A PATH TO JOYOUS LIVING
by Vally D’Souza
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here to see a printable pdf version of the document)
My favorite quote from Dalai Lama is “I believe that the very purpose
of life is to be happy.” The question that comes up for me immediately is that
“Then why aren’t we happy? or how can we have a truly
joyous happy life?” Here is my exploratory analysis of this topic.
It is widely believed in my spiritual circles that we come into to this world
to give and receive love. But the circumstances in which we find ourselves when
we arrive here (including parents and a society who have their own agenda)
forces us to develop an emotional and spiritual armor around us as a survival
mechanism. This armor which was necessary for survival in the developing stages
of our psyche begins to prevent us from having an ecstatically joyous life in
our adult years. Thus, developing a lifestyle which enhances dissolution of the
armor and increases the porosity of heart can lead us to have an ecstatically
joyous life. The next question that comes up for me then is “How do we go from
where we are now (presumably in a unhappy state
affairs) to where we need to be to experience life in this manner?”
Here is my analysis (perhaps simple minded) of a path leading us
to this joyful state of consciousness. It assumes that we are currently in a
unhappy state of mind and maps out a path as shown in the diagram above that
that will allow us to have a joyous life.[1 This is the path that Treehouse
ministry espouses to teach and Treehouse ministry can play a part in that
journey in our life.
As depicted in the figure above, when we are unhappy, there are two paths we
normally take. 1.
Victim and 2.
Seaker
Victim:
Victim is the one who is always complaining about how bad things are in his/her
life. S/he is unwilling to take responsibility for his/her feelings and blames
everyone and everything around him/her for his/her misery. S/he often finds
validation for his/her victim-hood from other like minded
people. This temporarily gives him/her some relief and s/he becomes addicted to
victim-hood. A way out of this endless cycle of victim-hood is awareness [2].
One cannot fight victim-hood but if one becomes aware that one is in her/his
victim-hood, it becomes easier with proper intentions to get out of this sate of mind. Very often, meeting a with a holy person,
reading a book or some mystical event can trigger reversal of this state but
until a person has decided to take 100% responsibility for ones
own feelings, it is difficult to get out of this state. Once one has decided to
take 100% responsibility for ones feelings, one can then begin to seek ways of
being happy and become a seeker.
Seekers:
As depicted in the figure above, seekers generally take one of two paths: 1. Physical and 2. Spiritual.
Physical seekers:
Physical seekers seek physical relief in the form of “ism” - workaholics,
shopaholics and all those who seek relief from their unhappiness in the
materialistic and physical realm fall into this category. Once again, those who
find themselves in this state can find their escape if they so desire through
awareness. Richard Rohr proposes that if you find yourself in a certain state,
do not fight it, embrace it and when you are filled up to the brim with this,
universe will find a way to bump you up. Perhaps if that does not happen in
this life time, it may happen in the next. But, if you become aware of your
materialistic nature and embrace it, you run the danger of loosing
it. I strongly recommend “Busting loose from the Money Game” for a very
interesting discussion on this topic.[3] If one
decides to bust loose from the money game and realize that this materialistic
world does not hold the life they want to experience, then one can begin his to
seek for happiness in the spiritual realm and become a spiritual seeker.
Spiritual seekers: Spiritual seekers can be categorized
in two forms 1. Magical
and 2. Logical.
Before I describe these two categories, I want to propose that true
ecstatically joyful life can be achieved only by a individualized and balanced integration of our
personal magical and logical beings.
Logical seeker: Logical
seekers are those who need to understand how everything works in great detail
and try to map out a logical path to happiness. They are voracious reader of self help book, they generally know everything that is
wrong with them and attend most of the seminars by self help
gurus. A story that Sr. Cecelia, the founder of Tree house Ministries likes
tell is that if there are two doors one marked “Heaven” and the other marked
“Seminar about Heaven” we all know which one the logical seeker would take. My
contention is that spiritual practices without the magical and mystical aspect
is akin to eating grapes without its juice.
Magical Seekers:
Strict magical seekers often live in a magical world. They have trouble navigating
the physical world. They fail to understand why bills need to paid in time and
why no one else in the this planet can understand them
or see the magic that they see. There is a popular story of a man in a small
town who went to the top of his roof and started praying to God for help when
the town began to flood. The water rose up and authorities sent officers to ask
the man to follow evacuation protocols. He refused and said “God will rescue
me. I do not need your help”. As the water arose, they sent a boat to rescue
this man and he refused. Finally, as the water came up to his neck, they sent a
helicopter to rescue him and again he refused. He died in the flood and went up
to the pearly gates and complained passionately saying “I put my trust in You and how could You betray me”. The woman up there in the
white sari smiled gently and said, “I sent you help three times and what more
could I do?”
I propose that in order for us to have a joyous life, we need to use our
talents to navigate through this physical world which follows physical laws
(and laws of physics). I can hear God saying, “I have given you a brain, figure
it out.” We need to understand why we do what we do and how can we do it in a
way that does not interfere with our magic. If we understand deeply that we are
spiritual beings that are having a human experience and our physical self is a
custodian of the this incredible spirit, then have a responsibility to connect
deeply with this spirit and recognize the type of experiences that it wants to
have. It should be considered a sacred privilege for our physical self to
remove obstacles that may be in the way of experiencing life as our spirit
wants us to. This what I call living our souls journey and it truly is an
ecstatically joyous life.
At tree house ministries we believe that an ecstatically joyous life is
possible by a graceful dance between the magical and the logical, left and the
right brain, our divine and human nature, our personal masculine and feminine
nature, for as we soar like an eagle so should we be grounded in our own divine
truth like the roots of the tree. We espouse to understand reasons for our behaviours and with the help of divine grace transform them
to become more loving and compassionate human beings which is the basis for
happiness and joy in our life.
Endnotes:
1. This analysis may seem dualistic to more
enlightened readers but it is only by understanding and embracing our dualistic
nature can we understand and achieve non-duality as shown in the final stage of
this analysis.
2. I strongly recommend a book by Anthony De Mello entitle “Awareness” for a
fascinating treatise on this subject.
3. Busting Loose From the Money Game; Robert Scheinfeld
(Author)