Worry. Don’t Be Happy

Worry. Don’t Be Happy
What we think of as happiness is usually just pleasure. How to find real, lasting joy.

Web-Exclusive commentary
By Marc Gellman
Special to Newsweek
Updated: 1:11 p.m. ET Oct. 5, 2006
Oct. 5, 2006 - A popular but false saying we hear all the time is, "All I want is that my children should be happy."
The most obvious reason this wish is wrong is that very bad people can be very happy. Sinners can be smiling and saints can be tormented. In fact, this is often the case. I learned from the comics the truth about superheroes, which is that they are hardly ever happy, while the supervillains are hardly ever sad. The Joker is always smiling, and Batman is always morose. Superman is constantly depressed about his inability to eliminate all evil while Lex Luthor exults in his every act of carnage and murder.
In the real world, happy saints are also rare. King, Gandhi and Schweitzer lived with troubled souls but were nonetheless able to achieve a level of surpassing goodness. Gangs exult after killing a rival gang member, and as the Twin Towers were smoking and people were jumping from the windows, some jihadist sympathizers were jumping up and down in delirious happiness at the deaths of infidels. Because terrible people can be happy, saying that all you want is for your children to happy is either foolish or evil. Why would your only wish for your children be their ability to posses the same pleasurable feelings that are also felt by the worst criminals and creeps of our world?
Why is it that bad people can be happy? The reason is that happiness as defined by our culture has become just a synonym for pleasure, and anyone can feel pleasure. A good meal, a winning team, a fabulous vacation can make even the biggest criminal feel just as happy as the most noble hero. The problem is the linkage between happiness and pleasure. Feeling good has no natural connection to doing good. But it does in the teachings of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, as well as in the good and decent lives of those who do not find their life's guidance from ancient-wisdom traditions. For all these people, happiness is linked to goodness, not pleasure.
The reason we have an obesity epidemic in this country is not because we eat too much and exercise too little. It’s because we eat what gives us pleasure. Sugar and fat taste better than celery and tofu. You can learn to love lettuce, and you can learn to give peas a chance, but it takes time. On the other hand, the pleasure of chocolate ice cream is instantaneous. The reason we have to force kids to exercise is because it is more pleasurable to sit on your tush and play videogames than it is to run around and sweat. True happiness, the kind of happiness we ought to wish for our children and for ourselves is almost always the result of doing hard but good things over and over.
Let me ask my married readers, “Has being married made you happier?” Studies by Ed Deiner show that after a honeymoon period, most people are no more satisfied with life after marriage than they were before. Being married is not always pleasurable, but it ought to make you happy because marriage is a hard good thing, and true happiness only comes from doing hard good things.
Let me ask parents, “Did having children make you happy?” In Judaism, having children is the fulfillment of the very first commandment from God to Adam in the Garden of Eden, “be fruitful and multiply.” However, their term for raising children was, tzar gidul banim, “The agony of raising children.”
You just have to decide where true happiness comes from. Does it come from pleasure or does it come from goodness? The choice you make about this is the single most important one you will ever make in your life. It will determine whether you become a creep or a mensch.
And one last thing: money will not buy you happiness. Now I know some of you with a cynical streak don't buy this theory. You may be followers of the great philosopher Spike Milligan who teaches in his Las Vegas lounge act, “Money can't buy you happiness, but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery.” Or perhaps you follow the teachings of Rabbi Henny Youngman, who once said, “What's the use of happiness? It can't buy you money.” Once you make enough to meet the basic needs of life, more money does not make you discernibly happier. This is why the rabbis teach, “Who is rich? The one who is happy with his lot.”
Happiness for our culture is pleasure, and pleasure is selfish. Happiness for Judaism is goodness, and goodness is transcending. Pleasure points us inward while goodness points us to each other and God.
I’ll end with a story: David and Dana were in my office for premarital counseling, and I asked her what qualities David possessed that made her happy. She told me this story: On a blazing hot summer day they were approaching the Triborough Bridge when they saw a man selling newspapers. David opened the window, bought all the man's papers and said to him, “Go home. It's way to hot for you to be standing out here.” So how about this saying: "All I wish is that on a hot day my children will buy all the papers.
Now if that is what you mean, if that is what you want for your children and for the children of your children, well, that's what I want for my children, too, and that is what God wants for all his children.
© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.

Love and Right Meditation

If after many months or years of meditation, the love for God has not been awakened, then he/she is doing the wrong meditation. But if the love for God – the love for humanity - has been awakened then he/she is doing the right meditation.

In meditation there must always be the feeling that you want to serve Him. If this is the feeling, immediately the mind gets concentrated. If in meditation there is the culmination of service, everything will be achieved. (Shrii Shrii Anandamurti).

