Outline
- Being happy is not different than being who you are.
- All are capable of happiness because all are capable of being perfectly themselves.
- If you believe you should do what you want, you will be unhappy.
- Whenever you are unhappy, it is only because you believe you are.
- There is no need to understand yourself.
Introduction
In this talk, Bruce Di Marsico discusses that all are inherently happen, and cannot be otherwise.
Being happy is not different than being who you are. Since all are already themselves, all are already happy. Further, all beings are capable of happiness because all beings are perfectly capable of being perfectly themselves.
Whenever you are unhappy, it is only because you believe you are. More specifically, it is only because you believe you could not be perfectly yourself.
If you believe you should be yourself, that you should do what you want, you will be unhappy. You already perfectly are yourself, to believe that you should be yourself is believing that you are not already perfectly yourself, and must “achieve” being yourself.
There is no need to understand yourself. You are perfectly yourself, and knowledge of yourself is, in the end, imperfect, based on a past “you”, and speculative. Enjoying knowing oneself is happy, needing to know oneself is not.
There is no need to understand yourself
Is wanting to be happier any different than who you are? Is being happy any different than being who you are? If you are going to be happier, if you are going to be free from fear, if you are going to change from what you no longer want to something else which you more want, where did that wanting come from if not from you. Why is it not a promise rather than a cause for more of what you don’t want? Why is not the awareness that you would prefer to feel differently than you feel now the beginning of feeling differently than you feel now? What can you do except want to be happier?
You begin with that and then whatever follows is part of that. It is either that or it is part of some innate tendency to be self-destructive. Which is it? If you want to be happier, what would follow? Since you want to be happier, only being happier could follow. If not, then not. You are only unhappy because of what you believe. But it is only one belief that we are talking about – because you believe that you will not naturally be happier. That takes many forms, of course. Once you believe that, you can believe that things around you are causing you to be unhappy, you can believe that seeing yourself not change is making you unhappy, you could believe anything. What those things depend on is the moment, it depends on something we may more sometimes call your style, which may be more biologically determined than anything. You will grab on to something that has to do with who you really are and be against it.
But it is not the being against it that causes you unhappiness. It is why you are against it. It doesn’t even matter if you could hypothetically, theoretically be against yourselves – that doesn’t even matter as long as you didn’t believe you were. And it isn’t even being against yourself or even seeing yourself being against yourself in that sense that is unhappiness – it is how you account for it. It is why. If you believe that even if you were against yourself, it was because of pollution or something, that then you couldn’t do what you wanted to do, or it was because you had some vitamin deficiency or something that you couldn’t cure – that it was constitutional – that it really was imposed upon you – that you were really crippled and that you couldn’t help yourself – you wouldn’t be unhappy. It is why you believe you’re against yourself that makes you unhappy. If you really believed you weren’t able to do the things you wanted to do, to be the way you wanted to be, would you be unhappy? Perhaps even if you believed that you weren’t able to be perfectly happy – you physically were not able to experience perfect happiness or physically weren’t able to be it, it is why you would believe that that is the point, even though some of these beliefs are impossible – but why you would believe that it is possible is what would matter.
(Questioner: But what about somebody who has no legs and is unhappy because he can’t walk?)
Well, didn’t you at least start by knowing that he is certainly believing on the surface that he needs legs in order to be happy? Isn’t that his first statement though? “I am unhappy because I don’t have legs” is the same as saying “I need legs in order to be happy”. Why does he believe he needs legs to be happy? Why does he believe he needs anything in order to be happy? – because he believes that he doesn’t naturally have what it takes in order to be happy. He isn’t saying he wants legs, he is saying that he should, ought to, must, is supposed to, is the law of nature that he have them, and why doesn’t he have them?
(Questioner – Even if a person believed he was physically incapable of knowing perfect happiness, if he believed that was because of some physical incapacity, what then?)
He could be perfectly happy. If by perfect happiness he means perfectly himself, he would have to believe he is against himself to be unhappy. He would have to not believe he would naturally be himself. It isn’t possible that a person could know that they physically weren’t able to be perfectly happy. It would depend on what they meant by perfect happiness and if you actually looked at it, they wouldn’t be talking about perfect happiness probably, but about being perfectly capable of doing what is necessary in order to be perfectly happy, because they are believing that there is something to be done in order to be perfectly happy.
