(This is Part 12 of a series. Go back to Part 11.)
Now she asked herself a third question:
How can I be happy?
In my insatiable quest to reduce everything down to a simplistic level where I might understand it, and after decades of investigating various spiritual, psychological and transformative modalities, that simple question has emerged as an incredibly simple and powerful process.
I recommend letting the mind dwell on it at length, like a koan in Zen. And actually, as mentioned earlier, I recommend adding a few more words, like this:
How can I be really happy, appreciate reality as-it-is, and nurture the happiness of the world?
As far as I can tell, that seems to cover the various bases pretty well. Anyway, then the next question was:
What could I appreciate about the fear if I wanted to?
She pondered the question for a long time, then confessed that she had spent her whole life avoiding the fear inside, pushing it away, distracting herself from it, pretending it wasn't there. Now she looked within to see if there wasn't something she could appreciate about it, and came up with several things. But in that very looking she changed her relationship to fear.
As she did so, I swear to you, twenty years dropped from her face and she started laughing. Then we shared several good jokes back and forth. The next question was:
What could I appreciate about aloneness if I wanted to?
In pondering this, she came up with some answers, but more importantly, began to think of her loneliness and fear as simply misguided friends who were trying to be helpful rather than dark enemies. She was self-revealing her true inner self, a truly luminous being. The next question was:
How could I quickly and easily get a beautiful soulmate partner if I wanted to?
She began to think of various possibilities, playing with them, and laughed some more.
Then she went to this question:
How could I use these questions every day?
After pondering that she went back to this question:
How can I feel good right now?
At this she let out another deep breath and smiled a very deep smile, very relaxed. Finally, my friend went back to this question:
How can I be happy?...and contribute to the happiness of the world?
Now a whole world of possibilities of all kinds began to invade her mind. Her beautiful soul was shining through at this point and she was absolutely staggering, so radiant. That's how it was. I was seeing her natural self now—the natural self of all of us—and it was blindingly lovely and compassionate.
But that's the power of simple questions.
(This is the end of Part 12. Go to Part 13.)
—jim sloman, 9.8.03 for 8.28.04
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