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INTRODUCTION THE INTUITION OF HAPPINESS
In order to fulfil the desire for happiness, most people engage in a relentless search in the realm of objects, substances, activities, states of mind and relationships. This search also takes the form of resistance to whomever or whatever is perceived to jeopardize our happiness. Thus, seeking and resistance are the two main impulses that govern the thoughts and feelings, and the subsequent activities and relationships, of most people. The activities of seeking and resisting are an inevitable expression of the sense of lack or suffering that underlies them. However, most of us never question the origin of our suffering, so busy are we escaping the discomfort of it through the acquisition of objects, substances, activities, states of mind and relationships. If we do question it, we usually attribute it to the absence of the object or experience that we seek or the presence of the situation we are attempting to avoid and, as a result, never fully trace it back to its original cause.
However, although the acquisition or avoidance of the object or situation puts a temporary end to the suffering that underlies it and, as a result, brings about a brief moment of happiness, it does not uproot it or bring it to a permanent end. It simply masks it.
Henry David Thoreau referred when he said that most people ‘lead lives of quiet desperation’. Many people spend their lives managing this despair more or less successfully, medicating it with substances, numbing it through the acquisition of objects, avoiding it through exotic or meditative states of mind, or simply distracting themselves from it with activities and relationships.
The turning of the mind away from the objective content of experience towards the source or essence from which it has arisen is the essence of meditation or prayer. It is the ‘inward-facing path’ – sometimes referred to as self-remembering, self-enquiry, self-abidance or the way of surrender – of which the Direct Path that is explored in this book is the culmination.
It is the process that is described in the story of the Prodigal Son, in which the son leaves the security and comfort of his father’s kingdom, explores all the possibilities that the world, or objective experience, has to offer in terms of pleasure and satisfaction, and eventually realises the futility of his search. Finally he turns around towards the source of happiness – symbolised here by his father – which was, in fact, always available to him but seemingly out of reach due to his exclusive fascination with the drama of experience. In this giving up or turning around, we cease being obsessed with our suffering and become interested in the nature of the one who suffers. We turn away from the objects of experience and investigate the nature of the one who experiences.
Peace and happiness are not, as such, objective experiences that the mind has from time to time; they are the very nature of the mind itself.
Imagine the sky as a uniform expanse of grey cloud on an overcast day. At some point a small patch of blue opens up, and soon numerous other small patches appear, each seemingly unconnected from the others and each appearing and disappearing in the expanse of grey cloud. One could be forgiven for believing, at first sight, that the natural condition of the sky was the unlimited expanse of grey cloud and that the patches of blue were limited, temporary appearances within it. It is only when the blue patches are investigated that it becomes clear that they are, in fact, windows onto the ever-present expanse of blue sky in which the grey clouds temporarily appear and disappear.
However, if we make a deep investigation of the nature of the mind,* that is, if the mind investigates its own essential nature, travelling back through layers of thought, feeling, sensation and perception until it reaches its own essential, irreducible reality, it will always find peace and fulfilment there.
Happiness, like the patch of blue, appears at first to be a temporary experience that occurs from time to time, but when investigated turns out to be ever-present and always available in the background of experience.
AI Summary
Being Aware of Being Aware by Rupert Spira presents key insights from the Gurdjieff tradition. The 10 passages above capture the essential teachings.
Core Themes:
- [To be expanded]
Key Passages: Highlights 1, 3, and 10 are particularly representative.
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