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Many believe one's best spiritual purpose is to attempt to be happy. While I would agree that inner peace is a valid useful spiritual purpose for most reading this book, I do not believe that happiness as most people view it leads to inner peace or to alignment with one's soul.
Many, perhaps most New Age people, consider happiness to be whether they feel good all the time. The more they can avoid unpleasant unhappy stuff, the happier they think they are. This is a false sense of happiness, or I might call it the addict's happiness.
Most who hear the suggestion that their spiritual purpose is to be happy take that as license to cover over and/or avoid as much unhappy stuff as possible. Those who decide that some pain is necessary also can cause themselves detours by feeling the "wrong" pains. For more about this, please read the chapters on emotions and psychology (Chapters 10 and 11).
Genuinely happy people do not need to avoid temporary psychological pain, anger and grief. For they know that recognizing and expressing painful feelings appropriately will quickly lead them into more pleasant feelings.
Many equate happiness with childish excitement and fun without recognizing the tension and intensity underlying the childishness. On the other hand, I do find adult enjoyment to be compatible with inner peace, because it does not have tension and intensity.
Are you genuinely happy? If so, then I believe that measurements (as described in the previous chapter) of your body's blood pressure, heart rate and extremities' temperatures will show that you are truly peaceful inside.
© 2008 by Thayer White
Finding Your Soul in the Spirituality Maze
| Excerpt from Be Your Own Therapist: "Someone call you a name? Whenever you hear such a name directed your way, thoughts along the lines of, "The name-caller is feeling weak right now" will help to prevent a possible hurt for you." |
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