Being Around Happy People

We all know people who are very happy to be around.

We are happy to be around them and if we look closely we will realize the only reason we are happy to be around them is because they are happy people.

There is something very special about that experience.

I don't think we are encouraged to have this kind of a contemplative or reflective attitude towards singular experiences in our lives but if we were to reflect what we will realize is when we are happy around happy people there is no reason.

There is no reason for us to be happy.

It's not that we are getting something.

We might be doing the most mundane things,

Irrelevant things also to be honest but something about that whole experience when we come out of it when we are going back home.

Oh it was nice,

It was really nice.

That's what if we were to articulate that's what we would end up saying.

It was fun hanging out with you guys.

It wasn't like a football game where you're having fun because you're watching something and the fun aspect is attributed to the activity not to the company of people.

I'm sure all of us have had this experience.

I want you to peek into it how much ever you can,

How much ever you remember.

Traditional definition of happiness that we have that we remember most of the times is when something happens as per our wish or something that we don't want to happen does not happen.

It's the traditional model of being happy.

You want something,

You get something therefore there is happiness.

You're avoiding something and the avoidance succeeds then you're happy.

But this is a very special flavor of happiness that doesn't register so easily unless we are really cognizant about it.

Given how heavily we are programmed with the traditional model of happiness.

You might not even call it happiness because the definition is not congruent with our experience.

We might call it fun,

We might call it something else but we wouldn't call it happiness.

Let's call it joy.

Uncaused joy.

If happiness is a difficult word to put in due to its definition.

Let's go with joy.

Let's go with fun.

This special place that I'm talking about can be precipitated and does precipitate because of a very specific quality.

Before I get to that let me juxtapose this experience of joy and fun that we have for no reason and with only some people.

Let's juxtapose this with what happens with most people.

Most of our experiences are not quote-unquote happy experiences.

Most experiences are sprinkled if not completely dipped in.

Feelings of complaints,

Something's wrong,

Venting,

Some problem of the day.

These are most of our experiences and I'm not trying to paint a morbid picture.

I'm just sharing my experiences with most people.

Maybe I'm hanging out with the wrong group of friends or people but I can only share what my experience is,

My first person experience.

That feeling that you know you're walking on eggshells and if you put a step in the wrong place there's an explosion,

Explosion waiting to happen.

Or other experiences include talking about random things,

Doing activities together where it's not about the company as much as it's about the activity.

But we have these people at work in our friend circle,

In our extended friend circle who will just give us this feeling sometimes.

Oh I really,

That was a really nice time that I had for no reason.

That could sometimes precipitate while going on a hike or in a party in a corner where you're just connecting with someone.

But most other experiences are just dipped in or sprinkled with some sort of negativity.

Like something's not right and it's always about someone who is not there.

Like even if people are complaining about work they'll talk about this fictitious people called they and complain about they or them.

But I'm sure you're getting my point,

What I'm trying to make here.

But what's so special about this causeless joy?

What does it take to precipitate that kind of an experience for ourselves and for someone else?

Let me ask you this,

What would your experience,

What would most of your experiences be like if you removed the tendency to find faults,

Remove the tendency to complain?

I'm not saying overcompensated by being grateful about every little thing,

But just being natural,

But just being normal.

Just because you don't complain,

Just because you don't find faults doesn't mean you have nothing to talk about.

That's a very sad place to be,

To be honest.

But that also doesn't mean that you have to praise or be grateful all the time.

That is a very theoretical and contrived state as well.

In between these two extreme states is a natural state that helps precipitate this experience that I began this session with.

My teacher calls it the absence of the sense of lack.

Like some people are just happy because they don't lack anything.

There's nothing wrong.

Right now,

Check.

Do you have this experience that something is lacking?

Or are you busy being peaceful and calm to even pay attention to this feeling of lack or finding faults?

Not that I'm suggesting you are finding faults.

Finding faults.

Like our life might be in chaos,

But right now,

If we didn't think about it and if we just stayed true to our current experience,

Do you lack anything?

Stay true to the current experience.

Don't ask your thoughts.

If you lack something,

It will contrive something and tell you,

Yes.

I lack so much money,

I lack this person's behavior or etc.

Etc.

No,

We're not talking about what's not here.

I'm talking about what is here.

As an experience,

Not as a concept in our thoughts.

That is probably the reason why you keep coming back to these sessions.

Because I don't tell you anything that you don't already know.

I don't give out any exotic experiences either.

