The Pursuit of Happiness

Happiness is not to be pursued, but must be created by the Individual who wants it. One can try and pursue happiness, and in that pursuit one may on occasion seem to find it, but as often as not, or perhaps more often, one seems to find instead the opposite, i.e., unhappiness.

This is because in the pursuit of happiness one often uses resistance to try and get to where they think happiness is to be found, and in that resistance one creates unhappiness or unwantedness. That is, when happiness or wantedness is pursued, as if it were something that exists independent and apart from the Individual that apprehends it, then the Individual sees happiness as being somehow inherent in some object or person or status, and they then pursue and go after the shiny object, thinking that once it is possessed that the happiness they believe to be somehow inherent in the thing will then be theirs.

And once the person gets the thing they may, for a moment, feel some happiness, but whatever happiness they feel is not actually coming from the thing they now possess, no matter how much this seems to be the case. Rather, whatever happiness they feel is being created by them because their attitude toward the thing they now possess is one of complete allowing, and it is that attitude of allowing that creates happiness or wantedness, just as it is the attitude of resistance that creates unhappiness or unwantedness.

All experiential wantedness and unwantedness is created by the Individual that is apprehending it, according to a relation in which they are involved with their Inner Self, with their Soul, with their More Fundamental Individuality, with God, with their Source, with the Tao, with Absolute Existence, or with whatever name one wants to give to that Aspect of Ourselves from which our Consciousness flows and is projected, and from which Aspect our Consciousness continues to flow and continues to be projected, as long as we remain organically alive and thereby involved in the relations with Existence that create what we apprehend as physical reality.

An Individual operating and creating experience at the level of Existential Self-relation that creates for that Individual physical experience is a projection of Consciousness. That is, an Individual that is creating and apprehending physical experience is Consciousness that is being projected from a Consciousness that is Itself operating and creating experience at the more fundamental levels of Existential Self-relation that create emotional and mental experience.

The larger and more fundamental Consciousness from which we, as Individual Consciousness's, are projected is as much our True Nature as is our Individual Consciousness. Thus, each Individual is actually one pole of what is ultimately an Indivisible Duality of Existence, with the other pole of that Indivisible Duality being the more fundamental Consciousness that is projecting Itself into the third level of Existential Self-relation as the Individual Consciousness, which Individual Consciousness then, owing to the relations in which it subsequently becomes involved at that third level of Existential Self-relation, creates and apprehends physical experience.

And in almost all cases, for at least some period of time in the organic life of the Individual Consciousness, and for many for their entire organic lives, the Individual Consciousness loses sight of this other aspect of Itself, this other pole of its Existence, that part of Itself from which it is inseparable and which is as much Itself as is its projected Individuality.

The recognition of this ultimate identity and inseparability of the Individual from their More Fundamental Individuality is at the heart of the Vedantist philosophy of non-duality, in which philosophy the Individual is referred to as the Atman and the Source Consciousness or More Fundamental Individuality is referred to as Brahman. And in the Vedantist philosophy, the process or means by which the Individual is able to lose sight of this other aspect of Itself, lose sight of the larger Existence from which its own Individual Existence is being projected, and so lose sight of what is ultimately its own True Nature, in which case the Individual then considers itself to be nothing more than an individual, i.e., some sort of isolated and particulate entity, is referred to as maya.

The Vedantists consider the process by which the Individual loses sight of Brahman, i.e., maya, to be inexpressible. And in this regard I am in disagreement with the Vedantists, because I have found it possible to understand the functioning of maya as being a result of the unavoidable functioning of the limitation of experience that makes it impossible for an Individual to simultaneously be involved in the mutually exclusive relations necessary to for that Individual to create opposite or complementary experiences, which unavoidable experiential limitation has manifested itself most vividly in physical experience in the form of the phenomena of wave-particle duality and quantum uncertainty.

That is, the same experiential limitation that makes it impossible for physicists, or for any Individual, to simultaneously be involved in the mutually exclusive relations necessary to create opposite or complementary experiences, and so only allows an Individual to create and apprehend one or the other of those opposite experiences, or some portion of both, in any one moment or now, is the same limitation of experience that makes it impossible for an Individual to conceive of, i.e., apprehend as an experience, its True Nature as being ultimately non-experiential as long as that Individual continues to be involved in the mutually exclusive relation that creates what that Individual apprehends as the opposite conception-experience of itself, i.e., the conception of itself as what is ultimately only an experience.

In short, the extent to which we identify with our physical selves, which physical selves are experiential in nature, we are not able to identify with our non-experiential Self, because those two experiences are created as the result of what are mutually exclusive relations, and so cannot be created by a single Individual in the same moment, in the same now, meaning that as long as the Individual is involved in the relation that creates the one experience, i.e., the experience of themself as some sort of physical entity, they cannot be involved in the relation that creates the other, opposite experience, i.e., the experience of themself as Consciousness.

Thus, the operation and functioning of maya is nothing more than the functioning of the unavoidable experiential limitation, i.e., the limitation upon what it is possible for an Individual to create as an experience in any one moment, owing to the necessity of the Individual's involvement in some relation in order to create whatever it is they apprehend as experience, which necessary involvement makes impossible that Individual's simultaneous involvement in the mutually exclusive relation necessary for that Individual to create and apprehend the opposite experience.

However, more detailed specifics regarding how maya operates is a story for another time. This story is about how the Individual creates experiential wantedness or unwantedness, i.e., happiness or unhappiness.

And that story is as follows; regardless of whether or not an Individual is or is not aware of their True Nature, all experiential wantedness and unwantedness is a function of how the Individual is choosing, in each moment, to be in relation to their More Fundamental Individuality, to the other pole of their Existence, to the Consciousness from which their Individual Consciousness is being projected.

