Happiness Beyond Thought: A Practical Guide to Awakening
In everyday life our mind is filled with endless thoughts, roughly 60,000 every day. Memories of pains and pleasures, regrets of things we wish we hadn’t done or wish we had, things we wish we had said or hadn’t, things we will say or do in the future, etc., fill our days. Most of our days are filled with struggle, uncertainty, doubt and confusion.
We believe that without these thoughts, nothing can be accomplished, that we will be unhappy and unsuccessful in “life” and even in danger for our very survival. We believe that we are our thoughts and so do this thinking, thinking, thinking from when we wake up until we fall asleep and even in our dreams.
Unfortunately, this approach, as we all know, is unsuccessful; the stream of thoughts just doesn’t deliver the happiness and peace we want. Pleasures are short-lived, and never measure up to expectations, requiring more thoughts and greater effort, and more disappointments in the pursuit of the elusive lasting happiness.
“It is within your competence to think and become bound or cease thinking and thus be free.”
– Ramana Maharshi
Isn’t there a better approach to happiness, one that would make it possible for you to live a sane and holistic life while fully engaged in the activities of today’s world?
What if you could dramatically slow and perhaps stop the constant stream of thoughts? What if you could live with only occasional thoughts in a heightened awareness that is fully alert, aware and functional, and yet calm, peaceful and happy?
Thoughts would still be available for certain tasks, but they are now an instrument in the band, not the stressed-out, confused solo singer and guitar. “Mental” tasks, when they occur, are done with greater insight, clarity and perception as they no longer have to fight their way through unending competing stream of thoughts.
If you look at when you have had a unique insight, inspiration or revelation, an “ah ha” moment of stillness and clarity, that is what we do in this work – make such occurrences more likely. In fact, that becomes your principal state of being.