Mass Density

Whether we realize it or not, our lives are on the verge of a dramatic paradigm shift based on the emerging discoveries of quantum physicists. This is a shift none of us will escape, so we must ask the question: will the belief systems we’ve created be able to endure the change? When it was discovered that the earth orbited the sun, humanity was forced not only to change its understanding of the physical universe, but also many of the belief systems that had resulted from earlier misconceptions. The church lost its position as sole arbiter of truth, and was forced to accept the ascendancy of scientific thought. Religion again faces the challenge of dramatic scientific upheaval. While Eastern philosophies neatly co-exist with expanding quantum discoveries, Western theology often appears to be directly at odds with it.

Western culture has evolved from the concept that God and spirit stand outside a universe that is made up of a collection of separate, static, unconscious parts. But at the quantum level, subatomic particles participate in an energy exchange that is so dynamic, it can only be described in terms of interconnectedness or oneness, which precludes anything from existing in isolation. The term “non-local” has been coined to describe the fact that it is impossible for a subatomic particle, much like a drop of ocean water, to exist in any one particular place. Even at the level of form, the universe can no longer be thought of in terms of separation. Scientists explain that the brain allows us to translate the oneness of the unrelenting quantum energy exchange into a virtual reality, where material form appears as real. Since quantum oneness is real and the separation that exists in the material realm a mere illusion, what will happen to the dualistic belief systems that dominate Western religious thought?

Doubtless a large percentage of Bible based teachings will be rendered invalid by quantum discoveries, but this does not necessarily mean that all of Jesus’ teachings will be discredited as well. Since Western religion evolved from a perspective that favored duality, it follows that Jesus’ disciples interpreted his words from that perspective. But how would they have understood Jesus’ words and actions if they had grasped the oneness of all things? When we began to reevaluate Jesus’ teachings from a quantum perspective, we were gratified to find that a pattern started to emerge, one that demonstrated Jesus’ understanding of the unified nature of the universe and shed new light on the significance of his life and teachings.

Physicist David Bohm’s holographic model likens the material universe to a three-dimensional holographic image; the image appears to be real, but it’s actually no more than a projection, a virtual reality. Unlike photographic film, holographic film carries no recognizable image, but spreads the image over a series of intersecting patterns that appear on its surface. The “real” part of a hologram is the film, not the projected image. Bohm likens the quantum level of the universe to the holographic film and sees it as the source of all potential and the seat of consciousness. From that standpoint, the material universe is no more than an illusion that’s projected from reality existing at the quantum level. Research in other fields such as neurophysiology, is confirming that the brain acts as a receiving unit for the conscious mind. This makes humans the projected illusions of intention originating from a mind that exists as quantum consciousness!

This is a far cry from the Bible’s teaching that God created the earth as a home for man, His ultimate creative achievement. We cannot help but ask why this virtual reality show is taking place? There are two things that can never be experienced in oneness: separation and specialness. To experience separation and specialness, a world of matter and form became necessary. God gave his children free will, and allows them to exercise that will fully. Unfortunately, as we witness each day, separation and specialness cannot be experienced without a great deal of misery. If there is a “me,” there must be a “you,” and if we are each striving to be special, only one of us can win. The illusion of good also produces the illusion of evil, the illusion of wealth produces poverty, and the illusion of health produces sickness. Virtual reality is the only way the game of separation and specialness can be played without any real harm coming to the participants. Since we have not stepped outside of God’s will by playing this game, we cannot be sinners. But did we make a mistake when we chose to play the game of separation? If Jesus did not die for nonexistent sin, was his death meant to make a far different point?

The Bible writers were not Jesus’ only biographers. The authors of the Gnostic gospels were also among Jesus’ earliest followers, yet they chronicled his life from a distinctively different perspective. Gnostic Christians did not see sin as the violation of a moral code, rather as a mistake in judgment that was made when the children of God chose to project the illusion of separation. It is ignorance of our true identity that keeps us trapped in illusion. The Gospel of Truth encourages us to, “cast ignorance aside as sleep, leaving it behind like a dream in the night.” Jesus regularly urged his followers to recognize their true identity because, “Whoever finds himself is superior to the world.” He encouraged them to seek a kingdom that was not part of this world, but is out true home.

