Bliss

What is it that we really want? What is the one thing at the core of our consciousness that is the driving force which motivates us to do all that we do?

The perfect Master explains that the root of each desire and every aspiration lies in one simple concept – happiness.

The simplicity of this truth takes nothing away from its profoundness or beauty. It is self-evident and needs no authentication. Everyone wants to be happy, and this is what motivates our every action, whether we are aware of it or not. But within the Master’s wisdom are two deeper messages that are often ignored or misunderstood.

First is that this simple concept called happiness, like so many other things in our lives, is still a concept.

What is a concept? It is a belief or a notion; an idea or a perception of something formed with limited or no actual experience of the real thing. In other words, what we have is just a notion of true happiness -an impression or theory of what it is, based on the short-lived happiness we have experienced in our physical lives. A quick review of our ‘happy memories’ verifies this – how long did any event that induced happiness last? A few days, a week, or a month? There will be a fortunate few who have perhaps experienced uninterrupted happiness for a year, but it would be a rare exception. Between illness, poverty, family and a myriad of other problems, the average human being feels short bouts of happiness at best, and that is the limited scope of our experience, which forms the basis of our concept of this thing we know as ‘happiness’.

Real happiness, the saints tell us, is uninterruptable. It is a state of consciousness that is unaffected by external factors and circumstances: one remains calm and serene in the midst of a thundering tempest, steady and composed in the midst of a stormy situation. There is neither excitement nor grief, neither up nor down – just the constant quiet ecstasy of stillness. And this is what the saints call ‘bliss’.

The second message hidden in the wisdom of the perfect Master relates to the actions we commit as a result of our motivation to obtain happiness. Everything is a game of cause and effect, and our desire for a specific outcome naturally induces us to take a specific course of action. If we believe that we will be happy with a better salary, we will work harder; if we feel we will be happier with more friends, we will be more sociable. Each action we take is the effect of our belief that a certain action will increase the happiness in our lives.

So it is that the Masters impel us to carefully consider our true goal, so that our actions will logically result in attainment of that goal. If we have outgrown our desire for short-lived, limited happiness, then a corresponding change in our actions needs to also take place -one that leads to the goal of an eternal, higher form of joy and contentment.

Through meditation of the sound current, as taught by the perfect Master, we are able to achieve that goal. It is a path of commitment and obedience that first engenders purity of heart and mind, which then slowly but inevitably, grows into a spiritual love. It is this that will carry the disciple one day, from the concept of worldly happiness to the reality of true eternal bliss.