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Why freedom and happiness are here now, if we want them to be

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Freedom and happiness are fundamental universal human rights. In spite of that, these basic qualities have been rather elusive for much of the world for quite some time now. The UK Government purported to hand its citizens “freedom day” on the 19th July this year. An odd turn of phrase, some might think, if not a little ironic.

Real freedom is here, not somewhere out there

Liberation is much more than escaping legal or physical restrictions, though, and if we really want to be free and happy, we have to transcend normal thinking. Real freedom can only occur in the mind. It is as much an inner state as an external one. There are stories of people who have been wrongly incarcerated yet, due to their spiritual training, they have felt completely free. Such are extraordinary people, of course, but there is no reason why we cannot train ourselves to be freer and happier.

The big problem? The conditioned mind

The way we think and react to things depends on how the mind is conditioned. That conditioning comes mainly from our past experiences and what we have been taught or led to believe. At the root of all that is the very basic sense of “I”, which gives rise to a belief in “me” and “mine”. The mind is very clever and will do anything to defend itself and the personality, the “I”, it has created.

Selflessness brings freedom

To lessen the mind’s grip, we need to cultivate selflessness. Instead of maintaining our imagined position as the centre of our own little universe, which takes a great deal of energy and effort, we might try letting go a little. It’s a very relaxing thing to do; quite liberating, in fact.

The real crisis

It is selfishness, not Nature, that has driven humanity into the throes of a climate crisis and only a reversal of that will free us from it. It is far more of a threat than coronavirus. As individuals, we cannot change the world overnight but we can change ourselves. By beginning to train the mind to be calm, clear and open, we can be free wherever we are.

Awakening Heart—The Blissful Path to Self Realisation

Meditations

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Finding happiness in 2021

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Gloria came across this article recently when she was clearing out a drawer and said, “This is just right for now – you should put it in your blog”. So here it is! It’s from one of our old newsletters that I used to put together – written in July 2004.

Happiness arises – or fades – in the mind

All happiness arises purely in the mind – nowhere else. All problems stem from the mind. Whether we are content, happy or miserable depends on the state of our mind. It is not the outer circumstances that govern how we think and feel, but how we view those circumstances.

Where we go wrong and cause ourselves much pain and grief is by seeking happiness through pleasurable things. As a result, desires and expectations arise like mushrooms, often to be replaced by disappointments when they are not met or do not last.

Good old days, or the best is yet to come?

The tendency of the mind is to look back at past pleasures and happiness and seek to repeat them in the future. It also looks back at past pain, and fears its repetition. So we remain on the treadmill creating a lifetime of highs and lows.

We cannot attain lasting happiness whilst the mind is looking forward or back, nor can we find it outside ourselves. That might seem a tall order but there is an easy solution: live fully aware in the present moment. If we do that, our mind is not imagining the future, nor is it looking back. What is past is past and the future is never certain. As the words of one incisive Buddhist sutra say: The past no longer is and the future has not yet come. Looking deeply at life in the here and now, the person who practises this dwells in stability and freedom.

Happiness could be in a sandwich

How do we live in the present moment? By being aware of what we are doing and not thinking of other things while we are doing it. For example, when eating, our awareness should be on eating what we are eating now, not on what we might be eating in a moment or how it compares to a meal we had last week. It means not having our attention on something else. That may sound difficult but it isn’t really. It takes a little effort to break our bad habits, but once we experience the joy of eating with full awareness, we will not want to do it any other way.

Exactly the same principle applies to all our activity – brushing teeth, walking, writing, driving, having a conversation (yes – listening with full awareness!) and so on. If we practise living in the present moment, we will find without fail that life becomes fuller and richer and our fears will have no fertile ground in which to grow.

Much has happened in the seventeen years since penning this, yet so much is the same. This article was the seed from which my first book The Great Little Book of Happiness grew. I take no credit – it is all based on very old truths, discovered by others much wiser and more eloquent, but if it helps anyone, that’s good.

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Looking for light is vital for our future

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looking for lightIs there light in a cup of tea, a blade of grass or a butterfly? There is, of course, and it is in everything if we choose to look, even in what we regard as unpleasant. Looking for light, particularly when it seems to be absent, can be very therapeutic. Nature tends to draw us out of darkness. Evolution is concerned with just that – the process of enlightenment.