Specifically, when an Individual chooses to be in an attitude or mode of being that is allowing, that Individual is then in that moment involved in a relation of aligned flow with their More Fundamental Individuality, in which case the experiences that Individual creates and apprehends in that moment as a result of their involvement in that relation have the quality of wantedness. Conversely, when an Individual chooses to be in an attitude or mode of being that is resistant, that Individual is then in that moment involved in a relation of oppositional flow with their More Fundamental Individuality, in which case the experiences that Individual creates and apprehends in that moment as a result of their involvement in that relation have the quality of unwantedness.

Thus, as previously stated, all experiential wantedness and unwantedness is ultimately a function of how the Individual is choosing to be in relation to their More Fundamental Individuality. But when an Individual is unaware of the presence or functioning of this relation, owing to the operation of maya, and thus unaware of their True Nature as that which both creates and apprehends experience, it must then seem to that Individual as if the wantedness and unwantedness they experience is inherent in the experiences themselves, inherent in the objects of experience. Put another way, when maya operates, in which case one's True Nature is hidden, then the Creator of experience is also hidden, giving experience the appearance of being what's actually there, when what's Actually There is the Consciousness-Existence that, through relation to Itself, is creating and apprehending the experience. This is analogous to what happens if one sees what is only a reflection, but is unaware of the presence of a mirror, in which case the reflection appears to be what's actually there, when what's actually there is the mirror.

And once it seems that experience is what's actually there, it also seems that wantedness and unwantedness are inherent in experience itself, in which case the Individual spends their time trying to do what is natural, which is trying to create a wanted rather than experience, in the only way that seems possible, which is by pursuing those things that they think will, once they possess them, will cause them to feel happy.

And what happens in this method of trying to create experiential wantedness and unwantedness, in unawareness of the actual relation that is responsible for the creation of those experiential qualities, one often chooses to be in a mode of resistance in order to pursue those objects, in which case the Individual unknowingly and inadvertently creates unwanted rather than wanted experience.

The reason wanted objects seem to make us feel good is because we find them easy to allow, i.e., we reflexively allow them, and so easily enter into a relation of aligned Existential flow, which relation then creates experiential wantedness. And the reason unwanted objects seem to make us feel bad is because we find them easy to resist, i.e., we reflexively resist them, and so easily enter into a relation of oppositional Existential flow, which relation then creates experiential wantedness. Again though, in the absence of realizing that this relation between the Individual and their Inner Self is always, in every moment, operant, and is what is actually producing the wantedness and unwantedness associated with any experience, it must then seem that those qualities inhere in the experience itself, which appearance leads to what is referred to in Eastern philosophies as attachment and aversion, which is simply the reflexive clinging to experiences that seem to have a quality of wantedness and the reflexive pushing away of those experiences that seem to have a quality of unwantedness, respectively, both of which place the Individual unknowingly in a mode of resistance and so in a relation of oppositional Existential flow with respect to their More Fundamental Individuality.

And so pursue happiness if you must, but know that there is an easier way, and a more effective way, which is to not pursue it, but to just create it, by choosing in any moment to allow rather than resist, to let be rather than push against. Just try it and see how it feels, i.e., see whether you create and apprehend in the moment of allowing or resistance emotional wantedness or unwantedness, as emotions are the most fundamental experience and so are the most directly and immediately reflective of the aligned or oppositional relation of the Individual to their More Fundamental Individuality, which relation is itself a direct result of what the Individual is choosing as their mode of being in that moment.

Everything we want we want because we think that in having it we will feel better, that we will experience a more wanted emotion. In our delusion we try to get there by arranging external reality in a way that we can reflexively allow, but in getting to that arrangement we often have to enter into resistance, and so create the opposite of the experience we wanted to create, i.e., we create unwanted rather than wanted emotion. Also in our delusion we forget why it is that we wanted the object in the first place and so just keep going after it regardless of how the pursuit of it is making us feel.

However, if you can realize that the goal is always a more wanted emotion, and that that goal can be reached regardless of the arrangement of external reality, as the experienced emotion is actually a function of a different relation, then it is easier not to cling to the wanted object of experience or push against the unwanted object of experience, which then makes it easier to choose to remain or become involved in the relation that actually creates wanted experience. But if you forget or don't realize what it is that you are actually always after, and forget or don't realize the actual cause of experiential wantedness and unwantedness, then clinging to the wanted object and pushing against the unwanted object seem to be the only viable options, in which case the Individual then becomes trapped in a self-perpetuated loop of delusion and confusion, inadvertently creating unwantedness while in the pursuit of wantedness.

This is not a world of suffering. It is a world where it is just as easy to create the opposite of suffering as it is to create suffering, one just needs to know which button to push on the machine of experimental creation. However, because most people are unaware of both how experience is created, as well as what it is they actually want, which is just to feel better, to create and apprehend a wanted emotional experience, most people go about trying to create experience in a way that is the opposite of the way it is actually created, pushing the button of resistance rather the button of allowing, and so end up producing results that are the opposite of those they intended to produce.

But as they say, it's all good, because even in the delusion and confusion and the inadvertent creation of unwantedness, the purpose for which we came is still being served, as we serve that purpose regardless of whether or not we are cognizant of our True Nature and regardless of the degree to which we create wanted or unwanted experience while we are here. It's just that it's usually more enjoyable to serve that purpose when one understands the rules of the game we are playing, regardless of whether or not one is cognizant of the purpose of the game itself, which purpose is, once again, a story for another time.