The Happiness Podcast

This is Anthony DeMello's parable about listening for the singer in the song, looking for the dancer in the dance, experiencing the life inside the moment.

De Mello talks about effortlessness in transformation change. He likens it to the image a sailboat. When a sailboat has a mighty wind in its sail, it glides along so effortlessly that the boatman has nothing to do but steer. He makes no effort; he doesn’t push the boat. That’s an image of what happens when change comes about through awareness, through understanding.

The religion known as freedom makes all people good, for it destroys the inner conflict that makes people devils. As you begin to understand this, you stop making demands on yourself, you stop having expectations of yourself, you stop pushing yourself and you start nourishing yourself with sunsets and nature, with a good movie or a good book. You start pursuing enjoyable work that you love, and you make time for good company. In short, you break free of the negative drives society programmed into you that has blocked you from being happy.

One sign that you’ve woken up is you're asking yourself, “Am I crazy or is the whole world crazy?" We’re living on crazy ideas about love, about relationships, about happiness, about joy, about everything; and it's all been feed to us by our crazy society. The sooner we see this, the better for our mental and spiritual health.

Some people make awakening a goal. They're determined to get there. They say, “I refuse to be happy until I’m awakened.” This forms an attachment and attachments are the source of suffering, which moves in the opposite direction of awakening. Enlightenment comes from a deeper awareness of the way you are without judging it. DeMello tells a story of a disciple who leaves his guru for the hills to attain enlightenment. Years pass, but no enlightenment; not until he gives it up.

When you awaken, when you understand, when you see, the world becomes right. However, we’re always bothered by the problem of evil, aren't we. Our intellect can't explain it. There’s a powerful story about a little boy and crocodile that illuminates the nature of evil.

Reality is not problematic. Problems exist only in the human mind. We might add: problems exist only in the not-yet-awakened human mind. But reality is not problematic. Take away human beings from this planet and nature would go on in all its loveliness and violence. Where would the problem be? No problem.

Think of anything that's causing you pain, worry or anxiety. First, can you see the desire under that suffering? Make no mistake, there’s something you desire keenly or else you wouldn’t be suffering. What is that desire? Second, it isn’t simply a desire; there’s an identification made. You have said to yourself, “The very well-being of my existence is tied to fulfilling this desire.” Open to it and it will reveal how all suffering is caused by identifying with something within or outside you.

A good is never so good as when you have no awareness that you’re doing good. You are never so good as when you have no consciousness that you’re good. Or as the great Sufi would say, “A saint is one until he or she knows it.” Unselfconscious!

We’ve been taught to look for our happiness in outside things: money, power, romance, approval. That’s the first thing we need to understand if we want to come awake, which is the same thing as saying: if we want to love, if we want freedom, if we want joy and peace and spirituality. In that sense, spirituality is the most practical thing in the whole wide world. I challenge anyone to think of anything more practical than spirituality as I have defined it—not piety, not devotion, not religion, not worship, but spirituality—waking up, waking up!

Happiness is your natural state. It is coming home to yourself simply by observing yourself. Does that sound a bit tedious? It's not. Self-observation is such a delightful and extraordinary thing. After a while you don’t have to make any effort, because, as illusions begin to crumble, you begin to know things that cannot be described. It’s called happiness, which is the experience of your essential nature. Everything changes and you become oriented to awareness instead of to suffering.

Sooner or later there arises in every human heart the desire for holiness, spirituality, God, call it what you will. One hears mystics speak of a divinity all around them that is within our grasp, that would make our lives meaningful and beautiful and rich, if we could only discover it.

Sooner or later there arises in every human heart the desire for holiness, spirituality, God, call it what you will. One hears mystics speak of a divinity all around them that is within our grasp, that would make our lives meaningful and beautiful and rich, if we could only discover it.