What is happiness?

[mandyjw]

13 minutes ago, Someone here said:

I'm still a fragile human being who is sensitive to all sorts of suffering.. Sickness.. Death etc...

This feels bad to think, because it's so not true. You are so much more than that. 

[Someone here]

1 hour ago, mandyjw said:

t's important to see that feeling better and judging myself from some illusory outside perspective as being happy or feeling better is not actually feeling better at all. The actual direct experience of feeling ITSELF will automatically take you "there". This is the Grace of God, Wonder of Wonders, I don't know how else to describe it. 

So in practical terms, meditate with the intent to drop resistance rather than accomplish or find something, or just do what you're feeling like doing, or choosing a better feeling thought or perspective, or choose to love rather than judge, whatever it is in the moment, you as Infinite Intelligence will know. You will know by how you feel what really feels better to you. Feeling and Awareness merge when you stop cutting yourself off from what you really are with thoughts that feel bad to think. They feel bad because they aren't True, they aren't how you really Feel. 

@mandyjw OK thanks. That makes sense.

 

Only thing that trips me up is the notion that "it's false because it doesn't feel good". Aren't these two separate things??

Edited February 17, 2021 by Someone here

[mandyjw]

4 hours ago, Someone here said:

Only thing that trips me up is the notion that "it's false because it doesn't feel good". Aren't these two separate things??

They are from one perspective, but that's not the one I mean. Instead of going on the basis of what we already think and believe is true and our framework, we instead are becoming aware of our thoughts. Now you've heard "be aware of your thoughts" 1000 times before probably, but a simple way to state it is that we are now paying attention to how our thoughts feel. We are more interested in how the thoughts feel than the thoughts itself. In a way we are now disregarding our thoughts, like we've been taught to do in meditation, but at the same time, we're giving them more clear attention than we have ever given them before.  So since we've determined that we want to feel better, (and this is basically the core reason for every want we've ever had), now we see why we are wise to give more weight to feeling than thought. We know where we're going now, and we are using how we feel in the present moment as our guidance system. This is living in the now, flying by the seat of one's pants. In order to do this we have to throw out a whole bunch of previous beliefs that told us we were right to feel bad about certain subjects because they were true. Instead of feeling bad and powerlessness to change it, and at the mercy of the world outside, and a whole bunch of other possible reactions that we have practiced or avoided in the past, we instead get very, honestly curious about the thoughts that seem to coincide with suffering. 

A lot of the time these thoughts are very unclear. The funny thing about doing this is that you learn to pull yourself out of suffering by using both the tactic of dropping thought, learning to see through thought and knowing the difference in feeling between disbelieving and believing a thought that feels bad, and focusing thought. Learning to focus thought means to be conscious that your objective is to feel better, even if you have to leave or disregard for now the current subject of thinking to do it. The mind doesn't like to do this unless it's clear about what it really wants, the feeling better thing. This clarity fades during suffering, almost like as if we're really, really drunk and trying to find the bathroom. A great cheat (you can't cheat) is to journal and just write down what you're thinking and feeling. Just putting thoughts in a linear manner outside your head focuses, and you can make it work faster and better by bringing in a sense of curiosity and humor if and when you're able. Curiosity and humor is the ultimate "detachment", that is also full of feeling and awareness. 

You'd think that someone could have just taught us when we were 4 or something that it's so simple, if a thought feels bad that means you're holding a belief or perspective about it that isn't true. Like for real, how fucking brilliant and simple and clear cut, and Loving, would feeling as a guidance system be??? That's really how things are. It's really that Unbelievably good. 

But believing thought and beliefs over the guidance of feeling is the matrix we're afraid to live and die in. But wait! Fear feels bad. Actually wait, hold on, that's not always true, which is why I have to listen to feeling in the moment rather than give power to the mind to judge. Downhill skiing a challenging trail is thrilling, exciting and scary. It makes me feel present in an intense way. Maybe that's what my life is, something that I'm figuring out on the way, not sure of all the twists and turns yet, something that has never ever been done, something that is pushing all the boundaries in the universe, and the fear is just here to remind me how very Alive and present I really am. I'll keep that kind of fear, but maybe trash the kind that feels bad when it comes up. 

[Nahm]

@Someone here  ?? 

Love=Truth=you. 

So if you think, believe, and or say anything about yourself which doesn’t feel good...it ain’t true. 

That’s how simple Truth is. 

That’s how simple Love is.

There’s no catch!

Truth is so Good - it’s unthinkable! Unbelievable! Inconceivable! Unjustifiable! Unrationalizable! Unexplainable! Unimaginable! 