These realizations lead to a new interpretation of Jesus’ miracles. The miracles can be seen from two perspectives; either that Jesus was the “only begotten” son of God that was given special powers, or, that Jesus understood that miracles are no more than a choice that is made from a variety of quantum possibilities. Research has revealed that subatomic particles can best be described as “potentialities,” that exist in a fluid state until a conscious choice solidifies them. From a quantum perspective, a miracle amounts to choosing a potential from the limitless array of particle/wave possibilities that the majority of humans do not choose. The miracle appears extraordinary only because that potential is rarely chosen. Rather than claiming any special position or powers, the Gospel of Thomas quotes Jesus as saying, “I am not your master. . . He who will drink from my mouth will become as I am; I myself will become he. . . When you come to know yourselves . . . you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living Father.”

What then of Jesus’ death and resurrection? When we understand that everything is God, we see the impossibility of offering anything to God, including worship or sacrifice. If God had required Jesus’ sacrifice, God would have been offering God to God to atone for God, a concept that sounds insane because it is insane. Gnostic writers report that Jesus appeared as many different bodies before his death, a demonstration that was clearly designed to encourage his followers to question the reality of the body and their relationship to the body. The Apocalypse of Peter states that during the crucifixion of a body that Jesus had projected, his true Self remained untouched, laughing above the cross. Jesus projected several different bodies after the crucifixion to demonstrate that even the most appalling treatment of the body cannot affect the true Self that exists at the quantum level. Although Jesus had not been sent to suffer and die on our behalf, when circumstances brought that experience, he used the opportunity to show, in an undeniable manner, that death is no more real than any other experience we choose to project.

Gnostic writers agree that Jesus’ function was not that of savior, but rather a guide and teacher. The Gospel of Truth states, “He appeared, informing them of the Father” and “gave them a path” by “inspiring them with that which is in the mind.” He was a child of God who had chosen to play the game of separation, but had seen its futility and ultimately recognized his true identity. He understood from personal experience that his followers had become lost in the game and needed to be reminded that they were far more than the human body they projected. He asked his followers to carefully consider why they would want to continue to store their treasures in a virtual reality where everything eventually comes to nothing when they could return to the limitless reality of their quantum existence. Jesus chose to return to oneness, what will you choose? ©copyright 2007 Lee & Steven Hager

About the Author
Lee & Steven Hager are the authors of Quantum Prodigal Son, an examination of Jesus’ life and teaching from the perspective of quantum mechanics and the Gnostic gospels. For more information please go to: www.oroborusbooks.com.

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How many times have you turned to music to uplift you even further in happy times, or sought the comfort of music when melancholy strikes?

Music affects us all. But only in recent times have scientists sought to explain and quantify the way music impacts us at an emotional level. Researching the links between melody and the mind indicates that listening to and playing music actually can alter how our brains, and therefore our bodies, function.

It seems that the healing power of music, over body and spirit, is only just starting to be understood, even though music therapy is not new. For many years therapists have been advocating the use of music in both listening and study for the reduction of anxiety and stress, the relief of pain. And music has also been recommended as an aid for positive change in mood and emotional states.

Michael DeBakey, who in 1966 became the first surgeon to successfully implant an artificial heart, is on record saying: “Creating and performing music promotes self-expression and provides self-gratification while giving pleasure to others. In medicine, increasing published reports demonstrate that music has a healing effect on patients.”

Doctors now believe using music therapy in hospitals and nursing homes not only makes people feel better, but also makes them heal faster. And across the nation, medical experts are beginning to apply the new revelations about music’s impact on the brain to treating patients.

In one study, researcher Michael Thaut and his team detailed how victims of stroke, cerebral palsy and Parkinson’s disease who worked to music took bigger, more balanced strides than those whose therapy had no accompaniment.

Other researchers have found the sound of drums may influence how bodies work. Quoted in a 2001 article in USA Today, Suzanne Hasner, chairwoman of the music therapy department at Berklee College of Music in Boston, says even those with dementia or head injuries retain musical ability.

The article reported results of an experiment in which researchers from the Mind-Body Wellness Center in Meadville, Pa., tracked 111 cancer patients who played drums for 30 minutes a day. They found strengthened immune systems and increased levels of cancer-fighting cells in many of the patients.

