Outline
- All unhappy beliefs are derived from only one belief: Something can make you unhappy.
- To question yourself as to whether any symptom could be unhappiness is to be believing that something is the cause of unhappiness.
- “Unhappy” means believer in unhappiness.
- Believers in unhappiness define happiness as somehow unhappy (boring, unsafe, bad for their wants)
- If happiness is seen as a way to ignore unhappiness, that is unhappy.
- If you cannot trust your decisions, how can you trust your decision not to trust your decisions?
- You are the authority on you
Introduction
In this talk, Bruce Di Marsico discusses perfect self-trust.
All unhappy beliefs are derived from only one belief: Something can make you unhappy. You could only question yourself as to whether any symptom or sign in your body or your life could be unhappiness if you believed, in the first place, that something could cause unhappiness.
Believers in unhappiness define happiness as somehow unhappy (boring, unsafe, bad for their wants). Happiness is the absence of whatever doesn’t belong there. If you do not want to be bored, then your happiness would certainly not be boring. If you do not want to be unsafe, then your happiness would certainly not be unsafe.
If happiness is seen as a way to ignore or avoid unhappiness, that is unhappy, because it is presuming there is unhappiness to avoid in the first place.
If you cannot trust your decisions, how can you trust your decision not to trust your decisions? You are the authority on you. There can be no greater authority.
You are the Authority on You
All unhappy beliefs are derived from only one belief: Something can make you unhappy.
Even looking for the beliefs that cause the different manifestations of “unhappiness” is caused by not believing that nothing can make anyone unhappy. It is not believing that unhappiness was always “caused” or appeared to exist because people believed it was caused or happened to them (even if by their own behavior).
Because people were unhappy (believed that they could become unhappy) they were not really able to want to be happy. What they did do, though, was to fear unhappiness. Never did anyone believe that they wanted to be happy now or could be, or vice versa. Because of their unhappy belief about happiness (that it could be destroyed, annihilated, “lost” transient, etc.) it would have been contradictory (impossible) to even consider that unhappiness was purely a belief and nothing else.
People found it easier to believe in magic of the most fantastic sort; superstitions, gods, goddesses, raising the dead, flying saucers, devils, evil, monsters, turning lead into gold, reincarnation, final judgment, hell, heaven, etc. than to believe that they didn’t have to be unhappy.
They could find it easier to believe in miraculous cures of ravaging diseases (at shrines, etc.) than to believe in the permanence of happiness.
Not that any of the above are either true or untrue; that is not the point. The point is that there has been no belief, no matter how foreign to personal experience, that man did not consider or even fervently propagate except that unhappiness is not caused by anything. The thought that nothing can make man unhappy, he only believed it could happen; has never occurred to an unhappy person. In fact, it could never occur to someone believing the opposite. Even if man wanted to know this, he would only experience his wanting as a fear of being unhappy.
Man’s concern for doing or getting what he wants (his fear of not doing or getting), his not “feeling” like what he wants and vice versa, his not “knowing” what he wants, etc., are the results of the basic belief in unhappiness.
Wanting to know what, or why, or how, or anything about our present unhappiness or feared future unhappiness, is done when one is not believing that you do not have to be unhappy, nothing can make it happen to you.
The belief that some belief could make it happen can only be “true” when not believing that nothing can make it happen. Someone who believes that nothing can cause unhappiness knows that they could have no belief which could cause it. Only one belief can cause it for others—the belief that it could happen or is caused, or could exist, even in someone who believes nothing causes it.
To suspect or doubt or question yourself as to whether any behavior or symptom or thought or anything that comes in you or from you could be unhappiness is to be believing that something (known or unknown) is the cause of unhappiness. To wonder if some manifestation of your body (pain, pus, puke or perspiration) could be caused by unhappiness is the belief that unhappiness can happen to you.
This belief is not unhappiness, but is the cause of all behavior that it naturally produces, which believers in unhappiness call the experience of unhappiness.
Unhappy person means someone who believes that “happiness” can be lost and they could be unhappy. “Unhappy” means believer in unhappiness.
Unhappy believers do not believe that nothing can cause or make them unhappy, sad, afraid, feel bad, angry, etc. They do not believe that their own feelings cannot lead them into unhappiness. They do not believe that their desires could never lead them or cause them to be unhappy in the future.
Unhappy believers do not believe that happiness is really happiness. They believe it will make them unhappy if they accept it for the “wrong reason” They do not allow themselves happiness when it “shouldn’t be” present according to their rules for avoiding unhappiness (which they develop in time according to the various circumstances). This is called psychological “reality” (by other unhappy believers). If their beliefs conflict with other protective beliefs of others they are considered psychologically disturbed. Degrees of disturbance are according to the degrees of disagreement with their rules.
