What Is The Secret Of Happiness
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org,
please feel free to visit the school website)
"Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy."
—Guillaume Apollinaire
In 1952, Fawcett books released a book called the The Power Of Positive Thinking, written by Norman Vincent Peale. Chapter five is entitled “How To Create Your Own Happiness,” and the opening line reads; “Who decides whether you shall be happy or unhappy? The answer—you do!"
Through this simple statement, the author reminds us that we are fully responsible for our state of mind, and we have the power to change it if it does not serve our purpose. Peale goes on to say “Children are more expert in happiness than adults. The adult who can carry the spirit of the child into middle and old age is a genius, for he will preserve the truly happy spirit with which God endowed the young.” He reminds us of Jesus’ teaching to live life with a “childlike heart and mind.” He then goes on to share with us the secret of happiness as told to him by children, beginning with his nine-year-old daughter Elizabeth.” One day I asked her, ‘Are you happy, honey?’ ‘Sure I’m happy’ she replied. ‘Are you always happy?’ I asked. ‘Sure,’ she answered, ‘I’m always happy.’ ‘What makes you happy?’ I asked her. ‘Why I don’t know’ she said, ‘I’m just happy.” He then goes on to insist that something must make her happy, to which she begins to describe to him things that she loves and enjoys. Yet what she was trying to communicate to him is a simple and perfect truth.
Happiness is a natural state. A person is a sacred vessel, affirming life, as one was created to do. No one has (yet) convinced children otherwise, and children are sweet with this truth.
Happiness is not an emotion, nor is it a thought. It is, rather, the unblocked flow of life-force energy moving in and through us. It is our open interface with other energy systems. It is balance. When we understand ourselves as walking consciousness energy systems, we can free ourselves of energy which is trapped by negative thoughts or emotions, energy that is neither here (manifest) nor there (unmanifest) but which is trapped and blocking our natural flow. This is the first step in affirming our natural state, our birthright, which is the state of effortless flow we call happiness.
Peale asked some other children what made them happiest. Here are some of the answers they gave him; “a swallow flying; looking into deep, clear water; water being cut at the bow of a boat; a fast train rushing; a builder’s crane lifting something heavy; my dogs eyes; streetlights on the river; red roofs in the trees; smoke rising from a chimney; red velvet; the moon in the clouds."
All of these things speak of flows of energy, the natural state of allowing things to move through us and around us. It is this natural state of effortless energetic action that our minds, bodies, and energy systems were created to facilitate. Here we enter the Magic Zone, in which we are balanced between the worlds of energy and form. Here we can manifest ourselves as fully creative and self-realized beings.
Once we understand the secret to happiness, we know that nothing can make us happy, not money, not the love of another, not even peace on earth. Happiness is our natural state, and thoughts of it being outside us block the flow of energy through us and within us, causing us to be out of balance, or unhappy. So what other thoughts cause us to be out of balance? What role does the mind play in all of this? What is the mind, anyway…?