What if you “know” that the way you are presently constituted physically, you might not be able to experience perfect happiness, that still would not be a cause of unhappiness because you would immediately start wanting to be constituted physically different in order to be able to experience perfect happiness. The question is, why don’t you believe that you could change physically if you needed to change physically, if you need another arm or another leg or two more? And it is why you don’ t think you would, that would make the difference.
If you want to call it a primordial belief, a basic belief, you can. The hunch, the doubt, that you are naturally not going to be happy – that you might not naturally be happy – is there. It is behind everything else. And if you ask “Why do I believe it”, you are still believing it. Do you believe it or not is the only question. It is the belief about which it only matters that you are believing it or you are not believing. Do you feel somehow that you are naturally not going to be happy? Yes or no, that is what you are feeling. If you said “yes”, you said “yes”; if you said “no”, you said “no”. That is who you are.
The reason you would ask why is because you didn’t believe that everything that comes from you is perfectly happy, is motivated by your happiness, including your beliefs, including that belief. It is not what you ask that will make you unhappy, it is why you ask it. It is not what you don’t ask that will make you unhappy, it is why you don’t ask it. It is not what you do or don’t do that will make you unhappy, it is why you don’t do it or do it. It really doesn’t matter whether I want to sit in this chair or I want to stand up. It is why I sit in this chair. If I am wanting to sit in this chair or not wanting to sit in it – it is why I am doing that. Let’s say I am wanting to sit in this chair – if I believe I should do what I want, if that is the reason I sit in the chair – if that is the reason I go with my wanting – I do what I want because I believe I should, then I will be unhappy.
It doesn’t matter that I did what I wanted. It is why I did it that I will be happy or not. If I believe that I didn’t v/ant to sit in this chair and I believe that I shouldn’t want to or should want to – then I will be unhappy. It doesn’t matter. If I do what I want or I don’t do what I want, it is why I do or don’t do it. If I don’t get into the “why’s” then I will always just do what I want. If I were to say to you now, right now this moment – “Do something you don’t want to do”, I don’t care what thought, what action, what behavior you choose – it doesn’t matter, does it? You can’t really feel that you did what you didn’t want to do. You can only feel you did what you didn’t want to do if you first feel you should or shouldn’t want to or be able to do that. It isn’t the thing itself, it never is. It is why. It isn’t whether you believe you want to or not, even. It is not even “Do I really want to do this or do I not want to do this? Even if it were possible that you could do something that you didn’t want to do, as soon as you did it, you just realized you wanted to do it – as long as you didn’t say should or shouldn’t have – as long as you didn’t say your unhappiness was against it, that it was against your happiness, that it came from your unhappiness.
In one way, which I suppose often will theoretical – you are only unhappy because you believe you are. You just believe that there is something called unhappiness in you right now and something causing it or something not causing it or something has to rout it out or something has to not rout it out and that there is a war, and that you can be believing in unhappiness is the only problem. Whenever you are unhappy, it is only because you believe you are. It sounds glib sometimes and yet I think it is the most profound understanding of it.
It can get to a point where you no longer want to understand that or anything else. That understanding yourself and what you do and why you do can be totally undesirable to you. Then there can be a point where you do want to understand some things. It is why you want to understand and why you don’t want to understand that would make the difference. If you find that you just don’t want to look at yourself anymore and you just don’t want to analyze and you are fed up with it and you are sick and tired of it, it is why you are feeling that way. It is because you are afraid, because you are believing that somehow you are going to be unhappy. If you find that “Lo and Behold!, Wow, I am really not wanting to look at why I did what I did and I am really not wanting to explore or understand myself, isn’t that marvelous!”, then that is something else altogether different. If you find yourself not being very ecstatic now hearing the greatest truths in the universe, if you find yourself not jumping for joy, if you find yourself not doing this or that, it doesn’t matter. It is why you are not. If you are not because you are not and you are wanting to be happier, you are not unhappy. You are unhappy, if you are, because you are not believing you are wanting things and changes, you are believing you should have had them.
Questions for Reflection
All beings are perfectly themselves.
Are trees doing anything except what is most to their well-being, in so far as they sense the world?
Are insects doing anything except what is most to their well-being, in so far as they sense the world?
Are bacteria doing anything except what is most to their well-being, in so far as they sense the world?
Do you want to (right now) do anything except what is most to your well-being, in so far as you understand the world?
Do you believe you should be happy? Why?
Do you want to understand yourself? Why?
Meditation for the Week
You don’t need to understand yourself in order to be happy.