Thursday, July 6, 2006 at 2:02am
Happiness isn't always about being happy
Column: Our Place in the Universe
I did a search using the phrase, "the purpose of life is happiness." I was directed to, to name a few, All About Mormons, Lessons from the Dalai Lama, Advice for Christians, The Divine Principle of Rev. Moon, Hinduism Today, The Forum for Ayn Rand Fans, even the Iranian Singles Network! Of course I found sprinkled throughout the search, sites that proclaimed that they believed otherwise, and those warning that happiness doesn't mean the same thing as pleasure.
How can we know our purpose for happiness when we don't know the meaning of life, let alone that of happiness? I was talking to the headmaster of the school I work for. He pointed out a very interesting thing. He said that we shouldn't ask or think, "does this make me happy?" We should ask "does this have meaning for me?" He cited Viktor Frankl's book, "Man's Search for Meaning."
Frankl says that happiness cannot be pursued; one must have a reason to be happy. And as for meaning, Frankl writes that we shouldn't ask what the meaning of life is. Life should be questioning us, and we should answer by being responsible for our own life.
And how about the complication of realizing that often neither our life, nor our purpose is in harmony with the rest of the world, and our ability to be happy has a tenuous hold at best? How do we relate meaning with suffering? The headmaster goes to his shelf and gets another book, "Happiness and Education."
The author, Nel Noddings, mentioning Frankl, says that young people should learn about suffering. They should be taught "heroic tales of noble responses" but ones that do not glorify the extremes. Students should learn how others have looked at suffering, and how others have suffered. This will engender a commitment to, and for, compassion.
At this point some would introduce the concept of man's need for salvation. On one hand a suffering messiah patterns this noble responsibility. On the other hand the social responsibility fostered in beliefs, such as liberation theology, glorifies the sufferer as well as the Savior.
I contend though, that this paradigm encourages the repetition of an old pattern of behavior that no longer works. I believe we need to take the definition and our belief of salvation out of the purely "religious" or even "social" realm and bring it into the realm of living and remembering.
Since, with our free will, we have chosen death, now is the time, with our free will, to choose life, to remember our roots and our inheritance. Spiritually, as I said in last week's column, it is the time; we are becoming conscious of our position in this universe and our responsibility to it.
In Winifred Gallagher's book "Working on God," Canon Jeffrey Golliher speaks of salvation in terms of awakening or remembering. "Salvation," he says, "is when we remember that God knew us before we were formed in the womb, and always will know us. . . Salvation is waking up to a world pervaded by the sacred." This is a disciplined, wide-awake faith that remembers what is really true. Included in this is an opening to our true self.
Joanna Macy echoes similar sentiments of finding a connection with our true nature in her book "Coming Back to Life." Describing our lives as a vast living web of interwoven nerve cells in the mind of a great being, she states that out of this web one cannot fall, for this is what we are. We can rest in the knowing that nothing we do will sever us from our connection with the Great Peace. "Out of it we can act, we can risk anything — and let every encounter be a homecoming to our true nature."
This "conscious evolution" is not designed by the fear of who we are not, but by the reality of who we are. Professor A. Harris Stone defines conscious evolution as "an awakening of the 'memory' that resides in a synthesis of human knowing — spiritual, social and scientific — joined in the effort to discover the inherent evolutionary design, a design which we strive to manifest through ethical choice and creative action."
This can only happen when we remember that we are heart-based, created first in the presence of Love, albeit within the framework of Science. Only then will our conscious evolution lead to a constructive harmony, and transformation of goodness, a co-creative response that can be the root of innumerable positive futures.
(With thanks to the Buddhist, the Christian, the New Age thinker, the psychiatrist, and the educator!)
— — —
Anne E. Ulvestad is a freelance writer residing in Maryland. She has her masters in earth literacy, and is available for public lectures and group presentations on Spirituality and the Environment. Anne can be reached at {email anne@ourplaceintheuniverse.com}anne@ourplaceintheuniverse.com{/email}. © 2006 by Anne E. Ulvestad
— — —
UPI Religion & Spirituality Forum is a big tent for all expressions of faith and spirituality, neither excluding nor favoring any. All opinions expressed belong to the writer alone, and are not necessarily shared by UPI Religion & Spirituality Forum.