“Deep in our long-term memory is this rehearsed music,” Hasner says. “It is processed in the emotional part of the brain, the amygdala. Here is where you remember the music played at your wedding, the music of your first love, that first dance. Such things can still be remembered even in people with progressive diseases. It can be a window, a way to reach them.”

The American Music Therapy Organization claims music therapy may allow for “emotional intimacy with families and caregivers, relaxation for the entire family, and meaningful time spent together in a positive, creative way”.

Scientists have been making progress in its exploration into why music should have this effect. In 2001 Dr. Anne Blood and Robert Zatorre of McGill University in Montreal, used positron emission tomography, or PET scans, to find out if particular brain structures were stimulated by music.

In their study, Blood and Zatorre asked 10 musicians, five men and five women, to choose stirring music. The subjects were then given PET scans as they listened to four types of audio stimuli - the selected music, other music, general noise or silence. Each sequence was repeated three times in random order.

Blood said when the subjects heard the music that gave them “chills,” the PET scans detected activity in the portions of the brain that are also stimulated by food and sex.

Just why humans developed such a biologically based appreciation of music is still not clear. The appreciation of food and the drive for sex evolved to help the survival of the species, but “music did not develop strictly for survival purposes,” Blood told Associated Press at the time.

She also believes that because music activates the parts of the brain that make us happy, this suggests it can benefit our physical and mental well being.

This is good news for patients undergoing surgical operations who experience anxiety in anticipation of those procedures.

Polish researcher, Zbigniew Kucharski, at the Medical Academy of Warsaw, studied the effect of acoustic therapy for fear management in dental patients. During the period from October 2001 to May 2002, 38 dental patients aged between 16 and 60 years were observed. The patients received variations of acoustic therapy, a practice where music is received via headphones and also vibrators.

Dr Kucharski discovered the negative feelings decreased five-fold for patients who received 30 minutes of acoustic therapy both before and after their dental procedure. For the group that heard and felt music only prior to the operation, the fearful feelings reduced by a factor of 1.6 only.

For the last group (the control), which received acoustic therapy only during the operation, there was no change in the degree of fear felt.

A 1992 study identified music listening and relaxation instruction as an effective way to reduce pain and anxiety in women undergoing painful gynecological procedures. And other studies have proved music can reduce other ‘negative’ human emotions like fear, distress and depression.

Sheri Robb and a team of researchers published a report in the Journal of Music Therapy in 1992, outlining their findings that music assisted relaxation procedures (music listening, deep breathing and other exercises) effectively reduced anxiety in pediatric surgical patients on a burn unit.

“Music,” says Esther Mok in the AORN Journal in February 2003, “is an easily administered, non-threatening, non-invasive, and inexpensive tool to calm preoperative anxiety.”

So far, according to the same report, researchers cannot be certain why music has a calming affect on many medical patients. One school of thought believes music may reduce stress because it can help patients to relax and also lower blood pressure. Another researcher claims music allows the body’s vibrations to synchronize with the rhythms of those around it. For instance, if an anxious patient with a racing heartbeat listens to slow music, his heart rate will slow down and synchronize with the music’s rhythm.

Such results are still something of a mystery. The incredible ability that music has to affect and manipulate emotions and the brain is undeniable, and yet still largely inexplicable.

Aside from brain activity, the affect of music on hormone levels in the human body can also be quantified, and there is definite evidence that music can lower levels of cortisol in the body (associated with arousal and stress), and raise levels of melatonin (which can induce sleep). It can also precipitate the release of endorphins, the body’s natural painkiller.

But how does music succeed in prompting emotions within us? And why are these emotions often so powerful? The simple answer is that no one knows yet. So far we can quantify some of the emotional responses caused by music, but we cannot yet explain them. But that’s OK. I don’t have to understand electricity to benefit from light when I switch on a lamp when I come into a room, and I don’t have to understand why music can make me feel better emotionally. It just does - our Creator made us that way.

Duane Shinn is the author of the popular free 101-week online e-mail newsletter titled “Amazing Secrets Of Exciting Piano Chords & Sizzling Chord Progressions” with over 84,400 current subscribers.

