The Pursuit of Happiness Re-Examined

"The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent situation and another. Some of those situations may no doubt deserve to be preferred to others, but none of them can deserve to be pursued with that passionate ardour which drives us to violate the rules either of prudence or of justice, or to corrupt the future tranquility of our minds either by shame from the remembrance of our own folly or by remorse from the horror of our own injustice."

-- Adam Smith --
("The Theory of Moral Sentiments")

Would you really be happy if you won the lottery? What if, instead, you had an horrific accident and were rendered parapalegic? Faced with these two "permanent situations" is it possible that we could really over-rate the difference between these two seemingly diametrically opposed outcomes?

It turns out that we do, according to research by psychiatrist, Dan Gilbert. Surprisingly, one year after an inarguably life-changing event, both lottery winners and parapalegics report the exact same level of happiness with their lives. By virtue of our anatomy alone, Gilbert explains in the attached video, humans have an unbelievable capacity to synthesize happiness. The trouble is, few of us (a) know it, or (b) know how to tap into it.

This is perhaps not so surprising, given that in our consumer society we are taught (incorrectly) that attaining happiness lies in the acquisition of exterior things, and that permanent happiness can be found through such acquisition. Gilbert looks at the the thought processes that goes into acquiring goods and the phenomenon of buyer's remorse in order to demonstrate the innate potential we all have for being either happy - or profoundly unhappy.

"Some things are better than others," Gilbert observes. "We should have perferences that lead us into one future over another."

"But," he cautions, "when those preferences drive us too hard or too fast because we have overrated the difference between these futures, we are at risk."

"When our ambition is bounded," he notes, "it leads us to work joyfully. When our ambition is unbounded, it leads us to lie, to cheat, to steal, to hurt others, to sacrifice things of real value. When our fears are bounded, we are prudent, we are caution, we are thoughtful. When our fears are unbounded and overblown, we are reckless and we are cowardly."

"Our longings and our worries are both to some degree overblown," Gilbert concludes, "because we have within us the capacity to manufacture the very commodity (i.e., happiness) we are constantly chasing when we choose experience."

The Anatomies of Evil and Heroism

"The line between good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being."

-- Alexandre Solzenitsyn --

"Evil is the exercise of power to intentionally harm people psychologically, to hurt people physically, to destroy people (or ideas) mortally, and to commit crimes against humanity," says renowned social psychologist Philip Zimbardo, an expert defense witness for soldiers accused in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

Abu Ghraib was classically explained away by the upper echelons of the U.S. military and administration as a "few bad apples spoiling the barrel." However, in seeking to explain how individuals become transformed into monsters, Zimbardo looks at three factors: the dispositional (that which is inside of the individual which makes him or her "a bad apple"), the situational (the situation external to the individual which may be deemed "a bad barrel"), and the systemic (broad political, economic and legal influences put in place by "bad barrel-makers"). There is, Zimbardo posits, a broad interplay between all three factors. And, that which makes some of us monsters, may make others heroes . . . dependent on the circumstances and the action (or inaction) of the individual in the face of evil.

Zimbardo, who was a principal researcher in the now-infamous Stanford Prison Experiment study notes that there are seven social processes that "grease the slippery slope of evil," those being:

• Mindlessly taking the first small step
• The dehumanization of "others"
• The de-individuation (or anonymity) of self
• The diffusion of personal responsibility
• Blind obedience to authority
• Uncritical conformity to group norms, and
• Passive tolerance of evil through inaction, or indifference.

In contrast, Zimbardo, who is working to develop a "psychology of heroism" to inoculate children against just such a "slippery slope," notes that "heroes are ordinary people whose social action is extraordinary, who act when others are passive, and who give up ego-centrism for socio-centerism."

Ecstasy and Being 'In the Flow'

In the attached video lecture from TED.com, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi examines the state of ecstasy people experience when they are "in the flow." Ecstasy itself, he explains, in the original Greek meant to stand outside of one's self, and "then it became essentially an analogy for a mental state where you feel that you are not doing your everyday routines. "

"Ecstasy," therefore, Csikszentmihalyi observes, " is essentially stepping into an alternative reality."

Examining the inner lives of composers, poets, athletes and business leaders who have consciously experienced being "in the flow" he notes that all focus on peripheral things drops away because there is not enough capacity to take in these externalities while being so tightly focused on the ecstasy-producing activity. "Existence, itself," he notes, "is temporarily suspended."