Not a single thought is needed. 

A single thought detours. 

Simple and self evident. 

?? 

 

“Buy. Stock. In. Kleenex! - for those with two good ears had better listen” 

[PureRogueQ]

15 hours ago, Someone here said:

Well I've tried a lot of stuff (material stuff) and as expected I end up craving for more. Because the nature of those things is transitory. It's like chasing a mirage. So I'm convinced that chasing experience or external conditions Will not result in deep satisfaction (and this goes against what 99% of people are busy doing). Will result in a temporary satisfaction before the longing resurfacing again. I haven't found a resolve to this issue yet. Except maybe complete monk-mode and abstaining.. Fasting etc... Which doesn't work either. Some people are just not born to be monks. 

Well, I did some tests based on my previous posts about involvement, I am far from conclusions and there is lot more to be done to clarify stuff, know how it works and how to get there in easy way and it for sure will not fix your ego problems.

Don't want to make any claims and will just put it as I understand it at this moment.

There are things like overlays of experience that encompass rest of things that happen in experience, might be just brain chemical but who cares,

main thing is it changes how you connect to same behaviours ,actions, ego talk  and so on.

So this involvement, or love changes this overlay of experience and encompass you with different energy, thing with this energy is that it does not care what you do it is sorta like bliss, you are good no matter what, but , it is also dangerous to navigate for reasons.

And yes it is completely sustainable, not 1 h,  1 day thing. 

 

[Someone here]

@mandyjw @Nahm is it just a different way of saying "feeling good /better is all that matters"? 

[zeroISinfinity]

Infinite Happiness.

Yeah, Yeah I know repeating myself but you know nothing . 

[zeroISinfinity]

16 hours ago, Nahm said:

@Someone here  ?? 

Love=Truth=you. 

So if you think, believe, and or say anything about yourself which doesn’t feel good...it ain’t true. 

That’s how simple Truth is. 

That’s how simple Love is.

There’s no catch!

Truth is so Good - it’s unthinkable! Unbelievable! Inconceivable! Unjustifiable! Unrationalizable! Unexplainable! Unimaginable! 

Not a single thought is needed. 

A single thought detours. 

Simple and self evident. 

?? 

 

“Buy. Stock. In. Kleenex! - for those with two good ears had better listen” 

If that is so where is my Lambo? 

[mandyjw]

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

@mandyjw @Nahm is it just a different way of saying "feeling good /better is all that matters"? 

Or another way of saying nothing matters, you're not made of matter, so you have absolutely no good reason not to feel good. Also feeling good and awareness/clarity are correlated/ the same, but it won't make much sense to explain, you kinda gotta experience it. 

[Someone here]

12 hours ago, mandyjw said:

Or another way of saying nothing matters, you're not made of matter, so you have absolutely no good reason not to feel good.

?Alright. 

[WelcometoReality]

On 2021-02-14 at 0:40 PM, Someone here said:

I don't know how to answer this question. They are surely linked together (I think this is obvious enough). Yet they are not mutually exclusive either. 

Yes, that's true. We might want for example a pizza so we eat one and then we feel happy. Most people think it's the pizza that made us happy but it's because we no longer want anything in that moment. We are for a short while satisfied so then we are happy.  Like @VeganAwake said.

 

On 2021-02-14 at 2:38 PM, VeganAwake said:

Happiness:  The end of the need for anything to be other than what it is.

@Someone here What if we the next day want another pizza? And the next day.. and the next day.. What if the key to happiness is meeting the uncomfortability of the unfulfilled desire.

[Someone here]

15 hours ago, WelcometoReality said:

Yes, that's true. We might want for example a pizza so we eat one and then we feel happy. Most people think it's the pizza that made us happy but it's because we no longer want anything in that moment. We are for a short while satisfied so then we are happy.  Like @VeganAwake said.

 

@Someone here What if we the next day want another pizza? And the next day.. and the next day.. What if the key to happiness is meeting the uncomfortability of the unfulfilled desire.

In that case scenario.. If eating that pizza did in fact elevate your mood . nourish you... and you enjoyed the taste.. .. Then it did make you happy.. Temporarily at least. You can't deny that. The state of "being present with whatever is present" and not longing to change our present circumstances is what you defined happiness as.. But that state is not induced for free.. And it doesn't last. Unless you can get there through meditation and are able to extend it for a long time. Then props to you. But I wasn't able to do it or figure out how this would work. 

Edited February 21, 2021 by Someone here