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A long time ago, in a land not so very far away, a guy named Rene dreamt up a phrase that has served us greatly and at the same time caused a major shift from which we have yet to recover. He said “I think, therefore I am”, or “Cogito ergo sum” in Latin. Dubbed the “Founder of Modern Philosophy”, Descartes certainly contributed a lot to modern thought.

However, we humans, once we get thinking, seem to have a strong tendency to over-simplify and take things to extremes. An example of this is the distortion of the text “All wrongdoing can be traced to an excessive attachment to material wealth.” which is found in the writings of the Apostle Paul and is often shortened (incorrectly) to “Money is the root of all evil.” Why the key concept is left out of the common expression, that of excessive attachment, I’ll leave to others to decipher. For now, this is an excellent example of how easy it is to lose sight of what is actually being said and how ideas can become very distorted and end up expressed in manners that are actually very different or even the opposite of what they were originally.

Another example of this is the common American expression “I could care less”, which really means “I couldn’t care less about the subject we are discussing” but has been abbreviated and has become the opposite expression. I’ve even heard it further abbreviated to “I could care”, which is another meaning altogether. And, while I’m riding this hobby horse, ponder the meaning of the organization called the “High Tech Crime Unit”. While the people who work there are actually law enforcement folks, it certainly sounds more like the title you’d give to an organization that conducts high tech crime, not one that fights it.

So, back to Descartes or more properly, his notion that if one thinks, one exists. Taken on its own, this notion is not so hard to swallow. The real problem has arisen in that westerners have taken this notion to extremes and this has gotten in the way of having healthier lives. We focus way too much on thoughts and our minds and not enough on the rest of our selves.

Much of modern psychoanalysis is based on discovering the why behind something we do or feel. It is a thinking exercise, for which one can spend many thousands of dollars and hundreds and hundreds of hours. Once one finds a “reason” for acting in a certain way or feeling “X”, one can then devote more time to reframing it, understanding it, etc. etc.

If we consider for a moment that we humans are more than just our brains / minds, then we might discover that solving problems using only our minds and thoughts is a limited approach. Yes, there has been a lot of research of late showing the mind/body connection, but most of it focuses on how we can change our body by “harnessing” the power of our “subconscious” mind. Think weight loss, stopping smoking, breaking free of addictions, and similar applications of mind over matter.

Fortunately, some research has pointed out the opposite type of effect. Putting a smile on your face, even if you do not feel like smiling at the time, will usually effect a change in mood. Try it now. Wait, before you start to smile, write down on a piece of paper how good you are feeling on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest score. OK - now start. Hold it on your face, the smile, that is. Notice if you are feeling more like smiling or anything else. For most people, this simple physical act will effect a mood change of some sort, usually towards a more positive frame of mind. This shows the mind/ body connection which flows in the direction of body to mind.

Other research, based in part on the theories of the much-awarded biologist Dr. Lynn Margulis, that the eukaryotic cell (basic human cell) is a symbiotic union of primitive prokaryotic cells - the cells in our body are the result of a cooperative marriage of a group of simpler cells way back in the primordial soup. These cells got together and formed a super-cell which incorporated all of them - and we can see this by looking at the specialized functions of the organelles inside the human cell. Each of the major bodily functions that we find in the human body is replicated in each and every cell - reproduction, taking in raw materials, building cell components, converting energy, and releasing by-products, etc. etc.

What’s all this biology got to do with thinking and Descartes? Quite simply, if each of our cells is actually a modern version of a compilation of what used to be separate simpler cells and if each of these cells had some level of consciousness before it joined the primordial human cell group and got absorbed, then what is stopping us from having multiple awarenesses inside ourselves? Each of these originating cellular organisms could have maintained their awareness/consciousness after they joined the human cell.

For example, have you ever noticed how “one part of you” wants to do something and “another part” doesn’t? If your heart is breaking over a loss, is your mind able to think clearly? Do you ever listen to your “gut” instinct? These are all signs that you are more than just your mind.

Another examples is when people study meditation, they are often told that “they” are not their thoughts. They are shown how to observe their thoughts. So “who” is observing their thoughts? Could it be one of the other awarenesses inside them?

