Welcome to the premiere issue of Light-Up-Your-Life
Newsletter. The aim of this newsletter is to guide you
as you discover the very source of happiness and wisdom.
This source is so deep that it is unaffected by the
condition of your environment, your body and mind.
In this issue we will discuss why it is important to know
this. We will also mention the war now going on in Iraq.
This gets to the real meat of this issue. Can one actually
experience this state of joy of peace, even in a war zone?
If you have questions or comments please send me an email to:
michael@light-up-your-life.com.
First I would like to start off with a beautiful Poem by Rumi:
You and I
A moment of happiness,
you and I sitting on the verandah,
apparently two, but one in soul, you and I.
We feel the flowing water of life here,
you and I, with the garden's beauty and the birds singing.
The stars will be watching us,
and we will show them
what it means to be a thin crescent moon.
You and I unselfed, will be together, indifferent to idle speculation,
you and I.
The parrots of heaven will be cracking sugar
as we laugh together, you and I.
And what is even more amazing
is that while here together, you and I
are at this very moment in Iraq and Khorasan.
In one form upon this earth,
and in another form in a timeless sweet land.
From "Love is a Stranger"
by Rumi
translated by Kabir Helminski
copyright © Kabir Helminski
When I started writing the light-up-your-life web site the fist
point that I
wanted to make is that the source of happiness is right at your center. It
is before even the possibility of obstructions arise. Is it possible that we
can be happy all of the time? I ask this as a question because I love to question.
I also like to experience what I know. To me spiritual knowledge without direct
experience is dull and dry.
Our senses are designed to look out into the world. There is
no sense that looks
back into the source of happiness. Thus, we look out into the world and assign
a
person or object as the source of our happiness. Then we attempt to obtain our
happiness by getting that person or thing. When you look into what it takes
to
obtain happiness from an object or person in the world, you will clearly see
the
impossibility of finding lasting happiness from anything that we see.
So, here is the recipe for obtaining happiness from an ice cream cone:
1) Get the ice cream in good condition. That means it cannot
be too cold or too
soft so it melts and stains your new shirt. Also don't let the dog lick it first.
2) Preserve your appetite. The twentieth ice cream cone will
not taste as good
as the first one. With a stomachache you will not enjoy ice cream.
3) Make sure you are in the mood for the ice cream. If a car
hits your dog you could
drop the ice cream cone as you rush towards the dog. Make sure your boss doesn't
call you with bad news and do not get in an argument with your spouse.
From our recipe you can see that attaining lasting happiness
from anything is very
difficult. You have to obtain the object in good condition; you need to have
the capacity
to enjoy the object, and you have to be in the mood to enjoy it. In a relationship
you can
double the number of factors involved as both the moods of you and your spouse
etc.
have to be in the right condition to enjoy each other. All of these factors
are in constant
motion. Thus it feels as if your happiness is going up and down.
With such difficulty in finding happiness in anything, is it
any wonder that people feel
that suffering is just part of life. It's sophisticated and hip to romp in a
little suffering.
If your aim, however, is to find the source of happiness, the
first formula that you need
is Life does not equal Suffering. "How can this be?" you might ask.
It is because
happiness does not come from objects; it comes right from the place where
you experience it.
When you stop tolerating suffering as normal or natural, you
allow yourself to look into
your suffering, to investigate its cause and to naturally go deeper into your
innate freedom.
When you no longer accept suffering, you can rest naturally in that which is
really natural,
your own Self-Nature. For more on this see "Making
Your Wisdom Come Alive" at
www.light-up-your-life.com.
________________________________________________________________________
"Making
Your Wisdom Come Alive" is an eBook that
describes the Wisdom and Knowledge
that catapulted Sages such as Christ, Buddha, Lao Tsu, Moses and Sankara into
a state of
indescribable Bliss and Freedom? The good news is that if you wish, you too
can experience
this Wisdom directly. Step by step this book peels away the limitations that
appear to cause
suffering - allowing you to get to the core of your existence, which is the
source of infinite
Wisdom and Bliss.
_________________________________________________________________________
As promised I would like to mention the war in Iraq. Not to make a political
statement as that's
not the purpose of this newsletter. Rather let's look and see what some of the
frameworks are
in people's minds that cause war.
First, as we described above, people assign happiness to objects
in this world. However, it is
very difficult to get fulfillment and peace in a place where it doesn't exist.
That is when people
start seeing obstacles to this happiness. The following are some examples:
Power and control over people. This is one way a person can
attempt to gain this fulfillment. The
feeling of power appears to be the happiness that they are looking for. In order
to eliminate the
obstacle of a person's natural desire for freedom, a dictator can even torture
or kill people in the
misguided attempt to control his happiness.
Protecting the homeland. This is what some people call their
sense of happiness and peace. On
one side, they want to drive out the invaders whom they define as invading their
happiness. Even
if their homeland is ruled by a ruthless dictator, it doesn't matter. It's what
they define as home,
and they want to protect their home.
On the other side, they want to preempt a strike on their homeland
that they think will come later.
They want to keep the invaders away from their homeland.
Control of oil. Some people equate wealth with their sense of
happiness. A deep look however,
will show that wealth comes and goes while the source of happiness remains.
The drive for this sense of peace, which is really the drive
to discover your own Self-Nature -
your real home, is very powerful. The need to overcome these apparent obstacles
is very intense.
This intensity can lead to wars.
However, you can take this same intensity and use it to overcome
your own obstacles by examining
your assumptions about the source of happiness. Experiencing happiness at its
real source is experiencing
a great depth of wisdom - the peace that passes all understanding. This is what
is meant by the saying
that peace starts right in our own hearts.
We wish you the best until our next monthly issue.
Please feel free to contact me at michael@light-up-your-life.com.