True happiness and how to achieve it

The last time I went into a book store, I was amazed by just how many books there were on happiness. Just about everyone has an idea of how to achieve it. It isn’t even just the psychologists, monks or pastors who think they know. Almost everyone I’ve met on the streets has tried to teach me about happiness by telling me about a philosophy they live by, or some practice they do and worse, rules they follow every day in order stay happy. I know I am going to sound like one of those people too. After all, if you don’t know me, you’re not going to believe that I am actually happy, right?

Now, one of the most fundamental mistakes I find people make when they’re defining happiness, is to bring someone or something else into it. Many books speak about happiness and “being wealthy” in the same breath, when the two are actually incompatible with each other. You cannot be wealthy and be happy at the same time, not in our world, because in our world, all economic activity is exploitative—no exceptions. You may think that your job, for example, isn’t hurting anyone, but follow the chain of events in which you participate and you will find that not only are your actions destructive, they are totally unnecessary. This is something most people aren’t willing to admit, but I am not here to convince you of that. You just have to learn to be honest with yourself.

Yet another kind of philosophy turns to things like God. Christians, especially, love to preach about how we must “find God” in order to find happiness. If that were true, everyone would be happy, because everyone has already found God. God is within you, all the time. He is what makes your heart beat and your breath work. He is your inner voice, believe it or not. He is your “conscience”, your guide on how to be. He does all this naturally, all the time. Everyone has heard from God at some point in their lives. He is not some alien presence, not something you cannot reach. In fact, most of you spend all night with Him, when you are asleep. So all of you should be waking up with a smile on your face, because you’ve spent a third of your life with God already.

But that’s not happening, is it? Americans are less and less happy. Our young people are falling into a hell-hole that many will never crawl out of—a deep, cynical depression where they feel no happiness whatsoever. Apparently our seniors are doing well, or so they say, but I’ve met a lot of seniors on my travels and I can tell you they are delusional beyond imagining, thinking that having a nice life is about doing nothing, having nice lunches, spending time traveling the country, seeing family or some such nonsense. I’ve yet to meet a senior that I wasn’t able to drive to the point of unbridled anger just by asking a few personal questions about faith and such. The truth of the matter is that our seniors are actually quite angry because they’ve never answered the biggest questions they’ve had and are hoping to hide from life somehow. It doesn’t work.

Honesty

Ask yourself, honestly. Are you happy right now? I don’t want you to just look at your house or whatever and say, “yeah I have everything I need”. This isn’t a question of material wealth or success, nor am I looking for some politician-style answer that goes “well I am happy enough”, or “who’s really happy?”. This is not a question about what happiness means, or what happiness is. Often, I find that when I ask someone the question, their answer is to try and redefine happiness so that it fits their current state in some way. This is not the point.

I want you to look inside, accept the pain, and admit how you really feel. I want you to look at the world we live in and ask yourself if you can be happy with it. Can you really be happy while young people suffer? Can you really be happy while there are others on the planet unable to feed themselves or get a drink of clean water whenever they need it? Can you really be happy when the products you want are made by enslaved workers who are paid a pittance?

And this is the real problem. Your body is happy when it receives the basics. Once you are fed, watered, sheltered, etc., your physical body is just fine. It won’t ask for anything more. Your psyche, if you have one, is influenced by the world, so its happiness is defined by fulfillment of desires or the achievement of a particular outcome you hoped for. So they are really easy to satisfy. For example, if I gave you an ice cream on a hot day, your body will be driven to happiness, instantly. It really doesn’t take much.

But at the level of energies, well, that’s a whole different matter. At the level of energies, you cannot be happy unless you have resolved all outstanding issues that are keeping you from happiness. And these outstanding issues all have to do with only one thing: understanding the world, i.e. why‍ ‍things are the way they are.

Action does not lead to happiness

Action, no matter what, will never lead you to happiness. You cannot, for example, volunteer your way to it. You cannot pray or meditate your way into happiness. You cannot practice breath work, mindfulness, exercise, spend time in nature, socialize with friends, take care of family, drive a car, get it? All of these things are simply actions. They are a consequence of the world in which you live, that’s all. If you live in a fisherman’s colony, you will fish. If you live among health care professionals, well that’s what you do. And when I say “live”, I am not talking about your apartment, but the world in which you find yourself, which, for most Americans is defined more by their work than anything else. Your actions are simply a result of what your world allows and wants. It’s got nothing to do with anything. I mean it—your actions are irrelevant to your spiritual progress, happiness, whatever.

What you must do, in fact, is stop acting and be silent. When I say that you must stop acting, I am not asking you to give up whatever you are doing and sit silently and passively on purpose. There is definitely a time for that, but that is not what non-action is. Not acting means that you give up action at a spiritual level, allowing it to happen by itself. In other words, you give up trying to act or not act and let it simply unfold. This is basically allowing God to take over and act on your behalf, which is itself something you cannot do.