This essay is about the problem of looking for cognition, so rather than go into more detail about this theory of multiple awarenesses inside us, I’ll just point you at the book on Peak States of Consciousness by Grant McFetridge that explains the theory in more detail. You can also check out the research done by the folks at HeartMath, where they have been investigating the consciousness of the human Heart. And, in yogic traditions, they talk about the five koshas, or layers (Physical, Energy, Mental, Wisdom, Bliss), which also is suggestive of different consciousnesses.

The problem of focusing on cognition first

Even when we know what was the cause of a problem, we have not actually solved it. If we “know” that we are sad about today’s situation because we never healed a wound we suffered when we were a child, this cognition/ understanding does not itself resolve the issue or heal the pain, and might be totally wrong anyway - it is just what we are able to think about the problem, at that moment in time. It is not uncommon for us to draw one conclusion about something one day, and another conclusion several weeks or months later.

If the real source of the problem was, say, the body’s fear of dying, all our mind can do about it is think about it - it cannot feel it the way our body can. The same applies to the feelings in our heart - our mind can think about these feelings, but does not experience them. If you cut your finger, thinking about the bleeding and the physical act of covering it with a bandage are not the same thing.

There is a connection, but stopping the bleeding by using only our thoughts is something beyond most of us (and I suspect that those that can do this are not using their minds to do it anyway - they are not thinking about the healing needed - they are just connected to “whatever” will actually do the healing.)

So, using only our brains / minds to “understand” a wound does not effect change, in and of itself.

On the other hand, there is a great role for the cognitions that arise, after an emotional wound has been healed. Using regression-based, fully associated healing like the Whole Hearted Healing method, as explained in the Whole Hearted Healing Manual, one can regress back to the earliest incident of a “wound” (usually starting with an emotional issue), stay fully present with that wound until it heals, wait until one feels Calm, Peaceful, and Light and then, waiting for just a little while longer, receive a cognition about the “wound”.

This cognition may take the form of a thought or a feeling. Whatever form the cognition takes, it will arise naturally, without mental effort and with less likelihood of the mind distortion that comes when we try to reason things that involve body sensations, images or emotions.

Thinking - the Booby Prize?

Our world has prized thinking for quite some time now. We are taught to seek out cognitions concerning our problems first and foremost, and then to try to fix what is wrong by somehow applying these cognitions to our lives. The best we can hope from this sort of approach is that we temporarily disassociate ourselves from a problem by escaping from the pain we feel into thoughts which may distract us. How many people who “know” that eating healthier would benefit them, for example, actually take that knowledge into account when confronted with some delectable? Given the size of the weight control industry (no pun intended), I would hazard a guess that the number is rather small.

Given that we are now becoming more and more aware that thinking about a problem is not the same as fixing it, and that we harbor inside us multiple awarenesses / consciousnesses, it may be time to modify our problem-solving approach to one that addresses the multiplicity of the elements of which we are constituted.

With the guardians of the “talk-and-think-yourself-well” brigade, therapists and counselors, being sued for lack of results and sometimes even harm caused to patients, and an ever-increasing interest in techniques that resolve issues using energy-based methods like EFT and fully associated techniques like Whole Hearted Healing, the groundswell away from Rene and his narrow focus on just one of the parts of a human whole is appearing on the horizon.

About the Author
Robert S. Vibert teaches Total Holistic Awareness, an integral program for self-enrichment and emotional wound healing based on the most advanced methods available. Copyright Robert S. Vibert January 2006 all rights reserved. First published on www.real-personal-growth.com.

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There is really only one certainty in life. Life is uncertain. We often live as though nothing will change, but it does. This continuous battle between wanting things to stay the same and finding that nothing does stay the same creates something inside us. This creation of constant change is a movement, a force of nature, and a guiding path. This movement within us and outside us is the spirit of living, of which, we all take part in.

None of us can predict the future. This creates uncertainty on the human level, yet we all learn to trust and even welcome change in the deepest part of who we are. No one is perfect, we wake up each day with the opportunity to create something different in every moment. When we come to expect the unexpected, we are beginning to trust in a wisdom greater than knowledge to lead us through each day. Religious communities call this the path of God, science calls this higher consciousness, but for our purposes - let’s call this the path we were meant to follow with certainty in uncertainty.

