The Happiness Podcast

Tony De Mello on where self-worth comes from? He asks: Do you get it from success in your work? Do you get it from having a lot of money? Do you get it from attracting a lot of men if you’re a woman or a lot of women if you’re a man?  How fragile all that is, how transitory.

We’ve been taught to look for our happiness in outside things: money, power, romance, approval. That’s the first thing we need to understand if we want to come awake, which is the same thing as saying: if we want to love, if we want freedom, if we want joy and peace and spirituality. In that sense, spirituality is the most practical thing in the whole wide world. I challenge anyone to think of anything more practical than spirituality as I have defined it—not piety, not devotion, not religion, not worship, but spirituality—waking up, waking up!

Are you listening, as most people do, in order to confirm what you already think?  Or are you listening with an attitude of openness?  Are you listening to learn something new? That's what's important!

A good is never so good as when you have no awareness that you’re doing good. You are never so good as when you have no consciousness that you’re good. Or as the great Sufi would say, “A saint is one until he or she knows it.” Unselfconscious! 

Anytime you have a negative feeling toward anyone, you’re living in an illusion.

Think of anything that's causing you pain, worry or anxiety. First, can you see the desire under that suffering? Make no mistake, there’s something you desire keenly or else you wouldn’t be suffering. What is that desire? Second, it isn’t simply a desire; there’s an identification made. You have said to yourself, “The very well-being of my existence is tied to fulfilling this desire.” Open to it and it will reveal how all suffering is caused by identifying with something within or outside you.

You’ve got to make sure of your “being” before you swing into action. You have to make sure of who you are before you act. Unfortunately, when people who are not awake swing into action, they simply substitute one cruelty for another, one injustice for another. And so it goes. Meister Eckhart says, “It is not by your actions that you will be saved” (or awakened) "but by your being.

Reality is not problematic. Problems exist only in the human mind. We might add: problems exist only in the not-yet-awakened human mind. But reality is not problematic. Take away human beings from this planet and nature would go on in all its loveliness and violence. Where would the problem be? No problem.

Never identify with a negative feeling, or any feeling for that matter. A fleeting emotion has nothing to do with your essential self. Don’t say, “I am depressed.” If you want to say, depression is there, that’s fine. But to say "I am depressed is defining yourself in terms of that feeling. That’s your illusion; that’s your mistake. There is a depression there right now, there are hurt feelings there right now, but let it be, leave it alone. It will pass.

When you awaken, when you understand, when you see, the world becomes right.  However, we’re always bothered by the problem of evil, aren't we.  Our intellect can't explain it.  There’s a powerful story about a little boy and crocodile that illuminates the nature of  evil. 

To say no to people—that’s wonderful; that’s part of waking up. Part of waking up is that you live your life as you see fit. And understand: That is not selfish. The selfish thing is to demand that someone else live their life as YOU see fit.  That’s selfish. It is not selfish to live your life as you see fit.

Some people make awakening a goal. They're determined to get there. They say, “I refuse to be happy until I’m awakened.” This forms an attachment and attachments are the source of suffering, which moves in the opposite direction of awakening.  Enlightenment comes from a deeper awareness of the way you are without judging it.  DeMello tells a story of a disciple who leaves his guru for the hills to attain enlightenment. Years pass, but no enlightenment; not until he gives it up.

If you’re lucky and the gods are gracious or if you are gifted with divine grace - use any mystical or theological expression you like - you might one day suddenly understand who “I” is, and you’ll never be the same again.  Never. Nothing will ever be able to upset you again and no one will ever be able to hurt you again.

One sign that you’ve woken up is you're asking yourself, “Am I crazy or is the whole world crazy?" We’re living on crazy ideas about love, about relationships, about happiness, about joy, about everything; and it's all been feed to us by our crazy society. The sooner we see this, the better for our mental and spiritual health. 

Every new idea, every great idea, when it first began was in a minority of one. That man called Jesus Christ—a minority of one. Everybody was saying something different from what he was saying. The Buddha— a minority of one. Everybody was saying something different from what he was saying. I think it was Bertrand Russell who said, “Every great idea starts out as a blasphemy.” That’s well and accurately put. It never occurs to our rigidity that comes from having become dogmatic that there may be a better way. If you haven’t been bumped sufficiently by life, and you haven’t suffered enough, then waking up may require seeing that there is another way.  It is the way of listening.