Everything vibrates, and what we describe as light simply has a faster rate of vibration than darkness. Someone once said that all on our planet, and indeed the planet itself, is solidified sunlight. Between light and dark is where we may think we find ourselves now, in innumerable shades of grey – but, if we look, there is also an incredible spectrum of colour.

Recognising light

Looking for light has to do with recognition. In the human being, light is akin to our higher nature – our better, finer qualities. How we perceive the world around us, from our immediate environment to all that we see or hear, depends on our inner state. If our heart is heavy, everything we see or hear seems miserable, but if we see the good in the world and in other people, a magical change occurs.

Our world may seem to have been turned upside down but there appears to be a shift in the way many people are starting to think. Instead of a desire simply to return to life as it was, there is evidence of a growing desire for change, for goodness to emerge.

Increasing our inner light

Our own inner light, which has its source in our spirit or soul, is always ready to grow. We just need to give it some encouragement. When the world seems a little dark, which it can at times, recognising the inherent goodness in people and in things is vital for our emotional, mental and spiritual wellbeing. As we all contribute to the collective consciousness of humanity, that’s good not just for us but for the whole planet.

Awakening Heart – The Blissful Path to Self Realisation

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Stop the world? You can’t, but you can stop yourself

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Stop thinking “Stop the world, I want to get off!” Most of us probably feel like that from time to time. The world does indeed seem mad, so it’s perfectly understandable to want to escape. But what we see isn’t so much “out there”. It’s what the mind makes of all the information we take in. The pictures we have are inside, the result of a meandering mind that conjures up all sorts of images and conclusions. In the process, it takes our vitality with it. So perhaps it’s not the world that needs to stop – we do.

Stop thinking – or stop over-thinking?

Stop thinking? It’s not a bad idea but the mind is in an almost perpetual state of motion. It is not used to being in a state of “not doing”. It will engage itself in almost anything, so long as it doesn’t have to stop and become aware of itself. Perhaps we are afraid of stopping because if there is nothing to think about and nothing to focus on, what is left? Most of us have a fear of the unknown and of having nothing to cling onto, so we busy ourselves in the practice of chronic avoidance. That needs to change.

Don’t keep spinning the wheel because it’s not going anywhere

The mind is like a wheel that is always spinning. If we want the mind to slow down, we have to stop feeding it rubbish. When the mind is whirling from one thing to another, it seems impossible to do anything about it. But we can learn to pause – and we must if we want to reconnect with our true state of being. Stopping is more than a matter of preserving health. A pause gives us time to breathe and to appreciate everything we have. When we appreciate and feel grateful for life, we value and respect ourselves and others. The world then seems a better place, and maybe we don’t need to jump off after all.

[Read more…]

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Motivation: how using Nature’s power can change your life

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Motivation Motivation? We just can’t do without it. It is the driving force of change, whether for good or bad. The current chaos in society is caused by conflicting pressures from those with vested interests, political or otherwise. The one thing they all have in common is motivation. As individuals, we become driven by pressure, too – when we feel strongly that something in us needs to change.

Motivation for good

Some people are very good at self-motivation. Others, like me, need to work at it. However, the best type of motivation is not something we should need to think about very much. Rather, it comes from within. Most of the things that drive us to action are desires for the pleasures and necessities of life. At one level or another, we seek satisfaction. Once we have found it, we soon look elsewhere for fulfilment. But if we let the mind become calm and open, the fripperies of life lose their attraction. Then all motivation for action comes from inside, from what some call the soul or inner spirit. What term we use doesn’t matter. What does matter is that we start to reconnect with our true nature and, in turn, Nature’s power grid.

Motivation nature power

The source of boundless energy and intelligence

When we become still, through relaxation and meditation, we become more open. Our natural state is one of openness, where intuition rather than calculation has its home. Instead of thinking, “I want to be like this,” or “I ought to do that,” we simply know the right thing to do. As a result, we stop wasting energy on things that don’t matter and have plenty for those that do. Nature provides us with the energy we need and our boundless field of intelligence, consciousness, gives us all necessary motivation. It really is a life-changer. And all we have to do is stop – just stop and be still.

Releasing the things that hold us back is the subject of our next evening workshop, Letting Go, on the 11th March 2019. More details and booking.

My third book, The Art of Not Doing shows how we can re-train our minds to find clarity and inner peace.

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