happiness.

On the other side of the coin is ordinary Happiness. This is the feeling when we obtain what we want from the material world or another person. It is receiving the pay raise, the new job, "falling" in love, a vacation, the new hair cut, weight loss, etc...Yet the feeling of Happines wears off eventually unless we continue to succeed in feeding this insatiable appetite-Temptation!

Our true self continues to yearn for the experience of Absolute Happiness while our false self is dilusioned by the feeling the material world brings. This is a futile search for we can never obtain what we already have. Absolute Happpiness is that feeling of inner knowing, inner peace, a deep sense of self, and most of all what each human heart desires most.