An inward journey towards true happiness
The trapdoor leading our minds to the depths of unhappiness is made of hope & anxiety. The hope of what “could” and anxiety of what “shouldn’t” happen.
Both “could” and “shouldn’t” are notions that exist either in the future or in the past. Someone “shouldn’t” have died. I “could” be a big shot. All such notions are the real roots of unhappiness. For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: ‘It could have been!’
Whatever has happened or will happen cannot be controlled. Therefore, destroying the “could” and “shouldn’t” of one’s mind is the biggest battle a person will ever fight to achieve true happiness.
Yet it requires not engaging in this battle at all! Engaging would mean getting trapped into yet another “could”. It only requires letting go of the very root of these notions i.e., our self. It is a big submission because it means going against our evolutionary instincts as humans to safeguard ourselves and all that is associated with its ego.
What is the solution then? By merely repeating some words or ‘mantras’, we won’t submit “ourselves”. Letting go won’t happen with mere words. It will begin with feelings. Deep, consistent feelings. The journey begins once the absolute and the harsh reality of life hits us and makes us truly feel the ephemerality of life. Without a debilitating fear that death will take away our only chance of realizing a truly blessed and boundless self, the journey to submission won’t begin. The journey will actually begin when we channelize our mundane hopes and anxieties into a deep fear of losing to Death our only chance of realizing our true selves. Once this fear takes root, it does not let us stray into other hopes and anxieties. Everything else starts looking small in comparison. This then automatically starts our search to find our true self (the Sat Guru within). A self that keeps us precariously balanced on an emotional seesaw. If we constantly dwell on the fear of losing this glorious chance of life to death, we will slowly learn to submit ourselves. Because that would be the only way out now. Nothing else is going to work. It will make us constantly think about a higher power of self. We will start remembering it often via various names. With this remembrance, the fear will transform and will start taking the hues of longing and love of our true self- a self suffused with contentment, eternally at ease, remaining beyond the grasping talons of unhappiness.
The longing eventually metamorphoses into a swirling feeling of the true name (Naam). A condition when we are in unison with ourselves and with all that is around us and no-one remains a stranger. A condition when our entire being pulsates a million times with the true name, the essence of our true selves. A name that cannot really be uttered but only felt. When the gratitude is all-pervasive. A condition when we really serve our true self (our Satguru). A condition when we become the ecstasy itself. A condition when we start hearing the unstruck cosmic music that always plays within and around us. A condition when love is the only feeling that remains.
When this boundless love carries us a step beyond this blissful condition, even our true self vanishes. All that is left is nothing. Absolutely nothing. The nothingness that remains is the only truth and the whole truth. The entire universe has come about from nothingness and all that remains within us is nothingness. This is the place to be.
~An adaptation from the works of Guru Nanak.
