The title is provocative. How can happiness be tyrannical?
When it’s viewed as a command, as the hallmark of a successful life. I think I’ve actually been happy ever since I stopped trying to be happy. By letting go and living fully in the present moment, I’ve found what I thought was always further away, ahead of me, in an uncertain future.
It’s ironic, really: when you stop searching for happiness, you realize it was there all along. Because it’s much more a way of looking at the world than a state that can be measured by our achievements and possessions.
The Promise of Happiness
Like many of us, I spent a long time trying to be happy by throwing myself headlong into everything that promised happiness: a healthier body and mind, an ever-more-successful career, an ever-wider social circle, and so on… And in the pursuit of “more,” I forgot to simply let myself be, just as I am, in my present experiences.
When you think about it, it’s almost funny how we can wear ourselves out trying to be happy. We make a whole list of essential things we need to do to achieve that happiness: if I meditate for 10 minutes a day, if I do my yoga, pranayama, tapping, shaking, relaxation, jogging, slow cooking… then inevitably I’ll finally be happy. Who doesn’t recognize themselves a little in that? Either we find the energy to do all that and realize that, well, no—actually, things aren’t really any better—or we tell ourselves, “Pfffff, it’s impossible to do all that,” and “Well, that’s it, I’m stuck enduring my life while feeling guilty for not doing more to be happy.”
Tied to this is the tyranny of self-improvement promised by self-help methods and wellness gurus who push us to become “the best version of ourselves,” to always keep moving “forward,” to “progress.” Just writing all this makes me feel drained and discouraged. Exhausting!
Spiritual Materialism
Well, I’m not telling you anything new when I say that this view of happiness is materialistic—that it fuels a capitalist system that preys on our gullibility and our doubts about our intrinsic human worth.
Do you recognize yourself in this at all?
If I do yoga, then my life will be so much better—oh, right, but to go to my yoga class, I’d still need a new sports bra. Now that I have the sports bra, I tell myself that my belly fat is really too noticeable; I’d be so much happier without it. So I’m going to go on the such-and-such diet, and then I’ll definitely be happy. Oh, but to do the diet, I have to buy that guava juicer thing-or-other, because, well, it’s important that I invest in my well-being. And then I’ll also get a gym membership because a diet without exercise just won’t work. So, when I see myself in the mirrors at the gym, I think to myself that, honestly, I look tired—I’m sure I’d be so much happier with a few little anti-wrinkle injections; everyone does it, so it must really make a difference to your happiness. While I’m at it, I’m going to start meditating—I hear it makes you more laid-back—so I’ll squeeze that in every morning from 6:00 to 6:20 a.m. before doing my push-ups for a flat stomach. Well, I hate spending time by myself, so I’ll do a guided meditation with music—there are experts online who can teach us how to be happy, which is super convenient. After the push-ups, I’ll have to remember to be cheerful for my family—and make sure to remind everyone of their role in keeping the family happy: the husband at work for our financial happiness, then at the triathlon to push himself (there’s happiness on the other side, apparently), the kids at school to learn and be happy later on, and me handling all the professional, personal, athletic, and family tasks that are absolutely essential to universal happiness.
I believed in it, too
Well, just like you, perhaps—I’m not assuming you’re gullible; I tried all of that. And, oh, what a revelation—it didn’t work. I “did” yoga like a maniac to be “better” and ended up straining my neck, my right shoulder, and my left hip—I “did” meditation and gave myself terrible headaches trying to catch my thoughts on the fly like at a clay pigeon shoot, I “did” flat-stomach push-ups, fat-burning jogs, anti-belly-fat weight training, and even, once, injections of some acid-what’s-it-called. And you know what? Well, happiness stayed ahead, in the future, a mirage of success.
“Do”?
Why “do” in quotes? Because I finally came to understand that none of that had anything to do with happiness as long as it was just “doing.” This idea was drummed into me—a lot, for a long time, with great regularity—you could even say it’s been screamed in my ear for 20 years. It took me a while to hear the heart of Buddhist and yogic teachings: we are what we seek. There are techniques for finding oneself, but they’re never the end goal; they’re simply the means that allow us to connect with our fundamental goodness, our Buddha-nature, our infinite space, our pure consciousness, happiness… call it what you will. And it’s precisely by doing less that we finally relax into what was already there all along. Here’s another irony: it’s incredible that we have to miss out on ourselves so much just to finally see ourselves.
Well, this might upset or disappoint some of you: we don’t care about the yoga pose—the pose is an empty shell if it isn’t inhabited by “being.” We don’t care about meditation if it isn’t a space for the mind to rest within itself, a space for consciousness to open up to itself. And as for wrinkles, etc…. it took us years to get them—it’s kind of silly to get rid of them, isn’t it? More seriously, by reducing ourselves to our bodies, we diminish ourselves… greatly, greatly. And we close the door to space—and thus to happiness.
Lightening the Self
Oh, I may have lost you here. What’s the connection between space, consciousness, happiness, being, and so on? To put it simply—and within the limits of my humble understanding—here’s what I’ve gleaned from Buddhist and yogic teachings: the more the sense of self is lightened, the happier we are. The more we believe in our own identity, the more we cling to what we believe to be “I,” the more territorial, arrogant, or full of doubt, aggressive, or attached we become—and the more we have to defend. When this territory is open, then the “self” can be traversed by movements, twists and turns, thoughts and emotions, forms and dissolutions—without ever being reduced to any one of them.
A possibility always in the making
My attempt to summarize years of practice in a single paragraph has certainly failed. But I will never stop trying to convey this—the happiness that comes from the possibility of the “non-self.” The peace that arises within and from being—not as an entity possessing an intrinsic essence, but as a possibility always in the making. That is happiness.