How can we know our purpose for happiness when we don't know the meaning of life, let alone that of happiness? I was talking to the headmaster of the school I work for. He pointed out a very interesting thing. He said that we shouldn't ask or think, "does this make me happy?" We should ask "does this have meaning for me?" He cited Viktor Frankl's book, "Man's Search for Meaning."
Frankl says that happiness cannot be pursued; one must have a reason to be happy. And as for meaning, Frankl writes that we shouldn't ask what the meaning of life is. Life should be questioning us, and we should answer by being responsible for our own life.
And how about the complication of realizing that often neither our life, nor our purpose is in harmony with the rest of the world, and our ability to be happy has a tenuous hold at best? How do we relate meaning with suffering? The headmaster goes to his shelf and gets another book, "Happiness and Education."
The author, Nel Noddings, mentioning Frankl, says that young people should learn about suffering. They should be taught "heroic tales of noble responses" but ones that do not glorify the extremes. Students should learn how others have looked at suffering, and how others have suffered. This will engender a commitment to, and for, compassion.
At this point some would introduce the concept of man's need for salvation. On one hand a suffering messiah patterns this noble responsibility. On the other hand the social responsibility fostered in beliefs, such as liberation theology, glorifies the sufferer as well as the Savior.
I contend though, that this paradigm encourages the repetition of an old pattern of behavior that no longer works. I believe we need to take the definition and our belief of salvation out of the purely "religious" or even "social" realm and bring it into the realm of living and remembering.
Since, with our free will, we have chosen death, now is the time, with our free will, to choose life, to remember our roots and our inheritance. Spiritually, as I said in last week's column, it is the time; we are becoming conscious of our position in this universe and our responsibility to it.
In Winifred Gallagher's book "Working on God," Canon Jeffrey Golliher speaks of salvation in terms of awakening or remembering. "Salvation," he says, "is when we remember that God knew us before we were formed in the womb, and always will know us. . . Salvation is waking up to a world pervaded by the sacred." This is a disciplined, wide-awake faith that remembers what is really true. Included in this is an opening to our true self.
Joanna Macy echoes similar sentiments of finding a connection with our true nature in her book "Coming Back to Life." Describing our lives as a vast living web of interwoven nerve cells in the mind of a great being, she states that out of this web one cannot fall, for this is what we are. We can rest in the knowing that nothing we do will sever us from our connection with the Great Peace. "Out of it we can act, we can risk anything — and let every encounter be a homecoming to our true nature."
This "conscious evolution" is not designed by the fear of who we are not, but by the reality of who we are. Professor A. Harris Stone defines conscious evolution as "an awakening of the 'memory' that resides in a synthesis of human knowing — spiritual, social and scientific — joined in the effort to discover the inherent evolutionary design, a design which we strive to manifest through ethical choice and creative action."
This can only happen when we remember that we are heart-based, created first in the presence of Love, albeit within the framework of Science. Only then will our conscious evolution lead to a constructive harmony, and transformation of goodness, a co-creative response that can be the root of innumerable positive futures.
(With thanks to the Buddhist, the Christian, the New Age thinker, the psychiatrist, and the educator!)
— — —
Anne E. Ulvestad is a freelance writer residing in Maryland. She has her masters in earth literacy, and is available for public lectures and group presentations on Spirituality and the Environment. Anne can be reached at {email anne@ourplaceintheuniverse.com}anne@ourplaceintheuniverse.com{/email}. © 2006 by Anne E. Ulvestad
UPI Religion & Spirituality Forum is a big tent for all expressions of faith and spirituality, neither excluding nor favoring any. All opinions expressed belong to the writer alone, and are not necessarily shared by UPI Religion & Spirituality Forum.