Happiness or Peace?

Article by Julie Umpleby, www.diamondlightworld.net 

"Happiness is a by-product. You cannot pursue it by itself."  Samuel Levenson

"Seek not happiness too greedily, and be not fearful of unhappiness."  Lao-Tzu

For a period of about 8 years as I engaged with one life challenge after another, I found myself questioning the concept of happiness. Here I was on a so-called spiritual journey, on ‘the path’ as others would say, and yet I felt anything but happy with it. I experienced interim periods of ecstatic joy and divine inspirations that kept me going, and then the grey cloud would appear overhead again and I began to question the entire nature of my journey. Would I ever really feel happy? I was trusting in my highest guidance and I knew beyond doubt that I was doing the right things and that there were deep wisdoms unfolding, yet still, I didn’t seem to be able to sustain a ‘happy’ state of being.

As I looked around at others, it seemed that many people were happier than I was. At the same time I was noticing a plethora of workshops, books and scientific programs all pledging “Instant happiness”, “Three quick steps to Happiness” or other similar promises. We are bombarded from every angle by clever marketers with guarantees that their product will make us happy, even that we need it to be happy. Nations and governments have introduced Happiness indexes for their countries and it has become another comparison game – which nation is happier? Happiness has become a competitive domain, a symptom of a society dominated by the misplaced values. Each time our expectations are not met by that book, that workshop, that product we set off on another quest in pursuit of the elusive happiness.

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