The Secret to Happiness
By Peter Cutler
One very simple thing to understand about happiness is that if you desire even a single thing to be different from the way it is right in this very moment, you are not happy. And this is exactly why you are not happy.
If you don’t want a single thing in this moment to be different from the way it is, you are happy.
That’s it. That’s the whole secret to happiness. It’s not having health, success, a fulfilling career, wealth, sex, relationships, friends, positive affirmations, knowledge, wisdom, even enlightenment. None of these things can bring you happiness. There is not a single thing in this life that can bring you happiness if there is a single thing that you wish were different from the way it is in this moment.
And that is why so few people are truly happy. Many people say they are happy, but what they mean is they are relatively less miserable than someone else or than they used to be. Relative happiness is not really happiness. All the books, research, and psychological studies on happiness are only looking at relative happiness.
The people writing the books and the people they are researching are not really happy so they don’t know what happiness is. All they know is relative happiness, which is a very limited experience that comes and goes and depends on certain situations in order to be experienced.
That’s not happiness. Happiness does not come and go. Happiness is the very nature of our being itself. Someone who has never known true happiness is not an authority on happiness and cannot help anyone else find it as they have never realized it themselves. If they really knew how to be happy, they would be happy.
Phillip Brickman, the professor who wrote about happiness and created the seminal study on happiness committed suicide by jumping off a twenty-six-foot tower at the University of Michigan. Although he wrote many books and papers on happiness, this was not a man who knew happiness. Only happiness itself is an authority on happiness.
When you realize true happiness you realize that it is always present, can not come and go, and depends on nothing at all. You also realize that as soon as your mind wishes even a single thing to be different from what it is, you are distracted from this natural state of happiness and no longer experience it. Your natural state of happiness is hidden by your thoughts and resistance to reality. You are lost again in a thought-created dream where neither happiness nor reality can ever be found.
None of the books written about happiness understand happiness because the authors do not understand happiness. As is true of everything else in this dream of separation and duality, this mind-created illusion, it is always the blind leading the blind.
It is like people who have never played tennis writing a book about playing tennis based on research entirely from people who have also never played tennis. None of them have ever seen anyone play tennis or ever met anyone who has actually played tennis. All they really know is they heard the word tennis and have imagined what that might be like. How accurate can this book be? And yet when it comes to happiness, there are hundreds of books and studies like this. There are entire university departments, like Phillip Brickman’s, focused on the study of happiness. And not a single one has come even remotely close to understanding something so incredibly simple.
And yet you have had moments of happiness. Everyone has. At some time in your life, you have experienced moments when you didn’t want a single thing to be different. And you were happy. You just didn’t know why. And when we’re happy, we don’t care. The most uninteresting thing to someone who actually is happy is happiness. Just as the most uninteresting thing to someone who is enlightened is enlightenment. It just is and that’s enough.
Editor’s Note: Sedona.biz is reaching out to the mind, body, soul community by creating a new section in our Website, focused on metaphysics, spiritual healing and expanding consciousness. We launch this new section with Sedona’s own Peter Cutler. A Zen monk, artist, author, and spiritual teacher Cutler helps people experience the awakened consciousness that is always available to everyone. For the past twenty years Peter’s openness to the Pure Energy beyond the limitations of thought and separation have helped hundreds of people directly experience the Pure Boundless Energy of their True Self through direct transmission or Shaktipat. In some cases people have experienced freedom from chronic physical illnesses, but far more profoundly dozens have awakened to their True Nature. We invite the community to welcome our latest addition to Sedona.biz, the Internet Voice of the Community. Please feel free to comment. Visit https://n-lightenment.com to learn more.
7 Comments
What about those who are happy making other people unhappy? There are people in this world who take pleasure hurting others. They profit from the wars they cause and the money they make and that makes them happy. And what about those who get happy when rivals suffer misfortune? I don’t know if you can quantify happiness the way you explain it.
Thank you for your comment, John.
I don’t think anyone is really happy making others unhappy. Although unhappy people often do make others unhappy, sometimes intentionally and sometimes unintentionally. But this will never make them happy.
Happy people never want others to be unhappy. Instead, they share their happiness with others. And unhappy people often share their unhappiness intentionally or unintentionally.
Most people are not really happy. True and lasting happiness does not come from what society tells us will make us happy, such as money, success, fame, sex, getting the things we want or getting rid of what we don’t want. Happiness is an inside job. It cannot be earned, yet it is always present. We just don’t know where to look. We are taught to look for happiness outside somewhere in the world. That’s not where it is.
True happiness is our natural state of being. Because people think they are something else, they do not experience happiness. When they don’t experience happiness, they often create unhappiness for others. But this does not really make them happy. If they were happy they would not create suffering for others.
Thank you for your comment, John.
Congratulations to Sedona.biz and to all of Sedona for the creation of this new section focused on metaphysics, spiritual healing and expanding consciousness!!
What could possibly be more timely and beneficial for our community?
I whole-heartedly agree with Peter’s presentation of true happiness. It is an inside job ~ it is a choice (that may require a shift of focus from the past or future into the gift/present moment) ~ and it is attainable (contrary to what some may have been taught or choose to believe). It is a joy that cannot be squelched by others.
I look forward to reading more in this new section.
Thank you, Suzanne. Lovely to hear from you. I agree and I thank the editor, Tommy, for creating this.
Peter Cutler came to my hospital room at my request and was there over an hour. His healing presence not only contributed to my continuing to live but he sent healing to my room mate who was facing the amputation of her big toe. Two days later she was discharged as was I.
Thank you, Nancy I remember that. I am happy to hear the wonderful results. I never claim to do anything, but something does seem to flow through. And I am grateful for this, to be used in this way. It is good to hear from you.
LOVELY AND WELL PUT PETER, AND THANK YOU TOMMY FOR OPENING UP THIS NEW SECTION, LIKE THE OLD “NEW TIMES” NEWSPAPER. MORE TO GROUND OUR ORIGINAL SEDONA-NESS.