Self-Awareness and the pursuit of happiness: we’re going to discuss this subject here with you. There is a pursuit for happiness; human beings seek happiness; they look for happiness. However, their search, their pursuit, is the search for something they project as happiness. They idealize happiness on some level of fulfillment: sentimental, professional fulfillment, the fulfillment on some material level. It’s always the idea of conquest or of achieving happiness within some purpose, some objective; and that’s how humans have behaved, that’s how we conduct ourselves – happiness when the wedding happens, or when that professional achievement happens, or when we get the dream house, or some other goal.
The fact is that we mistake satisfaction, which gives us something, some fulfillment, or the contact with someone gives us, for happiness; that temporary, fleeting fulfillment in some attainment, for the conquest or the attainment of happiness. It’s always something on the outside to give you something, and fill you, and satisfy you, and fulfill you as a person.
The point is that we don't know what Happiness is, and then we transfer “happiness” to these beliefs, these imaginations, and these ideas. Happiness is contact with the Divine, with Consciousness, God; it is contact with your Being, with What transcends the body, the mind and the world. It’s in this sense I use the word here.
The Divine, some call God. Here, I have also called it Consciousness, Presence, and Being. Contact with This is contact with Happiness. The contact with This is not the contact of someone, of a person, with This. It’s not about a person being happy or finding Happiness, it’s about that Natural State of God, which is the Divine, Consciousness, your own Being assuming this Life, this Existence, which, by the way, it’s not your Existence, not your Life, it’s Life, the Existence of God Himself, the Consciousness itself, this Presence, the Divine itself.
Thus, Self-Awareness gives you this approach, this Perception of Reality. Only in this way can we use the word “self-awareness.” In general, this word is used in the sense of a personal accomplishment, of professional accomplishment, of an accomplishment of the person, of the individual. It’s always in the sense of someone doing something and having self-awareness as a tool for this, because this word is used in the sense of “knowing the ‘I,'” “getting to know this ‘I’ better,” “getting to know this ‘person better’.”
Generally, this is how people use the expression self-awareness: the knowledge of this “me,” of this “I.”
The deeper this knowledge, the richer this knowledge, the greater the ability to deal with goals, achievements, dreams, projects, accomplishments, and therefore, according to this belief, then, the closer to happiness you’ll be since, here, we have mistaken happiness for external fulfillment – the one that is here now and soon disappears.
Here, our approach is different. We are showing you that it is possible, indeed, the Realization of your Being, which is God, Happiness, and Self-Awareness is what will show you that this sense of “I” doesn’t exist, that this sense of “person” to achieve something doesn’t exist.
Anything people achieve in this life gives them even more the illusion of being “somebody,” of establishing themselves as an entity separate from Life, from Existence and therefore from God. Then, these so-called achievements and accomplishments don’t bestow Happiness; they can give pleasure, satisfaction, fulfillment, recognition, but all of these are egoic, are still within this egocentric activity, still strengthening the sense of a present “I,” and that sense of a present “I” is, naturally, conflict, contradiction, suffering.
This achieved happiness is soon lost. This achieved happiness is soon replaced. There is nothing permanent in Life, in Existence called happiness. Just being Consciousness is Happiness. This is straight from the Vedas, straight from the Upanishads. We find in the Vedas, in the last part of the Vedas, the lesson of Non-Duality. Non-Duality is Advaita. Advaita Vedanta addresses this: the possibility of Happiness in this life. And Happiness lies in being Consciousness. Consciousness is Being and Being is Happiness… Being is Happiness. There is nothing external! Nothing external is needed – no goal, no achievement, no accomplishment.
The Realization of your Being is Immutable Happiness. It’s not something temporary, something transitory, something that comes and goes, like those moments of pleasure, fulfillment, satisfaction in conquests; it’s not something like that. Happiness is the Nature of What transcends time, transcends the own body and mind.