The Self Sufficient Meditator

If you want to live a more fulfilled life, first you will want to know your potential, who you really are. Meditation is the route to that knowing. It is the methodology of the science of awareness.The beauty of the inner science is that it enables whoever wants to explore and to experiment within, to do so alone. This eliminates dependence on an outer authority, the need to be affiliated with any organization and the obligation to accept a certain ideology. Once you understand the steps, you walk the walk in your own, individual way.

Many meditative techniques require one to sit still and silent. But for most of us accumulated stress in our bodymind makes that difficult. Before we can hope to access our inner powerhouse of consciousness, we need to let go of our tensions.Osho Active Meditation have been scientifically designed by Osho over a period of time to enable us to consciously express and experience repressed feelings and emotions, and learn the knack of watching our habitual patterns in a new way.But what is meditation exactly?And how to get started?Some of the meditations have streaming audio and video demonstrations. (Source: Osho Meditation).

In harmony with nature

It has been a lots of disasters happened around the globe but most of us just take them for granted. Very few of us think that all of those disasters are caused by our own action. In fact whatever happen to us is really because of our action. This is law of nature, karma, action and reaction, or cause and effect.

Has any of you seen the movie An Inconvenient Truth? Al Gore, former vice president of US talked a lot of what happened, being happened and will be happened on earth which has caused global warming.

Global warming happened because of we are fail to live in harmony with nature. And five elements of nature is just acting according to its nature. The five elements, water, fire, air, earth, and space are just doing its own nature. The imbalance of five elements caused typhoon, heat, flood, etc.

Now is back to us. Do we want to continue the life on earth or not. If we want to continue then we must change our habbit right now by living in harmony with nature.

Books To Read

When talking about holistic life, about our existence on earth, many people that I have met asked me what book do I have to read in order to be able to understand my life better? This is very common and good question as well. By having that question in mind means that we are heading to the right track. And people who have that question on their mind will always meet people that have the same problem. These people are resonant at the same frequency. The people that have similar frequency will always meet. This is the law of nature. The bird with the same colour will flock together, says Shakespeare.It is a bit hard to give an exact answer to the above question. But as a common law we can start from reading any kind of books as long as the book is about holistic life, about existence. From any kind of tradition it does not matter. First book that we read will lead us into the next book that we have to read.There are many books are written by good writer and enlightened writer. The question is, do we really want to learn about holistic life? If not, do not waste your time, But if you really want you will never waste anything, in fact you will gain a lots and it will benefit not only for you but other people and the universe as well. Happy searching . . .

The Island of Paradise is turning into "The Island of Hell"

For many many years people around the world call Bali as Island of Paradise, others call The Island of Thousand Temples or a Living Museum. But now Bali is really in pain. With the development of mass tourism industry has turned Bali into island of thousand hotels, which has taken a lot of rice field which actually the source of life of the island. Without rice field Bali will not mean anything. This situation if it is not taken care seriously Bali will not Bali anymore.Balinese should be able to say enough is enough. Balinese should not always only using mind in responding to the globalization. Mind is very limited if it is not completed with feeling. The combination of mind and feeling will be able to understand the unseen.Balinese should now be doing a very deep contemplation in order to be able to undertand what they have done wrong. For many years Balinese undertand that mony is everything, which is absolutly wrong. Yes, money is very important like air but if we cannot manage it, is will manage us, it will drive us creasy. This is what being happened now in Bali.There is only one way for Balinese to survive. The way is love. To love Bali as it is. To love means to do something for nothing, to do everything for the sake of Bali, for the sake of Motherland. The law of cause and effect is applied to everything. It means that if we love something it will result in love even we do not expect it.How can we do this? First we have to love ourself. It is not possible for someone to love someone else if he does not have love. It's like someone want to give some money to someone else. He must have some money first, then he can give it to someone.To love Bali means to do our job in whatever field as an offering to Bali, to Motherland, to mother that gives life to everything.

Where To Start

Very often I got questioned when talking about anything. The question is where to start? There is nothing wrong with this question. Something could be wrong is the answer to this question. When somebody wants to start something really depend on him/herself, on his/her awarness, awareness of him/herself.A lots of people could give some answers but the problem is who is amongst those people could really understand the person who raised the question. None of them! So, never really follow anybody's answer of a question that you have without contemplating the answer. Contemplating the answer means that you let your faculty of discrimination to review the answer and form the review it will come a respond.Where to start? To me it can be started from anywhere as long as the direction is going within. If we take this part wherever we start from it will connect us to all things because all things are within and without. The core of the self is in and out. First step will lead us to the next step, it will take us closer and closer to the being.The being is the source of everything. The absolute is the never changing part of the being and the relative is the ever changing of the being says Maha Rishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of Transcendental Meditation. Indeed everthing is in both sides of being, alsolute and relative, never changing and ever changing.So, wherever we start from as long as the journey is going within it will take is into everything because being is the everything of everything.