Have you had enough?
The greatest gift I've ever received. (2min read)
True story, Word of Honor:
Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer
now dead,
and I were at a party given by a billionaire
on Shelter Island.
I said, “Joe, how does it make you feel
to know that our host only yesterday
may have made more money
than your novel ‘Catch-22’
has earned in its entire history?”
And Joe said, “I’ve got something he can never have.”
And I said, “What on earth could that be, Joe?”
And Joe said, “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.”
Not bad! Rest in peace!”
— Kurt Vonnegut, The New Yorker, May 16th, 2005
“Happiness is within” they say, but where is it and how do we find it?
For many, the holiday season has come to represent an opportunity to get more stuff.
As Robert Sutton describes in his book The No Asshole Rule:
“You often see the world framed as a place where everyone wants ‘more more more’ for ‘me me me,’ every minute in every way. The old bumper sticker sums it up: ‘Whoever dies with the most toys wins.’ The potent but usually unstated message is that we are all trapped in a life-long contest where people can never get enough…and that we should want more goodies than everyone else.”
Theres’s nothing wrong with having nice things.
But as meditators, we know the kind of happiness this stuff provides is ephemeral and unsustainable.
We know no amount of stuff will ever truly fulfill us.
The more we get, the more we want.
It’s a paradox for the ages.
That’s because “pursuing something only reinforces the fact that you lack it in the first place,” as the great Alan Watts explains in his Backwards Law.
Watts understood that when we rely on external means for happiness or fulfillment, we perpetuate a state of seeking outside ourselves.
Thankfully, we have a tool to access a more sustainable kind of happiness from within, which we call bliss.
Bliss is not some ecstatic state of jubilance compelling us to dance around all day.
Bliss is that supreme quiet inner contentedness we feel when we’re meditating.
Bliss is not dependent on anything outside of ourselves — not our stuff, not our relationships, nor our career.
Bliss is the opposite of ephemeral — it’s infinitely renewable.
Bliss is not imported from external sources like presents, sweets, alcohol, or approval from family.
Bliss bubbles up from within and begs to be exported to the world around us.
Through regular practice of Vedic Meditation twice daily, we cultivate and continually replenish our inner bliss.
Each time we close our eyes, repeat our mantra, and transcend thoughts, it’s as if we’re dipping the cloth of our Being into the dye of our own inexhaustible inner supply of bliss.
Each time we emerge from meditation, we bring a little more of that bliss out with us.
With each meditation, our cloth becomes increasingly saturated with bliss.
Eventually, the cloth of our Being becomes completely and permanently saturated with the rich, deep hue of our own inner bliss.
As we begin to cultivate more and more of this supreme inner contentedness, we become less reliant on others for our happiness.
We become less concerned with getting from others, and more concerned with giving to others.
Giving is what the holiday season is truly all about.
But why limit our giving to the month of December?
With regular twice-daily meditation practice, we’ll eventually stabilize our inner bliss completely, and we can live every day like it’s Christmas.
It is truly the greatest gift I’ve ever received.
We’ll discuss these ideas and others during Collective Effervescence, our online group meditation series, this Sunday December 25 (Christmas Day!) at 8am LA / 11am MIA / 5pm EU. Drop in for meditation only (first 30 min) or stay for discussion + Q&A on this and other life topics from the Vedic perspective.
Use the links below to add the full calendar of upcoming sessions to your calendar of choice, and your calendar will stay up to date automagically. Set reminders from the calendar settings page in your calendar program.
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Music today courtesy of The Who, whose frontman Pete Townshend says his peak creative period between 1967 and 1980 was heavily influenced by Indian spiritual master Meher Baba and credits spiritual aspiration as the driving force behind the depth and timelessness of many of his greatest works.