“To be happy, all we have to do is allow ourselves to be.”From El refugio del corazón
It was winter in Holland, and the snow was falling with a terrible severity. I had arrived at a village where many meditators spend their time doing their practices, and since there was no room for me to stay, an elderly man rented me one of his cabins. I spent several weeks there meditating, with wool sweaters, hats and scarves to shelter me from a winter that grew more merciless every day.
I had spent many years searching outside and searching within, always wanting to find an object, an experience, a sensation or a line of reasoning that would bring me peace, harmony and fullness. I was looking for happiness insistently and with determination.
I remember a crystal-clear morning when I opened the window of the cabin. A few birds were fluttering over the meadow, and an almost icy air caressed my face. In front of the cabin, the trees, bare from the winter, looked like the gigantic guardians of a temple of mysteries.
That day I found myself without any anxiety of seeking. The mind was quiet, no thoughts were flowing, and I began to feel a fullness that I could not link to any event or any object, external or internal. Time and space became irrelevant. There was no reason for this to happen, and I let myself be carried along in innocence: peace first came in through my body, then it turned into an indescribable ecstasy and, finally, into a great clarity.
In that instant a very pure idea arose from my heart, like a deep voice of my Being speaking to my own self: man is the source of his own happiness. It was not my mind, that much is certain. I understood that each of us is responsible for our own happiness, and that there is no need to look for it outside, in anything or anyone.
An endless search
Happiness has become a desperate search for every human being. Although you may no longer remember it, in your early years the only thing that truly made you happy was the shelter and the love of your parents. Over time your demands kept changing, and it is quite possible that you are now convinced your happiness lies in your house, your work, your car, the well-being of your children or your health.
We look for it in professional achievements, in promotions, in the number of experiences we have. Or perhaps you have already resigned yourself, and you are one of those who say that happiness is never complete. We always live turned outward, trying to fill the voids of the soul with material objects and with the feelings of other people.
And it is very common, after a material or financial triumph, to feel a deep emptiness. That happens because these are situations that involve the ego, and there is no living experience of Being. Nothing we acquire fills the soul. Do you really believe that God created you so that you would be born, live, buy a house, a car, pay taxes, reproduce and die?
Existential, not experiential
Perhaps it is time for you to ask yourself what happiness really is. You will be surprised to learn that it has always been right under your nose.
There is a transitory happiness, which would not really be happiness, because it depends on what is external and gives us a very fleeting satisfaction. It is experiential happiness, the kind tied to the moment when you received or shared something precious, and then it was gone. And there is another, a lasting happiness, which comes from the deepest part of you. The first is a happiness of the ego; the second is the happiness of Being.
The happiness of Being is existential. This means it is nothing your mind can understand or fill: it is the simple understanding that your own essence is eternal and permanent. Happiness is like an ocean of existence; it is the simplicity of existing, of being eternally, free from the fear of being destroyed. What else could make you happy, if not that which gave you existence?
When we look for it in experiences, the mind locks it inside objects and moments. True happiness is when the mind collapses into the soul.
It is the mind that loses the Origin
If our Origin is happiness, why do we find it so hard to be happy? First, because we try to find it outside ourselves, and we will never find it there. Second, because we cannot even manage to say what it is.
Happiness is innate in our Consciousness, but we have lost contact with the Origin, and that is why it feels foreign to us. And it is the mind that loses contact with the Origin, not us, not our Being. The mind is only an instrument we use to find our way and to survive. We are not the mind; on the contrary, it is a barrier that keeps us away from our true reality.
The programming we receive from the system is precisely what disconnects us from this truth: that we ourselves are the source of our own happiness, the creators of our own experience. This is what I call domestication: the beliefs, customs and culture we grow up in, which make the soul forget its divine origin. So do not base your happiness on dogmas or beliefs that have been imposed on you. Do not turn God into someone who grants favors and privileges: fervently desire a real and living encounter with Him.
The soul wants to go home
That is why you feel in your heart an unfathomable desire to fill a void, which your mind mistakenly tries to fill with feelings, people and objects. But your soul is only seeking the return home, to go back to the divine Origin of its creation.
There are indefinable moments when the soul feels a longing and a quiet sadness that we cannot quite understand. In the midst of the bustle of everyday life, of the pleasure and stress of each day, the need slowly arises to look within, to surrender to our true Being.
What is natural for the soul is to live in innocence, which is the same as returning to the Origin. It is smiling at the freshness of dawn, sensing the tenderness of a kitten or a puppy, being moved by the slenderness of a rose or marveling at the majesty of a starry night. For me it was possible to find this fullness in the innocence within my heart, and I have dedicated my whole life to clearing my psyche, that whole inner world of thoughts, emotions and beliefs, to reach this certainty that flows from within me.
Allow yourself to be
Happiness is not chased: it is allowed. When we allow ourselves to Be, without giving power to the mind, a whole dimension opens up that already exists in us. Being free from the search for an object or an experience brings us peace, and where there is peace, there is happiness. When we are naturally happy, true love can flow, and where there is love, there is Divinity.
You do not need to go to temples; you only need to go within yourself. Everything you experience comes from you; that is why you can heal and transform whatever causes you pain, until the clarity within you leads you to remember who you really are: the Divine Presence that lives full of joy.
That winter day, nothing came to me from outside. I simply found myself without the anxiety of seeking, and something that had always been there opened up in me. Do you want to be happy? Allow yourself to be.
From Dr. Zuluan Orion's books: El refugio del corazón · Deshojando el Corazón de la Eternidad