To move toward something we cannot see creates uneasiness. This part of us is our human nature. Our human nature wants things in life to be predictable. At the same time, there are things in human existence that we are also glad to leave behind and in the past. Have you ever noticed how the heart and the mind feel like they are being pulled forward by a magnetic force when we follow what we cannot see or feel? It is as though our whole body/self is being drawn into an experience.

This pathless path is one we all take each day and each moment. Wonder what would happen if you were to live for these moments and find joy in them? I suspect you would find yourself becoming more and more living in the state of anticipated joy. This does not mean that nothing in the future will be sad, but you can begin to accept each moment with anticipated joy in knowing that the awareness of this anticipated joy will fill you. It will be the filling of your body with the joy of living. The joy of living fully in soul. And, the uncertainty of the future will be met with joyful trust that all will be known when the time is right for us to know.

Such a journey was known to us as a child. Do you remember laying on the ground and finding yourself breathing in the aroma of the ground and grass? As an adult, I suspect you don’t have such clarity with your senses. Let us never forget that child inside us that knew how to play all day and never tire. Our creativity was endless and filled with anticipated joy in knowing that what was about to be created next would be fun. Samuel Oliver, author of, “What the Dying Teach Us: Lessons on Living”

About the Author
Sam Oliver worked with the dying for over 15 years. During that time, he wrote 4 books on grief. Visit his website: Soul and Spirit.

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How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong, because someday in your life, you will have been all of these.

George Washington Carver

A gossip is one who talks to you about others, a bore is one who talks to you about himself, and a brilliant conversationalist is one who talks to you about yourself.

Lisa Kirk

A marriage is like a long trip in a tiny rowboat: If one passenger starts to rock the boat, the other has to steady it; otherwise, they will go to the bottom together.

David Reuben

Warmth, kindness, and friendship are the most yearned for commodities in the world. The person who can provide them will never be lonely.

Ann Landers

Our worst fault is our preoccupation with the faults of others.

Kahlil Gibran

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True happiness is such a rare commodity that the whole of the world is continuously seeking it and failing to find it. All the people, who we consider to be the best in their fields, are seeking it too and failing to acquire it. The most brilliant of the scientists, the most gifted of artists, the most talented of poets and authors, the wealthiest businessmen, the most powerful rulers, the greatest achievers in any field - all of them have been striving for it all their lives and failed to have it. Why is happiness such an elusive thing? Is it that it cannot simply be achieved? Or is it that it is not where all of us have been looking for it?

If you pause to give it a thought it is very easy to see that somehow we have all been missing the point. It is either that we have all been looking for happiness at the wrong places or that it is simply not possible to achieve happiness. The answer is not very easy. But it is obvious that if the whole of the humanity has been trying to find something throughout the history and failing to acquire it then something must be very wrong about the concept we have of happiness.

Let us try to delve a bit deeper. What is it that we consider happiness? This is how I see it:

Happiness is what you feel when what you want to happen happens.

And if this definition of happiness is correct then we can conclude that unhappiness is what we feel when what we want to happen does not happen.

These definitions look obvious enough but for the most of the people they are not. At least not so clearly defined in their minds. It would therefore be better if we stop to ponder over these definitions.

How can we achieve happiness?

We must realize that for most of the problems, the solutions are often simple and obvious enough if one understands the problem clearly. Even more surprising is the fact that the solutions mostly lie in the problem itself. It is true in the case of happiness too.

Let us consider the above definition carefully. The main keyword in the definition is “want”. The whole trouble starts when we want something. Every moment of our lives we keep on wanting something or the other. If we could make a list of all the things we want in our lives since childhood to death, including trivial as well as very important, all the paper in the world perhaps would not be enough for this purpose. Only a small percentage of all our wishes is fulfilled in spite of all our endeavours. The percentage of wishes, which remain unfulfilled, keeps on growing with time. As a result, as we grow older, we become more and more unhappy. We grow tired of life. The blessings, which our lives and the whole existence keep showering upon us, gradually lose their charm. The frustration, of failing to fulfill most of our wishes, sets in. We start feeling weighed down. The feeling that the whole life is somehow conspiring to keep us unhappy grows. Life becomes full of miseries. We keep stumbling from one failure to another.

