by Bruce Kasanoff
People, including me, are often searching to find purpose and meaning in life. Today, I’m sharing what might be the shortest, clearest and most profound potential answer to such quests.
I didn’t come up with it, and I can’t prove it’s correct. You can decide for yourself, and I’d love to hear your reaction.
The following comes from a video featuring author Rupert Spira answering questions at one of his frequent retreats…
The only purpose of life, he says, is to find happiness.
“Happiness is the knowing of our own being. The common name for the knowing of being is I; the religious name for the same experience is God.”
(Or Source or whatever word feels right to you…)
“When we mix our own being up with a cluster of thoughts and feelings, we obscure the true nature of I.”
HAPPINESS IS REMEMBERING THE FEELING OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE CONNECTED TO EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE.
It is remembering that the awareness you experience in life is God’s awareness. It is recognizing that your thoughts and emotions are not your own, but rather arise out of God’s awareness operating from the limited perspective of your circumstances.
This is a lot to take in.
Later in the video, Spira asks why people go bungee jumping and ride extreme roller coasters. He suggests they are seeking the illusion they are going to die, although they know that the ride is actually safe. In this manner, they experience a brief instance of euphoric release of the fear that we are a separate being, easily destroyed.
Your true nature, he says, is not a separate being.
Your true nature is an infinite being.
Pretty much everything humans do to have peak experiences—from climbing a mountain to praying to casual sex with strangers—is to experience a moment of unity in which we lose the illusion of being a separate, finite self.
But we can have much more than that brief instant, says Spira.
Once you understand that “your” awareness is actually the presence of God in your life, you can experience unlimited happiness.
You can remember what it feels like to be God, because you are God.
The pursuit of happiness is nothing more than an intention to let go of the illusion that you are a separate, isolated, threatened and finite being.
“Don’t think of happiness as a state of the mind,” suggests Spira. “Happiness is just the common name for the knowing of our own being.”
Not being a random person in a world of seven billion such people.
Being an infinite awareness that is not merely connected to Source, but actually is Source.
Here’s the video. It’s just 20 minutes long.