If this isn’t clear, ask yourself: can you give up doing something, by doing nothing? Doing itself is an act, whether or not you physically move. So you cannot give up doing, by trying not to do something. What then, is the solution? Simple: someone else must do it to you.

The role of a guru

The word guru literally means “dispeller of darkness”, but there are other meanings. What a guru does, is alter your system so that your illusions of control, action, ownership, etc. are all eliminated. Only a guru can do this, because it takes the original creator to know what to change and what to keep intact. No one is allowed to manipulate the system.

It is for this reason that I keep telling you to come to me. No, I am not a guru—I am a yogi and there’s a difference there. But the guru is your own inner intelligence. You must not trust some random stranger to guide you throughout your life. It is your own inner guidance that is trustworthy. Do not be confused by words: while I too say that I offer guidance, my guidance is not about what you should do and not do. The guidance I offer is only understanding—it is only your inner guru that can guide your actions. Why? Because at the end of the day, you came here to live the way you want, which includes fulfilling any desires you carry. When your actions are guided by some outside entity, they will lead you towards their desires, not yours.

To be blunt, my role is one of a trash collector, or the garbage disposal unit in your sink. All I do is take the trash out, give it to the Divine Feminine, and She destroys it. Once She’s gotten rid of the trash, She tells God what to do and He takes over. It’s as simple as that—we are just a group of intelligences working together for your benefit, nothing more. Even the names I use, such as God, the Divine Feminine, etc., are just labels. You can call them anything you want. I am just using traditional terms.

Only when all your false ideas about who you are and what you do are eliminated can you start to see life clearly. And once you see life clearly, you will understand what is happening in the world: why there are homeless people, why we keep having wars, why there is poverty and inequality, etc. Most importantly, you will understand what you are expected to be in this world, i.e. your role in the world will become clear to you.

You cannot do this yourself

This whole process by which your energy is cleansed and you are rewired is something you cannot do yourself. You don’t have the understanding, the tools, the experience, etc. You must go to someone who can do this for you. There is a good reason that people like me ask you to come to us and spend time with us. Our energy, to give you an analogy, functions like an ultrasonic cleaner. Being in our presence shakes your garbage lose, making it easier to collect. Yes, all this happens instantly in the spiritual world, but in the real world, where you experience the results, the cleansing happens over time, not instantaneously. In other words, what I do for you spiritually in a single instant (by the time I look deeply into your eyes it’s already over), will take weeks, months, years, decades or a lifetime to unfold, depending on how committed you are and how much time you spend with me.

While you are with me, you don’t have to do anything. You can simply hang out as much you like and ask questions if you wish, sing, whatever. Certain things you shouldn’t do of course (I am sure you can guess what, like going to the toilet!), but in general, being still, sitting, chanting a mantra or singing a song—things like that are fine. Unfortunately, if you are looking for a mantra though, I have nothing to offer you, because I am a contemporary yogi. Like all yogis, I have evolved with the times, so I don’t use mantras, yantras, tantra, beads, incense, hallucinogens, prayers, effigies, pujas, worship or other kinds of nonsense that are no longer necessary. All you have to do, is be with me.

I know there are people out there who want you to believe that simply believing in some higher power will solve all your problems. If it were only that simple! Belief is a psychological phenomenon and it will do nothing to your energy system. There is a good reason people like me are put through what we are put through: so we can serve you. Don’t waste your time.

Transformation leads to happiness

Only when you have given up your limited personhood and become a normal human being with no particular identity, will you be happy. You must stop believing—at the deepest level—that you are a person, that you have a job, or are married, etc. All conceptual nonsense must leave you, never to return. You must not even have a feeling of self, i.e. when you say the word “I”, you should feel that the whole universe is saying “I”; there should be no feeling of individuality at all, because that is the truth. Yes, even your silly personal identity is nothing but a lie.

Once all ideas are beaten out of you—and you will feel sometimes that life is beating these things out of you—you will be fresh, clean and clear. Your energy system, physical body and your psyche will function properly. In fact, your psyche will be clear, meaning that it won’t make any noise. I, for example, experience no thoughts or feelings. I have deep emotions, but my mind and body are totally silent. They don’t speak up, they don’t talk, they don’t ask questions, they don’t resist. Energy flows through my system unimpeded. Every moment, I know what to do. And I receive an answer to every single question, whether I ask it or someone else does, instantly. My entire being is at peace.

This is the basic state of happiness, but it only goes up from there. There are level of happiness that I have no names for. I just group them all and call them “ecstasy”. And such a state is the real goal—to live at the pinnacle of happiness on this Earth.