A poet explained the ecstatic "state of flow" experience in the following terms to one of Csikszentmihalyi's research assistants:

"It's like opening a door that's floating in the middle of nowhere and all you have to do is go and turn the handle and open it and let yourself sink into it. You can't particularly force yourself through it You just have to float. If there's any gravitational pull, its from the outside world trying to keep you back from the door."

Combining the research into such peak experiences amongst athletes, artists, contemplatives, innovators and leaders of all stripes, Csikszentmihalyi sets out seven characteristics of how it feels to be "in the flow" in the following list:

1. Completely involved in what we are doing - focused, concentrated.
2. A sense of ecstasy - of being outside everyday reality.
3. Great inner clarity - knowing what needs to be done, and how well we are doing.
4. Knowing that the activity is doable - that our skills are adequate to the task.
5. A sense of serenity - no worries about oneself, and a feeling of growing beyond the boundaries of the ego.
6. Timelessness - thoroughly focused on the present, hours seem to pass by in minutes.
7. Intrinsic motivation - whatever produces flow becomes its own reward.

With the aid of the following chart, Csikszentmihalyi explains that the state of "flow" typically occurs when difficult challenges are met using a highly developed skill set. The "flow state," he notes, is most often entered from a state of "arousal" - i.e., where very challenging tasks push the limit of one's skills - or, less frequently, from a very "controlled" state, where a highly developed skills set is being used to meet and overcome progressively more difficult challenges.

It is no mere coincidence that the characteristics of the "flow state" that Csikszentmihalyi describes are virtually identical with the peak experiences of mystics, for the mystic is ever-seeking that state of ecstatic union with the Wholeness, Godhead, or Ground of Being which results in a higher, dilated consciousness and an expansiveness of being - all characteristics of what Csikszentmihalyi would describe as being "in the flow."

"There are thousands of wines that can take over our minds," Rumi cautions. "Don't think all ecstasies are the same!"

Religious Experience, Cosmic Consciousness, the Universe and Evolutionary Enlightenment

"(O)ur normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the flimsiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus, and at a touch they are there in all their completeness. . . . No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded."

-- William James --

In the "Varieties of Religious Experience," William James, one of the fathers of American psychology, recounts a number of enlightenment experiences, including that undergone by Richard M. Bucke, author of "Cosmic Consciousness,' a work that had a profound and continuing effect not only on James, but on generations of spiritual seekers after its publication in 1901.

"I had spent the evening in a great city, with two friends reading and discussing poetry and philosophy," Bucke recalls. "We parted at midnight. I had a long drive in a hansom to my lodging. My mind, deeply under the influence of the ideas, images and emotions called up by the reading and talk, was calm and peaceful. I was in a state of quiet, almost passive enjoyment, not actually thinking, but letting ideas, images and emotions flow, as it were, through my mind."

"All at once, without warning of any kind," he remembers, "I found myself wrapped in a flame-coloured cloud. For an instant I thought of fire, an immense conflagaration somewhere close by in that great city; the next, I knew that the flame was within myself. Directly afterward there came upon me a sense of exultation, of immense joyousness accompanied or immediately followed by an intellectual illumination impossible to describe."

"Among other things," Bucke notes, "I did not merely come to believe, but I saw that the universe is not composed of dead matter, but is, on the contrary, a living Presence; I became conscious in myself of eternal life. It was not a conviction that I would have eternal life, but a consciousness that I possessed eternal life then; I saw that all men are immortal; that the cosmic order is such that without any peradventure all things work together for the good of each and all; that the foundation principle of the world, of all the worlds, is what we call love, and that the happiness of each and all is in the long run absolutely certain."

"The vision lasted a few seconds and was gone," Bucke recalls, "but the memory of it and the sense of the reality of what it taught has remained during the quarter of a century which has since elapsed. I knew that what the vision showed was true. I had attained to a point of view from which I saw that it must be true. That view, that conviction, I must say that consciousness, has never, even during periods of the deepest depression, been lost."

[Wm. James, "The Varieties of Religious Experience," p. 399.]

"Mystical states in general," James observes, "assert a pretty distinct theoretic drift. . . . One of these directions is optimism, and the other is monism."

