(This is Part 5 of a series. Go back to Part 4.)
The spiritual search, almost by definition, focuses on altering our way of seeing the world. Our focus on the external world lessens and we begin to pay more attention to what's going on in our internal world.
In particular, we begin to notice that our happiness has a lot more to do with our internal world than it does with our external world. We begin to become aware that our thoughts, the way we think about ourselves and the world has a tremendous effect on how we feel.
So this is the stage of happiness where we learn to control, to some extent, not the external world now but our internal one. In effect, we begin to rise on a scale from negative to positive in how we feel and in how we negotiate our way in the world.
An example. Suppose our experiences have led us to believe that the universe is inherently indifferent to us, or worse, actively against us. For instance, we might feel that we're unlucky or that God doesn't care about us or that nothing we do ever seems to work out well.
These are just thoughts, of course, not reality, yet they can become our reality more and more as we dwell in them, as we identify with them, as we collect more and more evidence that our fundamental beliefs are true.
So on this second stage we learn to transform those negative thoughts into positive ones. For example, we might learn that God loves us, that the universe is a caring place, that we are God's children and cared about, that we are inherently worthy and valuable.
Such ideas and their many cousins can have a huge influence on our happiness. We feel more secure, more empowered, more competent. God is on our side, God is walking beside us, angels are protecting us, God is our co-pilot, the universe is inherently good.
We learn, in other words, to directly influence our state of mind through more empowering ways of looking at existence and forming beliefs about it. These new ways of seeing and believing, in turn, powerfully increase our happiness and well-being.
On this website we've tried to look at some of the best of those ways, ways such as affirmations, visualizations, prayers, mantras, etc., all of which can lead us to greater degrees of well-being on various levels.
As the mind/ego/persona discovers how to become more positive in its outlook, not only do we feel better, in fact a great deal better, but we notice that the external world responds as well. It would have to, of course, since the world is a kind of duplicating machine for whatever we're projecting.
In this stage of the spiritual journey, we notice that our "vibration" increases. As the beliefs and perceptions that fill our mind become more positive, it can be said that we vibrate at a higher frequency. At this higher frequency we attract more of what we want.
All well and good. Yet we may still notice that our happiness is incomplete. Rarified, but incomplete. Much more successful, but still incomplete.
And, sooner or later, we may begin to connect that incompleteness with the very act, the very process itself of getting what we want.
We're still trying to get what we want; it's just that now we've learned a more efficient process for it. We've noticed that trying to control or manipulate the world so that we'll be happy is inefficient compared to working on our internal world. Not that we abandon the first stage, but we add this second stage to it.
Now we have two levels of happiness—a degree of control of our external world and some degree of control over our internal world. We're moving up the scale from negative to positive.
Now, instead of feeling helpless, angry, forsaken at the bottom extreme, we feel more and more competent, powerful, positive, hopeful. We're smiling at the world, we're projecting positivity into our world and the world is smiling back.
At this stage our love for the world and the people in it deepens. We learn to see the good in people, we learn to see the good in the world, and we notice that the more we love the world the more it loves us back.
But after awhile we may notice that we still have a motive: We inculcate positive thoughts so that we'll feel good. We think powerful thoughts so that we'll be successful. We love others so that they will love us. And all this is good. It's all good.
But after awhile we may begin to notice, as said above, that we still possess a motive. We're doing what we're doing in order to feel as good as possible. It's still a self-centered operation; it's still serving the personal self. And there's the rub.
After awhile we may begin to notice that even this more subtle form of control is actually painful at a deep level. It's the darnedest thing. We begin to notice that even at the top of the positivity scale there's still a subtle but persistent feeling of disjointedness.
This is so, we come to realise, because the separate self—even a very successful one—is inherently painful, precisely because it is separate.
We notice, too, that this inherent sense of separateness cannot be overcome by the greatest success, by the most gratifying relationships, the most wonderful pleasures, or even by the greatest peak experiences.
We notice that everything that is born—even peak experiences—dies. Everything that arises also fades away. We deeply notice that we can't really hold onto anything. Anything at all. Everything is fleeting, even ourselves.
That is when we may become drawn to something else. We may notice now that we have a more important goal than being successful or feeling good or even being loving. And that is that we want to know the truth.
Even if it means feeling terrible, we want to know the truth. Even if it means dying, we want to know the truth. What is reality really? Who am I really?
And we want to know it not as a belief system, not as some answer that can be written down somewhere, but for real. Who is it that want to succeed? Who is it that wants to feel good? Who or what am I?
(This is the end of Part 5. Go to Part 6.)
—jim sloman, 4.9.06
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