Focus on Life™

We are all after happiness but seldom find it but only for a few glances or passing moments. Most of the time we are seeking to gain it via different things, people, or situations. We try to reproduce the moments and experiences we already had or we are just randomly trying to imitate someone else’s life with their choices. And all these methods fail to provide us anything but suffering and continuous seeking of happiness—they all are external to us.

Happiness is a state of mind that is independent of the circumstances or our surroundings. It is our natural state of being that we have learned to ignore while growing up. We have substituted the internal happiness for objects and desires external to us. They are conditional and related to some activities or specific points in time. What is common to all of these is that they are not present right now. They are projected to the future. This type of happiness is something that you’re always waiting for. Your constant mode is to achieve and ‘earn’ your happiness by actions or circumstances. In other words you are living in illusions filled by your expectations. Disappointments are a frequent visitor when you are dealing with your future projections based on your expected outcomes of the future situations or events. How much in control of your life you really are?

This ‘when..then’ -type of conditioning is very convincing but it is not really living. It’s about building dream castles and denying the moment. You are saying that I’m not happy right now and I’m substituting this moment for another one in the future. You are after the carrot that is always attached to the current moment—the stick stays in the future with the appealing prize as well. This takes many forms. We may prefer to work overtime and then compensate it back in the holidays. Or we are accumulating substantial wealth that we are hoping to spend after retirement. How can you enjoy your life later if you cannot do it now?

Happiness is not a destination—it is a journey. If you are not comfortable being in the journey you are suffering in the destination as well. Life is about experiencing and enjoying every moment you have. It requires that you are comfortable with uncertainty and change. We can only be happy when we have learned to accept the things that we cannot change and regard every passing moment as a gift that has some valuable lessons and experiences to give us. Only when being is enough you can be happy. As long as you need to achieve or become you are not going to find happiness. Life is about change and being in the moment—exploring the unknown.

Have you ever considered what dying means? Often we are
very shady and quiet about death. It is something we do not
want to consider or think about. It is a taboo. It is something
that only happens to somebody else—not to us. In other
words—we are afraid of it. But why?

What exactly are we afraid of? Something we do not know
anything about? Maybe.

Dying means that we are departed instantly from every-
thing we are attached to and have. We have to give away
everything so familiar and “natural” to us, something and
everything we have taken for granted. Our health, physical
body, friends, family, wealth, possessions, lifestyle, habits, and
so on. This is death. It is detachment.

Clinging and attachment do not have to be physical in
nature. We can have obsessions, desires, needs, and cravings.
Suddenly we cannot satisfy those by physical means anymore.
We are forced to be without them. This is death.

We have to die in order to live. What does that mean? We
think that we are alive and kicking when we are driven by our
lower qualities like desire, lust, obsession, and so on.
Satisfying and fulfilling these consume most of our lives. We
call this living. We are in a never-ending circle where old
needs are fulfilled and instantly new ones arise. How liberat-
ing and happy!

Being truly alive means that we are free to live, not
obsessed or forced continuously to fulfil something. Free to
be.In order to achieve this, we have to set ourselves free from
our attachments and desires. They are strong and we cannot
win them by force. The more we resist them, the larger they
become. We can beat them only by ignoring them, by learn-
ing to live without them, by detaching ourselves from every-
thing in a similar manner—as death will do to us, finally, but
this time we do it voluntarily, gradually.

It is a misunderstanding to believe that detachment will
mean literally dying and living without anything interesting
or fun. On the contrary, how much fun and freedom do you
have when you are obsessed by something? Detachment does
not mean giving up living—only giving away all the attach-
ment and clinging. You can still enjoy the sunrise and have a
delicious meal, but the difference is that those do not bear any
utility value for you anymore—they simply are. There is no
need for anything. One is not lacking anything because need
implicitly declares a lack of something (i.e., the object of the
need).

Clinging and attachment are based on ignorance, and de
facto the only thing to give away is the wrong understanding.
Greater wisdom liberates. Always.

When you want something you also state that you don’t have
something. Your object of wanting is the very thing you’re
missing. In other words, you’re declaring your imperfectness.
There is something in you that still requires and is in need.

The person who is at peace and has achieved a state of
calmness needs no thing. He or she has everything. What was
it that you needed?