A disciple asked a question to his teacher: Why can’t we always be happy in the world?
 
The teacher replied: The goal in our life is to be in a permanent state of bliss. But instead of being happy, we give importance to gathering things that bring us pleasure. We made it our life’s purpose and somehow believe that to be happy we must always achieve and accumulate things. We don’t realize that everything in this world is an illusion and temporary. We think that when we collect things, they’ll bring us happyness, without realizing that they are not going to be there permanently.
 
A person who even after knowing the truth cannot give up the greed, such a person will live in the fear of losing them. People who don’t realize the truth, live with ego. The teacher said, wherever there is fear and ego, how can there be Happyness?
 
What is the cause of fear of losing something?
The root cause of fear is desire. When we have the desire to have something then we have the fear of losing it too. If we have the desire to live, then we have the fear of dying. In our competitive culture, with its desire for power, position, status, recognition, and success, do we observe what is taking place within ourselves and outside ourselves?
 
Everyone is caught in this fear, whether it is humans or divine beings. No one is free of desires. Some of us suffer because we have very little or nothing. And others who have everything suffer because there is nothing more to achieve or obtain. We perceive Happyness from our perspective, whereas the truth is completely opposite. Despite all our proud material achievements, we live in a field where there is frequent conflict in our relationships, we’re breeding hatred, resentment, brutality and endless wars.
 
How do we come out of our fears? Is it possible to be free of desires?
What can we do to stop our search for Happyness and live in Happyness?
 
At the Happyness center our main aim is to help you develop mindfulness and deeper awareness of your inner self. We learn to see and understand ourselves in silent observation and enquiry rather than act from the external noisy activity.
 
Come join us at the Happyness Center for our Monthly Meditation, Sunday June 27th, 2021 as we explore and discuss about building inner awareness and attention through observation.
 
We all lead busy lives, and meditation can help us relax and renew. We will share, learn, and practice together. Group meditations has many advantages that can reinforce our desires of daily practice that inspires us and others.

June 2021

Are you surprised to know that we live simultaneously in two parallel worlds?
 
One is the outer world that relates to external comforts where the brain and mind began to make things technologically better. The other is the inner world that deals with subtle things like thought and feeling where we are struggling to make it better.
 
Mankind has always tried to become something better. Exploiting that principle on the outside, over time becoming something has given mankind a sense of achievement, comforts, and made the world a better place to live. Using the same principle of becoming something, mankind wanted to be better himself inwardly too. He has miserably failed and caused misery and suffering.
 
Does transformation come about by becoming something that we are not? Is transformation a matter of time?
Most of us are accustomed to think that time is necessary for transformation: I am something now, and to change what I am into what I should be requires time.
There are two kinds of time: chronological time and psychological time. We cannot reject chronological time. But is there time as the mind thinks of it? Is there time apart from the mind?
Psychological time is the product of the mind. The foundation of the psychological time is thought. It is just a memory of our past experiences in response to our present that is creating our future. By introducing time, we are postponing or avoiding to see “what is.” To see “What is” it is essential that we have a quiet mind.
 
How can we possibly live in both these opposing worlds simultaneously?
Can we explore the possibility of balancing the two worlds and learn to live in a timeless awareness and still function in a time-bound manner?
 
At the Happyness center our main aim is to help you develop mindfulness and deeper awareness of your inner self. We learn to see ourselves in silent observation and enquiry rather than act from the noisy activity outside.
 
Come join us at the Happyness Center for our Monthly Meditation, Sunday June 28th , as we explore and discuss about building inner awareness and attention through observation.
 
We all lead busy lives, and meditation can help us relax and renew. We will share, learn, and practice together. Group meditations has many advantages that can reinforce our desires of daily practice that inspires us and others.

May 2021
Connecting with the Presence
 
In Samkhya Philosophy, it is told that the human Consciousness has a lower form and a higher form.
        The Higher form or state of Consciousness is part of us from eternity. It is the presence and is the incorruptible un-decaying body, the spiritual body. This body dwells in super-celestial world in complete freedom.
 
But when we are not aware of this pure form, then we are functioning naturally from the lower form; Yoga calls this Chitta, a field of consciousness, where the mind functions psychologically as the (1) feeling nature (Manas), (2) Intellect (Buddhi), and (3) Egoism (Ahamkara). This lower form always has dual nature of pleasure and pain. The highest form of consciousness or presence is above all pleasure and pain.
 
What is the nature of the lower form of Consciousness?
 
Yoga sutra or principle says that the lower form of consciousness has five qualities.

1. True Perception: A true consciousness of some objective reality – something that is outside the person and their mental modifications. True perception happens through perception or sense-cognition, Inference, and verbal cognition.
   