"We pass," he notes, "into mystical states from out of ordinary consciousness as from a less into a more, as from a smallness into a vastness, and at the same time as from an unrest to a rest. We feel them as reconciling unifying states."

[Ibid., page 416.]

Both James and Bucke talk of the aliveness of the universe and their experience of oneness with it, a point echoed in the "evolutionary enlightenment" teachings of modern spiritual teacher, Andrew Cohen.

At the point of enlightenment, Cohen points out in the attached video, "that is when the evolving Self can begin to authentically discern the difference between what it means to be a world-centrically aware and awake individual versus one who is cosmically awake and aware, in a way that is not merely cognitive. Then, you begin to experience emotionally, psychologically and existentially, and at every other level of yourself, what you are actually dealing with, what you are faced with, which is the future of this whole (evolutionary) process."

Axial Age Syncretism: Ancient Greece Encounters Buddhism

Growing up in the West, my worldview was that Buddhism was an Eastern and foreign religion. I did not know much about Buddhism, which is as much a philosophy and psychology as it is a religion per se, nor did I know too much about early history, European or Asian. I suspect many readers are in the same boat.

The Greek influence is clearly evident
in this statue of the Buddha circa the
1st-2nd century CE.

(Tokyo National Museum)

 

Since then, however, I have learned much more about the so-called "axial age," which saw the birth of philosophy in Ancient Greece, the rise of Judaic monotheism, the emergence of the Buddha in India, Zoroaster in Persia, and Lao-Tze in China (among others). Several historical facts about this pivotal era in the story of civilization had eluded me. First, that the Greek Empire stretched much further into Asia than I had realized. (I had always pictured the frontiers as lying on the border of the Persian Empire, some distance to the west of modern Iran). Second, that Buddhism was not a Far Eastern phenomenon at that time, but rather it had spread across the Indian subcontinent (where it competed with, and was an offshoot of, the Sanata Dharma of ancient Vedic India). Third, that Buddhism(or Buddhist philosophy and influence) had rapidly spread west along the ancient Silk Road. And, fourth, that Indo-Grecian nations were set up along the Silk Road and survived for many centuries following the death of Alexander, facilitating the East-West flow of ideas, technologies and philosophy.

Indeed, I did not know that Alexander had conquered and established colonial cities in what is now modern Afghanistan. Nor did I know that he had pressed further into Kashmir and the Punjab, before being repulsed by strong kingdoms along the Ganges and retreating back into Asia Minor where he fell ill and died in Babylon in 323 B.C.E. Nor, at the time, had I heard of King Ashoka (304-232 B.C.E.), the great unifier of the Indian sub-continent, who subsequently adopted Buddhism and sent Buddhist emissaries far and wide, or that those emissaries had traveled as far as Egypt and Athens, itself. It was, it seems, a much smaller "world" in ancient times than it appeared to be, a factor that was not fully conveyed in the Eurocentric account of history I had been taught.

In the attached videos, the folks at OpenSourceBuddism.org, give an insightful account of the spread of Buddhism, and do a masterful job in describing the extent and effect that Buddhist teachings had on ancient Greek philosophy, as well as describing the Greco-Buddhist syncretism that purportedly played a large role in establishing the Northern School of Mahayana Buddhism (which would later spread to Tibet, China and Japan, even as Buddhism more or less died out in its native India, with the exception of Sri Lanka).

William Samuel: An Unheralded Voice of Enlightenment

For every enlightened teacher - for each Krishnamurti, Ram Dass or Eckhart Tolle, say - there seem to be hundreds, perhaps thousands of enlightened men and women who carry the exact same message of personal liberation and spiritual awakening, albeit using different terminologies and emerging from different backgrounds and traditions. Yet due, perhaps in no small measure, to the advent of the Internet and the Information Age, these voices of spiritual freedom are emerging at a time when they are most needed. The late William Samuels is one such voice.

"There are no words we can read that will convince us of the allness of this now-consciousness," Samuel writes, "there is no one to whom we may listen or talk who can do more than persuade us intellectually. We know - and we know, we know - only when we find it and feel it in our heart."

"Reader," he assures us, "this will happen for you much sooner than you expect. Your "awakening" is inevitable, irresistible and certain, because the fact is - as you shall see and have been told many times - you are not sleeping to be awakened now. Despite the appearances on the world's stage, you are already all you could ever hope to become."

