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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

Related posts:

  1. Looking for light is vital for our future
  2. Melting the ice: eliminating indifference
  3. How to live softly with ease and help the planet
  4. Something to smile about

Thoughts: Why we need to think less

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Do you ever think about your thoughts? Why am I thinking what I am thinking? From the moment we open our eyes in the morning until we close them and fall asleep at night, we produce an endless stream of thoughts. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say “streams” of thoughts because there appears to be little relation between many of them.

Thoughts are always the result of something else

Each thought we have is preceded by another thought or an event of some kind – the phone ringing or pinging, someone speaks to us or we hear a noise – and that produces yet another thought. If all that thinking was effective and productive, what amazingly efficient beings we would be! Unfortunately, most of our thoughts are a waste of time and energy. If we observe our thinking, we will probably find that at least 80% relates to what has gone on in the past and what we imagine is going to happen in the future.

Past is past

In thinking about the past, we might be reflecting on what happened yesterday, how we dealt with something last week or ten years ago, why someone spoke to us the way they did, what made a friend do this or that, what a pleasant evening we had last night and so on. That’s human nature, isn’t it? We also think about the future. What time we need to be somewhere, hoping a meeting will turn out okay, imagining how we are going to deal with a situation, what might be for dessert when we are still eating the main course, looking forward to a holiday; and so the list goes on. It sounds exhausting and it is exhausting.

A waste of precious energy

Thinking uses up energy, probably more than we think. It uses up physical energy in the form of calories (a good thing, some might say) but too much thinking also dissipates our qi and other subtle energies. As a result, our awareness can lack focus and coherence. Thinking often stirs up feelings, too. Everything can seem hunky-dory when all of a sudden our mind flits back to a painful event in the past – and whoosh – up come all the old emotions. Even more draining, perhaps, is worrying about what might, or might not, happen in the future.

Now, not when, if or maybe

All this is truly remarkable because the one thing we are not thinking about very much is what lies between the past and the future – right now. Regrets and hopes are only useful if something constructive comes out of them.

Currently, many people are frequently thinking about when pandemic restrictions will end. When will life return to normal, whatever that may be? But the past, whatever we had or thought we had, has gone. All we have, and ever have had, is now.

Now is where the seeds of the future are sown, so we need to make sure they are good and wholesome seeds. Thinking a little less and being more in the present can help very much with that.

Meditations

Adapted from The Great Little Book of Happiness

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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.

Related posts:

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Melting the ice: eliminating indifference

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melting iceThanks in part to pandemic restrictions, a source of enjoyment for me is going for walks in our local area. There is much rural beauty nearby and there is delight to be found, too, in the surrounding streets. I feel happy when I am walking because the world magically opens up when we look more closely at things.

A layer of ice

Many of the people who are also out walking seem very friendly and respond warmly to a smile and a wave or a hello. On the other hand, quite a few pass by without acknowledging anyone else. Instead of warmth, it is as though there is a glaze of ice, a certain aloofness. There are many reasons why that may be and, after all, any of us can be a little withdrawn or grumpy sometimes.

More important than the response of passers-by to each other, though, is the general human trait of indifference towards those we don’t know, whether individuals or a group. We can often fail to see the light in another person and miss so much. And the reason isn’t somewhere out there; it’s inside, in our own minds.

If it’s in the mind, fix the mind

Indifference is something we urgently need to fix because it results in an absence of joy, of love and a lack of positive action. It is the cause of all apathy. I was once given a piece of advice that, when you see a stranger, to imagine you once knew him or her very well. Imagine that some time in the past, you had a very close connection, now forgotten, when they showed you great kindness. This simple mental adjustment can begin to expand the mind and tickle the heart, melting any ice that may be lingering.

It’s wise not to speak of it because it is an inner practice but, make no mistake, this little technique is very profound if we make it a habit.

Thank you for reading this. Sadly, no courses will be running until circumstances permit. May you have a joyful Christmas season and a happy and healthy new year. Andrew

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Can we let go of needing to know?

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If there is one thing we can be certain of, especially now, it’s that nothing lasts for ever. The temporary nature of everything in the universe is scientific fact, of course, and central to most spiritual teachings.

Over the years, a number of people have said to me that they find the notion of impermanence quite depressing – yet it’s supposed to help us and cheer us up!

Nevertheless, conditioned as we are to aim for health, longevity and maybe prosperity, we can feel a bit wobbly and disconnected when everything familiar seems to be falling apart.

How much do we really need to know?

Feeling adrift, it is natural to look for something to hold onto. We are ruled by our minds and emotions, so that often comes in the form of seeking information – lots of it.

Isn’t it great that we seem to have almost limitless access to information? Well, not necessarily. Information is not the same as knowledge.

Real knowledge resides in the boundlessness of pure consciousness and is accessed not by facts but through stillness and clarity.

We have all probably experienced that clarity many times, even if just for a few seconds. It usually occurs when there is a gap in thinking that gives us an “aha” moment.

Aha – how about an information fast?

If the information we seek leads us a little closer to the experience of pure consciousness, that’s great. Information as education should do that.

The trouble with most of the news, theories, rumours and banalities of social media is that they do the opposite. They actually pull us away from our inner nature.

Instead of peacefulness and unity, the mind careers into divisiveness, analysing and judging. Once that begins, the process is very hard to stop. It is like having an itch that, once scratched, moves somewhere else and needs scratching again.

If your mind is not peaceful, why not try a news and social media fast for a few days? After the initial withdrawal symptoms, you may feel surprisingly better and upbeat.

More of this in The Art of Not Doing

Guided meditations

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