2. False perception: An incorrect consciousness of outward reality. The perception that has a form, which shines out as if it were real knowledge. Ignorance, Egoism, Attachment, and Aversion are affliction caused by false perception. 
3. Hallucination: Even in the absence of reality, the action of the individual is found to be dependent on the power of verbal expression and-knowledge.
   
4. Sleep: A non-perception of anything external.  Sleep is the mental modification which has its objective bedrock on the cause of non-existence. When there is lack of awakening, mind is restless, wanders, and is unsteady. 
5. Memory: The reviving of our old perceptions. When we function from our past impressions either in dream or when awake is memory. They are born either from true perception, False perception, Hallucination, or Sleep. 

Mind is like a magnet. It energizes when it nears something. When this mind sees its Master, the presence, it possesses the qualities of the presence. Knowing these modifications of the mind it is necessary to build the eternal relationship with the presence.  
 
At the Happyness center our main aim is to help you develop mindfulness and deeper awareness of your inner self. We learn to see ourselves in silent observation and enquiry rather than act from the noisy activity outside.

Are we ready to bring the presence back into our lives?
 
Come join us at the Happyness Center for our Monthly Meditation, Sunday May 30th, as we explore and discuss about establishing intimate and personal relationship with the presence.
 
We all lead busy lives, and meditation can help us relax and renew. We will share, learn, and practice together. Group meditations has many advantages that can reinforce our desires of daily practice that inspires us and others. 

The majority of people are eagerly awaiting when we can get back to normal. We are exhausted living in the Covid restrictions far too long. We can sense the fatigue of people’s social distancing, wearing masks, and sanitizing.
 
Do we want to go back to doing the same things as before? Don’t we see the need to define a new version of ourselves?
 
Have we ever thought if the universe is sending us a message to slow down? Are the external restrictions really to help our senses relax and calm down? Maybe we are walking into the path of destruction by living the so-called ‘normal’ routine. Have we at least given the prospect to contemplate on our present condition? Or Do we choose to be robotic and be persistent about getting back to normal?
 
Change is hard, but we also know that change is constant and an excellent opportunity to bring our creativity to a new way of thinking. As much as we are engaged in finding a solution to the deadly widespread virus, which is a significant task, is it not equally important to see the bigger picture of what this means to us as a human race and nature?
 
Why are we so threatened every time we face a new change in life and in nature?
Why is it so difficult for us to adapt to life changes?
 
In the ever-changing creative nature, we know that change is necessary for renewal and rejuvenation, both externally to the body and environment as well as to our subtle energies. We are living at a time when nature decided to bring a more profound change to the Macrocosmic universe as well as to the Microcosmic individual. Our minds’ are isolated and tend to block our creativity by bringing repetition to our patterns. Our mind feels uncomfortable with change and resists because change takes us one step closer to evolution.
 
Every disease has a vibration. We must build immunity and raise our consciousness to bring external protection to the body at the cellular level and the mind and subtle energies at the quantum level. Then we can change the vibration from disease to health. We must use good tools such as meditation, breath, and sound (chanting) to awaken our higher presence.
 
How can we calibrate our consciousness and fine-tune our body to receive signals of healthy vibrations? Can we see that these changes are not happening only at the physical but also at the subtle levels?
 
Join us at our monthly meditation on Sunday, April 26th at 11 AM to explore, discuss, and share, building inner awareness and attention through observation.
 
At the Happyness center, our main aim is to help you develop mindfulness and deeper awareness of your inner self. We learn to see ourselves in silent observation and enquiry rather than act from the noisy activity outside.
 
We all lead busy lives, and meditation can help us relax and renew. We will share, learn, and practice together. Group meditations have many advantages that can reinforce our desires of daily practice that inspires us and others.
 
Let’s raise our consciousness to understand what makes meaning to our lives.

​I was driving in my car and looking at the snow-covered marvellous mountains. As I was seeing,
there was a feeling and sensation of joy that I did not want to change anything about it.
Immediately a thought entered my mind that said, “I have to bring milk from the grocery store.” I was
disturbed that in the middle of experiencing the beautiful nature, the thought of grocery came
and distracted my experience. I felt upset and resisting the thought of grocery. I saw myself
putting effort to control the thought, so I could go back to enjoying the mountains without distracting thought.

How many of us find resisting something and make an effort to control our thoughts?

Every time when we have a thought that we dislike or when we wish to experience something,
we tend to make an effort to control our thoughts. We think that by controlling them we can achieve
what we want. But we don’t realize that by controlling our thoughts, we are creating an internal
division between “what is” in the moment and what we are trying to control because of what we think "should be”. This control creates conflict within us.