But something in you,

After this session ends,

Goes back,

Well that was a good experience.

I should do it again.

If you would try doing this,

Try explaining this experience to someone else.

If you would just sit quiet and someone speaks.

I'm guessing that's the true rendition of this experience and that doesn't give out anything close to what your true experience is.

It's the place where you can find your true self.

It's the place from which this is being delivered.

It's the place of not lacking anything.

That makes even a simple session worth coming back to.

Just like you like to come to these sessions,

I like to go to my teacher's session.

It's the same equation.

I get to meet him maybe twice a year if I'm lucky.

So what is so special about this absence of sense of lack and how can we cultivate it?

So that we don't have to hang out.

I mean if we have those kind of friends,

Yes definitely we should.

But it's not mandatory that we should hang out with happy people so as to be happy or experience this causeless joy.

What is so special about this absence of sense of lack?

We just content.

It's not the complacency contentment that people think about that once you are content you're complacent.

No.

This is the contentment of this is the contentment of of being okay with whatever is after doing whatever is necessary and while doing whatever is necessary.

When we all know we have gotten things in our lifetimes,

We have received positions,

Experiences which were unfathomable for us to orchestrate on our own.

It needed the whole universe to do something with other people with the timing for us to receive that particular thing.

Maybe we met our spouse that way.

Maybe we escaped a particular injury that way and so many other things.

We could kid ourselves by thinking that if I don't do something or if I don't constantly run,

I'm not gonna get something.

But that's a topic for some other day.

I want to come back to this contentment which is not the laziness that complacency brings about but the contentment that the confidence brings about.

The confidence that I've gone through so much.

This is the confidence that I've been able to get through so much.

The confidence that I've gone through so much.

This is I can get through it.

Nothing is a problem per se.

Problem worth losing my smile or losing my joy.

I'm telling you this is revolutionary what I'm telling you.

Depriving people of their problems is a sin.

Because problems is what keeps us going for most people.

So this contentment is what keeps us from complaining.

And if you think about what complaint is is something is happening that we don't want to happen.

That's what a complaint is.

And because it the something that is happening cannot be attributed to the abstract.

We attribute it to a specific person or in some cases we attribute it to nature.

If it's raining too much we complain about the rains as if someone is taking our notes or listening to us or even bothered about what we have to say about rain or winter or summer.

It's not the specifics of the complaint as much as the attitude of complaint.

It puts us in a place where things are not quite right.

Because in our minds we have this ideal place where everything is just the way we imagine it to be.

And when that doesn't happen we find someone to blame,

Someone to complain.

But the other attitude is things are just fine,

Just the way they are.

And if anything needs to be fixed,

It cannot be fixed after it has happened.

It can only be fixed after we perform an action.

And the only thing in our control is to perform the action and just because we perform some action doesn't mean it will translate to fixing that problem.

The universe has to come to terms with it.

The universe has to comply.

Other people have to be convinced,

They have to act and it has to be a perfect time for things to crystallize into a solution.

So we should put in our efforts wherever we are drawn to but know that things are still perfect.

It's like perfection is unfolding every moment.

The other attitude is imperfection is unfolding every moment.

There is always something wrong every moment.

I am not telling you which route to take but one route takes to happiness and the other takes to constant complaints and unhappiness.

Both are valid choices based on what you see.

I am sure no one consciously chooses unhappiness but if we understand the mechanism of unhappiness,

The mechanism of complaints,

The mechanism of sense of lack then there is more education and knowledge is power and we can ask ourselves why am I unhappy?

Why am I complaining?

Sometimes we get sophisticated with our complaints.

We complain as if we are not complaining in a passive aggressive way.

So the only way this process can work is if we are honest with ourselves.

Is this a complaint or not?

If yes,

What's the problem?

Can I do something about it?

If yes,

Let's do it and still things are still perfect.

If not,

Then it's no longer a problem.

Something magical will happen when you start with this process of reflecting reflecting on our current complaints that are arising the sense of lack that keeps arising the negativity in our language of you know we don't have this you know that's not right you know this guy sucks etc.

Etc.

It's all sprinkled with something related to no something related to negation not right Can we see the beauty in things being just the way they are?

Can you imagine how much coordination is needed across the universe for something like this to happen just the way it is happening giving us the opportunity to see something that can be fixed and propels us into fixing it or to trigger this understanding that it's just beautiful just the way it is and see what happens to the energy in you,

Around you maybe some of that causeless joy starts surfacing