A New Way of Being Happy
. . . forget what you think you know about joy
To heal another is to make them happy (T-5.In.1:1) because the Kingdom of God is joy (T-7.XI.1:2). To be healed - to be made whole - is to remember our place in Creation with God. This naturally makes us happy, which happiness we naturally extend to others without exception.
Obviously, we are not talking about the ersatz happiness of getting what we want - a free meal, a new car, a day off, a winning lottery ticket. Those things come and go. Because they come and go, they cannot be counted on. The happiness that is of God is not contingent; it transcends circumstances.
A happiness that is not dependent on how the external appears is unfamiliar to us. We get confused. How can I be happy if it rains on my picnic? Or if my beloved is diagnosed with cancer? We have to learn this new way of being happy, which means unlearning what we think we know now about being happy.
If you would be a happy learner, you must give everything you have learned to the Holy Spirit, to be unlearned for you. And then begin to learn the joyous lessons that come quickly on the firm foundation that truth is true (T-14.II.6:1-2).
The Holy Spirit always frees us from the past (T-14.II.7:2). The Holy Spirit gently disentangles from the conditioning and programming (cultural, biological, familial, et cetera) that long dictated what made us feel happy or sad. When we learn that "truth is true," we learn a lesson that applies in all circumstances. Thus, happiness is no longer subject to our judgment of what is good or bad, right or wrong, better or worse.
That is an abstract statement that we are called bring into application in the world. A Course in Miracles is meant to be lived, not merely thought about and talked about and argued about. But it is a tranformed way of living. The illusion of the world remains - bodies do what bodies do - but it is no longer subject to the ego's use of guilt to induce suffering. When we remember our Creator, and consent to create accordingly, then suffering is instantly replaced with happiness.
This is an experience that we actually have in what we are presently calling "our" lives.
Happy dreams come true, not because they are dreams, but only because they are happy. And so they must be loving. Their message is, "Thy Will be done," and not, "I want it otherwise" (T-18.V.4:1-3).
What does this mean in practice?
For me it means giving careful attention to what is here now, which is a way of accepting the present moment as all of time and all of life there is (e.g., T-15.IV.1:3). What is given? In this moment, what is here that does not leave? That will not leave me bereft?
I don’t judge it or try to fix it or replace it. I just give to it attention, willing - however stubbornly, however half-assedly - to see what God would have me see, and not see what God would have me not see.
When I give attention in this way consistently and without deciding in advance what the answers ought to be, or what it ought to feel like, I learn that what is present - wholly, unambiguously and sustainably - is Love, which is endlessly creative and unconditionally welcoming. Nothing is excluded. The absence of exceptions is what Love is.
We can deny this. We can choose to forget it. We can argue with it. But we can't undo it. We cannot make what is true false, nor what is false true. That might seem like a limit or a constraint, but in fact it is the key to our freedom and joy.
The light that belongs to you is the light of joy. Radiance is not associated with sorrow. Joy calls forth an integrated willingness to share it . . . to heal or to make joyous is therefore the same as to integrate and to make one (T-5.In.1:4-5, 2:5).
The happiness to which we are called is the quiet awareness that we are one with God, and with all our brothers and sisters, broadly defined to include black bears, sunflowers and shooting stars. The body comes and goes; Sean comes and goes. But God does not; Love does not.
And that is the cause for joy.
Love,
Sean
I think we underestimate the (illusory) difficulty of the task we've accepted, which is (merely--ha!) to be happy even as we give up everything we've ever believed and replace it with reality and Truth. When I struggle with this, I turn to my favorite, most comforting spiritual book, Letters of the Scattered Brotherhood. At one point, it says, by way of reminder and reassurance: "It may help you to remember once in a while how deeply the human being is emmeshed in the flesh, and what is not often thought of, the flesh is very old. The cells bear the stamp of race memories and experiences of the ages past, and that is why this tired flesh, the body of the human race, which has met savagery, war, sorrow, and grief, is so friendly to despair."
It may be that we underestimate our courage, too.
Thanks, Sean,
Saying yes to life in all it's forms, with no conditions is so hard. For me, that little bit of attention towards who I truly am always leads to a backlash of amplified thought, leading to a cycle of denial, forgetting, arguing, judgements :-) And the awareness of that in itself can be very painful. And then, somehow, there is a brief respite where the quality of life enters, briefly, into something else. Then life hits with a petty annoyance and.... I keep forgetting to ask for help along the way.
Being happy no matter what? I guess I have to question what true happiness is, in actuality. Instinctively I feel I have felt this and it isn't smiling to the camera and being jolly, but more a vibrancy of life.