Unhappy believers do not believe that unhappiness is really unhappiness. They believe that it will “strengthen” them against greater unhappiness. In a perverse way they agree that they can develop attitudes and experiences which do alter or modify their unhappy feelings in “unhappy” situations where they would be un-happier if they did not have the “right” attitudes.
Unhappy believers believe that unhappiness can lead to happiness and happiness can lead to unhappiness.
Unhappy believers do not believe their own definitions of happiness as “feeling and being the way one likes or wants” and unhappiness as “feeling in a way that one dislikes”.
They say that happiness all the time would be “boring” (would that be happiness?) or would cause them to disregard what they want (happy state?). In short they say that many things are more desirable than happiness (which is precisely most desired) because they are more helpful in avoiding unhappiness (which of course, they would not have to avoid if happy all the time).
Since all that they believe, they believe in order to avoid unhappiness, it is impossible that they could be truly happy or even want to be.
They do not believe in perpetual happiness as even possible because they believe that unhappiness must be avoided while at the same time believing that it could never be completely avoided. This they must do. Believing that unhappiness could happen at all is an unhappiness that they do not want to avoid. They do not want to avoid that belief (even though they really do not want it) because they believe in it. They hold it as true. That belief alone accounts for the whole of what they call their experience of unhappiness.
Yet, although the thought or idea or revelation that unhappiness is simply a belief would never arise from their own “sets” or systems of belief, it does not mean it cannot confront them and occur to them from another cause. If in their environment the idea exists and meets their beliefs, something can and will happen. They will recognize a desire to accept the idea. If they believe it because they want to, then they will truly believe it. If they see it as true, a fact, a reality, and accept it as such, then, of course, they are now happy and by definition “know” that they never will be unhappy again (or actually they “know” they do not believe it exists for them anymore).
If they see it as a logical debate or something they need to be convinced of, it is because they do not believe it, because they believe unhappiness can still happen. If they see it as a way to avoid an unhappiness (or ignore an unhappiness) that they believe they “feel” or are experiencing, then they believe in unhappiness.
Anyone who says “but” in any way does not recognize it as true, of course. They simply still believe that unhappiness might happen anyway, no matter what they do (even no matter what they believe—although they didn’t believe this truth).
All “unhappiness” comes from believing that people can become unhappy by being made unhappy or by being subjects or passive victims of a cause of unhappiness.
In one sense, no one can be unhappy (lose their happiness) and all that that means (evil, something wrong, etc.) but people have believed that it was an evident fact. People have believed it was a divine or absolute truth. That state of believing in something you don’t want to believe in, no matter what form it takes, causes believing something to be true, and not realizing any longer that you don’t want to believe it to be true. From then on, wanting and believing will be in conflict. Thence develops right and wrong. Good and evil, happiness and unhappiness, etc.
Yet, people can call their feelings unhappy because they can think and act as if unhappiness was real. They can think that what they feel is caused by something they don’t want to cause their feelings. They believe that something (mysterious or known) has the power to make them experience or reflect on themselves (or believe about themselves or feel in their bodies) in a way that they do not want to.
They believe that their bodies are controlled by forces that they do not want to have force over their bodies. They believe that there are things about themselves, or experiences of themselves, that are not natural to them.
Natural means real.
They believe that there are things that could be real about themselves that they believe would not be really be themselves. They believe that they could have real sensations (desires, movements, happiness) which they believe are not real. They believe that things are real about themselves that they believe (fear) are not real.
This whole disparity is expressed by a question like
“Can I trust my decisions (judgments, desires, feelings, etc.?”)
The question is full of contradictions.
If they cannot trust, can they trust an answer to the question?
If they do not trust their decisions, who will they make the decision to trust?
Trust means “love”, “be happy about” or some such thing. Or it means “accurately predict by means of” or some such thing.
Yet whatever it may mean, used in conjunction with one’s own motivations, the term is meaningless.
The question means:
“Do I make my decisions?” or
“Do I believe my beliefs?” or
“Do I choose my choices?” or
“Can I do anything without me?”
AM I REAL?
Do I really want what I want? Am I against what I want?
Is the real real? Do I feel what I feel? Do I believe what
I believe? Am I the authority on me?
Questions for Reflection
Are there any signs in your body or in your life that you take to be signs of unhappiness?
If you were perfectly happy, do you believe that would be something you don’t want in some ways? What ways, specifically?
Do you want to your happiness to include anything you don’t want?
Who do you turn to when making decisions, whether your own counsel, another person, a book, or authority?
Who decides whether or not you will take or disregard the advice of those whom assist you in making decisions?
Meditation for the Week
You are the ultimate authority on what you value. There is no higher authority on which to base your decisions.