"The nearly unanimous pronouncements of classical theology and education to the contrary," he points out, " you are not a prodigal acting the profligate and wandering in the pigsties of a far country. The Identity you are this instant is Hamony's Now-Awareness being aware. Our heritage, effortless and divine, is to acknowledge this fact."

"Right now," he urges, "bring yourself from an overconcern with things within Awareness to Awareness itself. Here you will find that all bodies, all images, and everything Awareness includes, are aspects of your own Identity! Here you will find that you are happiness, completeness and joy itself."

[Wm. Samuel, "A Guide to Awareness and Tranquility," pp. 21-22.]

In the attached videos (taken from a lecture delivered in White, Georgia in 1993), Samuels discusses this concept of Now-Awareness in terms of ancient masters - including Lao-Tze, Jesus and the Essenes - and the current blossoming of science, information and consciousness.

(The story of William Samuel's own enlightenment experience while under shell-fire in the Korean war, "A Soldier's Story" is also a profound, must-read for the spiritually minded.)

Know Thyself!: The Hidden Dimension of Consciousness

"Know Thyself!" is the great admonishment behind all the world's great religious and wisdom traditions, for it seems that virtually all such traditions acknowledge that there is the small "self" or "ego" which we take to be "who" we are, and a hidden, transcendental "higher Self" which, though obscured by the ego's narrative, is the very essence of our being.

"Most people," observes the great psychologist, Carl Jung, "confuse "self-knowledge" with knowledge of their conscious ego personalities. Anyone who has ego-consciousness at all takes it for granted that he knows himself. But the ego knows only its own contents, not the unconscious and its contents."

"People," he points out, "measure their self-knowledge by what the average person in their social environment knows of himself, but not by the real psychic facts which are for the most part hidden from them. In this respect the psyche behaves like the body with its physiological and anatomical structure, of which the average person knows very little too. Although he lives in it and with it, most of it is totally unknown to the layman, and special scientific knowledge is needed to acquaint consciousness with what is known of the body, not to speak of all this is not known, which also exists."

"What is commonly called "self-knowledge"," he notes, "is therefore a very limited knowledge, most of it dependent on social factors of what goes on in the human psyche. Hence one is always coming up against the prejudice that such and such a thing does not happen "with us" or "in our family" or among our friends and acquaintances, and on the other hand, one meets with illusory assumptions about the alleged presence of qualities whcih merely serve to cover up the true facts of the case."

"In this broad band of unconsciousness, which is immune to conscious criticism and control," he warns, "we stand defenseless, open to all kinds of influences and psychic infections. As with all dangers, we can guard against the risk of psychic infection only when we know what it is that is attacking us, and how, where and when the attack will come. Since self-knowledge is a matter of getting to know the individual facts, theories help very little in this respect. For the more a theory lays claim to universal validity the less capable it is of doing justice to the individual facts."

[Jung, "The Undiscovered Self," pp. 14-16.]

In "How To Know God: The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali" (written with Christopher Isherwood), Swami Prabhavanada notes that "(t)he external world even in its most beautiful appearances and noblest manifestations, is still superficial and transient. It is not the basic Reality. We must look through it, not at it, in order to see the Atman" (or true nature of our being). In short, we need to be "in the world" but not "of the world," as great sages and philosophers have told us since time immemorial.

"The mind of the truly illumined man is calm," Prabhavananda observes, "not because he is selfishly indifferent to the needs of others, but because he knows the peace of the Atman within all things, even within the appearance of misery, disease, strife and want."

[Isherwood and Prabhavananda, "How to Know God," p. 24.]

But how to know this non-conflictive and acceptive consciousness of our inner being? Through introspection, self-examination and meditation is the answer found in virtually all traditions.

"(M)editation," Prabhavananda observes, "is evolution in reverse. Meditation is a process of devolution. Beginning at the surface of life," he explains, "the meditative mind goes inward, seeking always the cause being the appearance, and then the cause behind the cause, until the innermost Reality is reached."

[Isherwood and Prabhavananda, "How to Know God," p. 41.]

Thus, to "Know Thyself!" one must move beyond the small "self" of the ego to the transcendental "Self" of one's own inner being.