Sitting on a Mountain of Gold (& Other Thoughts on Happiness...)

Wise graffiti, right? Image via flickr

_This past weekend, I started reading Happy Yoga by Steve Ross & Olivia Rosewood. Right off the bat, I loved the book's basic premise and concepts--"we are all inherently happy" and "there's nothing to worry about." Sound great, right? So, today I wanted to share a striking passage from this book about "Fleeting Pleasure vs. True Happiness." I think that's Ross' take on the subject is spot on, and that it's a great reminder for our daily life and for the culture that we live in (one that seems to be driven by accumulation and achievement). Read below for today's daily dose of wisdom a la Steve Ross!

According to the yogis, pleasure and pain are two sides of the same coin. One never goes anywhere without the other, and they alternate. You may eat, but you'll be hungry again. You're lonely, then you're in love, then you're lonely, then you're in love. Then you're lonely and in love at the same time (and hopefully writing country western songs). Love and hate, war and peace, hot and cold, success and failure, rich and poor, and on and on. But true happiness transcends the pleasure/pain principle.

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Image via openlibrary.org

_Everyone has isolated moments of feeling on top of the world: when you buy something you really want, achieve a long held goal, overcome a monumental challenge, or even fall in love. Yes, it feels phenomenal. In those moments, the mind is quiet, there's a sense of intense satisfaction, and a tiny sliver of happiness reveals itself. This sliver is pleasure. You might think it comes from the buying of a new house, getting a big promotion at work, finding true love, or winning a prestigious award. But the truth is that these things just assuage your desire long enough for you to experience your natural state. The happiness is the same happiness every time. The happiness is not only coming from you (as opposed to those achievements or acquisitions), it IS you. The fulfillment of desire gives you a brief glimpse of what you really are. But the yogis have realized that you don't have to merely glimpse this happiness within you through the satisfaction of desire. The material world gives you a peek at pleasure, but lasting happiness is found right where you are...Happiness is in you, it is you, and it's not coming from an external source (including the shopping mall--and did I mention that happiness is not at the shopping mall?).

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A wise man I met in India put it to me this way: You're living on a mountain of gold and you don't realize it. Every time it rains, the dirt and muck are washed away and the gold is revealed. And you run out into the rain, scooping up fistfuls of gold and dancing around. But you mistakenly think that the rain is bringing the gold, so you worship the rain, and you make sacrifices with your schedule to please the rain. When there's a drought, you become poor, starve, and bemoan the absence of the rain. But the gold is always there, just beneath the surface, and the rain has simply been revealing it. If you'd just dust off the mountain the slightest bit, you'd see it for what it is. Scratch the surface! Look deeper! There's no need to rely on the rain to reveal your happiness.

Image via anuj-srivastava.blogspot.com

_I love this concept that we're all sitting on a mountain of gold. I've heard similar yoga stories and parables before, and think that it's a great way of explainting that we don't need to go out searching and striving to find a feeling of wholeness or completeness--we just need to learn how to be happy where we are right now, and then no matter where we go or what we do, we will be able to connect to that basic happiness. I love it.

Namaste,
Mary Catherine

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