The solution, then is very obvious. We must explore the possibility of a life of no desires or minimum desires. Desire is a seed which grows fruits of unhappiness. Actually the trouble is that we demand too much. We keep on demanding incessantly. It seems that we do nothing else but keep producing desires and then keep struggling to fulfill them. The only solution to this problem is to break out of this cycle of desires and struggles. If one does not desire anything, he has no chance of getting unhappy due to failure in fulfilling his desire.

One may argue that a life of no desires will be bereft of pleasures. That it will become colourless and dull. But this premise is not true.

Firstly, we must realize that the world does not and cannot function as per our whims and fancies. We are too insignificant in the scheme of the existence. We can have control only over our desires and not on the factors necessary to fulfill them. During winter, we may desire that the sun shines a bit more in the sky but sun has no obligation to behave as per our desires. We may desire that every other human being around us acts in such a way that his acts do not hurt us at all and only make us happy, but the other person has his own desires and compulsions and he will act accordingly. We may desire that whenever we ask for something we get it, but the person or the force who has the power to grant our wishes may not wish to do so or may not be able to do so because of his or its own compulsions. Are we ourselves always willing or able to fulfill the demands of others around us? If not, then how can we hope that our demands must always be fulfilled. In fact if we pause to consider it carefully then it will become obvious that there always is more probability of our desires not getting fulfilled. Then why keep desiring constantly and exposing ourselves to unhappiness?

Secondly, it is a blunder on our part that we consider happiness and pleasure to be the same. They are not same. Pleasure is there all around us for the taking. Since we have become obsessed with our desires we have ceased to notice sources of pleasure and as a consequence fail to grab it when it is available. Pleasure is the essence which we extract from things we have. We may desire to visit the most beautiful sea beach in the world. When we are finally able to make it to that beach we feel happy. This happiness is the consequence of the fulfillment of our desire. But when we look at the waves rushing towards us, at the golden sand spread over a large area, the wind on our faces, the riot of colours in the sky while sun is setting or rising, the feel of sea water on our skin, what we feel is pleasure. To derive pleasure it is not at all necessary to desire. When we pass along the green fields while traveling, we do feel pleasure looking at them though we had not specifically “desired” to see them. When we look at anything beautiful we feel pleasure. Pleasure is always around us without our asking for it. It is not a consequence of our ambitions and endeavors. It is simply waiting all around for us to pause and pay attention. It is only that we are always so obsessed with our desires and wishes and the struggle to fulfill them that we have forgotten how to pleasure ourselves. Almost all of the time we live inside our minds, either making plans to fulfill our present desires or ruing the desires which could not be fulfilled and in this process miss out all the pleasures lying all around us.

Thirdly, We do derive pleasure when our desires are fulfilled but for every desire fulfilled there are numerous others that remain unfulfilled. We have to consider carefully whether we are not paying too high a price, in terms of all the frustrations we experience as a result of failures, for a few fulfilled desires. If the answer is yes, then the conclusion is obvious.

Actually, happiness and unhappiness are two sides of the same coin. They are part of the same package. If one asks for one he leaves him susceptible to the other. The desire for happiness is like asking only for the light and not for darkness. But there is not much difference between light and darkness. It is matter of degree only. We choose and therefore get disappointed. What we should do is only look for the pleasures all around us. Whatever comes our way we should try to extract all the pleasure possible from it.

If we delve still deeper, we will realize that it is not really happiness which we should seek. We should try to avoid unhappiness. When we achieve something, the payoff is not as great as the pain we suffer if we fail to achieve it. It is this pain of failure, pain of frustrated desires which is of greater significance to us. It is actually like good health. One can only define health as an absence of diseases. In order to have good health we strive to avoid diseases. You cannot purchase or achieve good health directly. You have to take steps which keep your body free of diseases. Then only the organs of body keep functioning properly and you experience good health. Similarly, when one destroys the root cause of unhappiness the problems are over. And the root cause of all our unhappiness is DESIRE.

If one can stop desiring, if one can take life as it comes, Then only one can be free of unhappiness.

About the Author:
Ashok Kumar Gupta is a working engineer by profession, a programmer by hobby and a thinker by nature. He is the webmaster of http://www.akgupta.com/

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