Healthy Living

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“In the Quietness of Our Souls”
Tuesday, July 19, 2005 †

“Happy is that people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is the Lord” (Ps.144:15).


Where does your happiness lie? If you can answer that your happiness lies within God then you’ve already achieved a higher level of self-peace and internal understanding that not too many people in their life time will ever attain. Sadly for a lot of people, happiness becomes an elusive element which they spend much of their life chasing, yet never quite capturing. Each time it seemed happiness was in their hands, a more focused look revealed they never had it at all. Many times this is because they had a wrong image of what happiness truly is, and other times it is because they simply never had a guess as to what defines happiness anyways. Usually, the later people are those who are walking through life in darkness because they have not yet found their path.

It is instinctive for human beings to seek for happiness the minute we are placed on this earth. A new born when hungry or wet will no doubt let his parents know about his discontent and uncomfortable circumstance. As children we are told to strive for higher rewards as individuals and as team members - better grades, bigger trophies, higher academics and so on, all to attain a brighter and better future ourselves. Most things we do at one stage in life is to further our advancements in the next. After all, such is one definition of life. Coming into adulthood, our sights are set on goals that are a little grander for this stage here will most likely define the rest of our lives. So, we seek for greater job, higher salary, nicer homes etc. All our lives we continue to strive for our very best so that this process of growth in material things, conditions of life and status of life can continue to onward and upward until we’ve either reach the climax which we individually define as “the state of happiness” or until we are unable to do no more having to settle for what is currently at hand. No one wants to be just mediocre. But notice, however, that satisfaction is described by “the state of happiness” and not “the state of contentment”. For contentment never truly satisfy anyone and usually either regrets or worse yet, unhappiness enters the picture. And that is it, for most of us that is what the process of life is.

Is there anything wrong with this? Of course not! Because this is what God wanted of us and for us. Remember we are His children after all, and what parent does not wish the best for their own. More importantly, however, this is how the Lord created us because He wanted us to rule over all dominions of living planet. God created us in His image, which by definition is good to begin with. But then wants us to grow, advance and improve in all areas of our being including intellect and character. That is why He gave us each talents and gifts of all sorts. It’s true that God loves us as we are, but then He wants us to become better, better and better because His aspiration for us is to become like Jesus His Son, the definition of perfection, the definition of God’s highest climax.

No, there is nothing wrong with aspiring for higher levels at all. The problem only begins when we begin to loose sight of what God’s goal is for us, to be more Christ like. And Christ never valued the material world, His happiness is, was, and forever is in the spiritual world with God His Father. For there is where all perfection lies, and perfection is truth, purity, humility, wisdom – beauty in God’s eyes. Sadly in our strive for bettering ourselves we somehow become seduced by the visions of the fallen angel, and we incorrectly think that true happiness lies in the objects of the outside world. They are no longer just the stepping stones for going through life, but rather, they become life itself. The only thing is, none of the elements of the outside world can ever bring us true happiness, because if happiness is to be true then it must also be everlasting, eternal. And that is something material objects can’t deliver to us. For although we may find joy in a fancy car, once that object of joy is removed from us, or us from it, hence, the two are disengaged, the lingering effects of bliss is no longer there. On the contrary there seems to be a loss of “bliss”. But true bliss lies within our soul in the spiritual world where we find our union with God. We are all-bliss, all-consciousness, all-joy. Therefore, when you are absorbed in things of the outside world it is your own bliss that you are enjoying because you attention, your concentration is there. There is no bliss in the outside world, no happiness as we are but a drop of the ocean of all-Consciousness. True and total joy is found in God, the Ocean of all-bliss, all-consciousness, all-intellect and all-joy. He is ever-existent, everlasting.

Nathaniel Hawthorne said: “Happiness is a butterfly which when pursued is just out of grasp … But if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.” I guess he was right, because when we are quiet and still – so still that we can hear our own heart beat and our own breath following in rhythm, when we can hear our own consciousness that is when we can hear the whispers of God in our soul.

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