Notice that we are profoundly happy in our own Being, but we are not present in that moment. What are these moments when we are deeply happy but not present? In deep sleep. In deep sleep, you don't carry the weight of an identity with problems, projects, dreams, desires, objectives, goals, including these goals, these dreams and these objectives to find happiness in them. Your Being is Pure Happiness in deep sleep!
Ramana Maharshi said that both king and beggar enjoy deep happiness in deep sleep. Contact with objects, sensations, experiences, is a mixture of pleasure and pain; it’s like this.
Happiness is the Nature of Consciousness, to rest in this Consciousness, to be in your Being.
Therefore, in Vedanta, the expression is Sat-Chit-Ananda, Being-Consciousness-Happiness. This is the Nature of Being.
So, in this matter of Self-Awareness and the pursuit of Happiness, Self-Awareness is the door to this encounter with Happiness – and, here, I refer to True Self-Awareness. True Self-Awareness is the acknowledgement that there is no identity present in this experience. Here, in this speaking and in this listening, this feeling, this thinking, in this action, in this doing, there is no “someone” doing, no “someone” thinking, no “someone” speaking, there is no separation between this experience and this “I.” What we have here is an idea, just an idea talking about this experience and this “I” since there is not this experience separate from this “me,” nor this “I” separate from this experience. There is only Life, without the sense of “I.”
In deep sleep, it’s possible to enjoy this Happiness without the ego identity, without the sense of a present “I.” In a dream it isn’t possible, and in the vigil state it isn’t possible, unless the sense of duality disappears, the sense of separateness disappears. This is what has been called “Spiritual Awakening” or “Spiritual Enlightenment” – this is when the sense of separation vanishes.
Thus, we are in direct contact with Advaita, with Non-Duality, with Non-Separation – That is the Realization of Happiness. Then, it takes place, in this vigil state, in dream, in deep sleep, and transcends these three states. You, in your Natural State of Being, Consciousness, Happiness, transcend vigil, dream and deep sleep.
So, Spiritual Enlightenment, Spiritual Awakening, is contact with the Reality of Happiness present here and now, regardless of whatever is happening externally. Then, it’s not about an achievement in the future, when an accomplishment is achieved; it is the Realization of this instant, of the Beauty of this present moment, of what this present moment represents here and now.
The only Reality is the Reality of God, which is your Being, Consciousness – and here I mean the Real Consciousness, True Consciousness. This Consciousness is What transcends this egoic consciousness, this mind consciousness, what transcends this illusory division between the experiencer and the experience, the thinker and the thought, action and the doer, the “I” and the “non-I,” what transcends this duality.
The word Advaita means “Non-Duality.” Only when Non-Duality is present, Happiness is present.
This contact with Self-Awareness opens the door to True Meditation. Notice, I always use the expression “True Self-Awareness” and “True Meditation.” Self-Awareness not in the sense of psychology or philosophy, but rather in the sense of this Realization of the Non-Duality of Advaita, the realization of the illusion of the “I.” This is Self-Awareness – understanding through self-inquiry, through self-investigation, which brings you closer to True Meditation, not to the practice of meditation or the various meditation practices known out there; I speak of True Meditation. I have also called it the True Practical Meditation, because it is here and now, in your living.
It is only here and now you can recognize that there is no separation, no duality. It is here and now! If you stop this habit, this conditioning of putting yourself as the experiencer of the experience, as the thinker when thought arises, as the doer of the action when the action happens, if this is broken, undone, we have the Revelation of Divine Truth, Happiness, in this encounter with What You are, as Consciousness, as Being.
Here on our channel, we have an extensive playlist talking about this True Meditation in practice, which is, truly, the Meditation for this Realization of What is You. We have also been talking here about True Self-Awareness, because without Self-Awareness, there is no Meditation.
So, what is practiced out there, as some practice or technique of meditation, without Self-Awareness, is not True Meditation. Then, this is our proposal here for you: to show you that the Realization of This is possible in this life.
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Thanks for the meeting and see you next time.
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