do we ignorantly thwart our own happiness?

Vic Shayne
author
13 Pillars of Enlightenment: How to realize your true nature and end suffering

The truth of our ephemeral existence threatens the sense of self that tries as best as it can to be important and secure. So we live with a paradox, needing to move past this sense of self and yet resisting to do so.

Ignorance is a strong term because it has been made to be so. But it does not have to be derisive. Its meaning comes from the Latin word ignorare, for “not knowing,” or “lacking comprehension.” We grow up and spend most or all of our lives in ignorance of what we are. This ignorance is the obstacle to a happiness that is unalloyed with thought, religion, hope, belief, material thing, or loved one.

there’s no bliss in ignorance
In ignorance we thwart our own happiness. Still, we go on seeking a solution to our suffering and most people are willing to try anything short of giving up the sense of self. But since the sense of self is the stumbling block, the best most of us can do is pacify it, recondition it, or learn to live with it.

What do you need to be happy? I am sure you have thought about this a lot over the course of your life. We all do. Our imaginations run wild with thoughts of winning the lottery, getting a dream job, having a beautiful family, wife, or husband, or perhaps finding the perfect place to live a fulfilling, peaceful life.

The mind, filled with thoughts, looks to every form of object to sate its desire for happiness, except the one that will provide a permanent solution. This is okay for most, of course, but for the very few who are willing to face and expose the sense of self for what it is, nothing will suffice except to find a way out of its psychological hold.

We grow up, from early childhood, learning to find pleasure and avoid pain. We want to be happy. We are taught to seek happiness, but we are not taught anything about true happiness — unconditional happiness, meaning not limited, not qualified, not contingent on anyone or anything, and absolute.

religion is a quid pro quo arrangement
Many religious people are taught that happiness is the result of doing something, behaving a certain way, and believing in something so that happiness is a reward; it is unmistakenly conditional. One writer said, “Christian happiness is the grace of loving and being loved by Jesus, who gave his life for me.” There you have it; happiness is yours but you have to agree to the terms: Love Jesus first and then happiness is your reward. Compare this to what the Dalai Lama said: “The key to happiness is peace of mind. This is not something that can be bought.”

happiness is inherent
Advaita-Vedanta sage Ramana Maharshi explained that true happiness is inherent. He said, “Happiness lies deep within us, in the very core of our being. Happiness does not exist in any external object, but only in us, who are the consciousness that experiences happiness. Though we seem to derive happiness from external objects or experiences, the happiness that we thus enjoy in fact arises from within us.”

Now we must return to the top FAQ of spiritual freedom: “How can I be happy?” As difficult as it is to wrap your mind around this, it seems that if you can find out who it is that asks the question then you will have your answer. This sounds like double-speak, but it’s not. To dissolve our own ignorance we must find out why we take ourselves to be the persons that we are. Find out how, as the idea of a person, you were created — not physically, but psychologically. How did this image of what you take yourself to be come about? What factors were at play? How were all of your ideas and self-image formed out of secondhand ideas? When the ignorance of the image of “me” is dissolved, so is the impediment to happiness.

our true state of being is happiness
Ramana explained, “Not only does happiness exist within us — it is in fact our true nature, our essential being. The transient happiness that we seem to derive from external experiences, but which actually arises only from within ourself, is in reality nothing other than our own essential being. The more clearly we are conscious of our own essential being, the more deeply and intensely do we experience happiness.”

Find out what you truly are and ignorance disappears — the ignorance of not knowing yourself. When ignorance is gone then happiness reappears.