When I was watching the mountains there was no effort to change it. But division occured
in the thought of grocery and in my attempting to resist and control the thought in order to change it.

Why do we make any internal effort to change something all the time?

When we make an effort to change something inside, we create a division and conflict. But
when there is no desire to control or change anything about ourselves, we are connected to our
true self. As human beings, we subconsciously attempting to gain internal control all the time, because we lack the awareness that we are dividing ourselves against each other and are deceived that we have to
control and change our thoughts. We don’t realize that in this effort and control we are
creating a division between the thinker and the thought. We always seek the state of no division but by forcing the effort, we actively work against ourselves, going against our seeking.

When we can see that the thinker and thought are one, then we stop the effort to change it.
We will flow from one thought to another without any fragmentation of our consciousness.
Remembering your true Self is acknowledging the division within and recognising the futility of
effort. Then we stay with “what is” and flow without any internal effort.

At the Happyness center our main aim is to help you develop mindfulness and deeper inner awareness of the ego-self. Together, we learn how to passively observe rather than make an effort to control our thoughts.

We invite you to join our Happyness Center community online for our March Monthly Meditation,
Sunday March 28th , as we explore to remember our true self that is lost in the chaos of division.

We all lead busy lives, and meditation can help us relax and renew. We will share, learn, and practice together. Group meditations has many advantages that can reinforce our desires of daily practice that inspires us and others.

During the COVID pandemic, many of us might have had the time to review our lives, our relationships, and our priorities in life.
 
But in this time of reflection, have we asked ourselves as to what is our fundamental lasting interest in life?
 
If we answered truthfully, we would say, it is our own self. Some of us would say that it is wrong to be interested in ourselves, but the fact of the matter is that we are primarily interested in ourselves, even when we say it is more satisfactory to help another person.
 
We crave satisfaction in all sorts of ways, subtle and obvious; whether in family, or romantic relationships, helping others in society, a job title or position, or a material possession. We desire more than what we have.
 
Why? Well, we probably know the answer to that already, but most often, we are not willing to be truthful with ourselves or others about it.
 
We crave this satisfaction because we are afraid of being a nobody in our society. We are afraid of going unseen. Of not being desired, respected, or wanted.
 
Our mind might argue – what is wrong with self-satisfaction? What is wrong with wanting these things?
 
This craving for having a position in the society or to be recognized as somebody is a wish to dominate and domination is a form of aggression. Our cravings are based in a fear, and this psychological fear is one of the greatest problems in our lives. Inwardly we are whirlpools of misery and mischief and therefore look outward for gratification.
 
But when we are capable of loving and be kind to ourselves – accepting ourselves as we are, then we will no longer crave satisfaction and recognition. We can realize that satisfaction and happiness does not come from the recognition of others. It does not come from having that which may get us noticed. Instead, we realize that when we can truly love ourselves, we need nothing else.
 
To live a truly happy live, it is it essential for us to seek love and kindness from within ourselves. To make the transition from outward satisfaction that is fickle and ever-changing, to inner satisfaction that is constant and true.
 
And when we can do this, then we can truly give love and kindness to others, because we can give it freely without expectation of return, because we realize we need nothing outside of ourselves. This understanding radically shifts the way that we feel and our ability to give.
 
But how do we learn to look within and what does it look like to give to others unencumbered by our own self-serving cravings? As we enter into the new year, let’s explore this line of thought and discover the importance of loving kindness.
 
At the Happyness center our main aim is to help you develop mindfulness and deeper awareness of your inner self. We learn to enquiry and challenge ourselves to grow as human beings for a better quality of life.
 
We all lead busy lives, and meditation can help us relax and renew. We will share, learn, and practice together. Group meditations has many advantages that can reinforce our desires of daily practice that inspires us and others.
 
Due to pandemic, we will be bringing our monthly meditation to you from the Happyness Center via Zoom. We invite you to join our Happyness Center Community for our Monthly Meditation as we explore and discuss about building loving and kindness within.

In the midst of the pandemic, most of us feel uncertain and insecure about the future. We are not alone in our worry about what is going to happen with our lives - what things will look like - next week, next month, next year. As a collective, we wonder if we are ever going to experience a normal life again.

But what is “normal”? What does it mean to live a “normal life”?

The normal we typically mean when we use the word invokes feelings of safety and security - in our relationships, in our professional lives and in our personal lives. Our version of normal is too feel security to love and be loved.

Have we ever stopped and asked ourselves whether maybe what we think as normal, might not be the real normal? And if we did, how do we know the truth? Let us ask ourselves – in this normal that we know now, have we ever found permanent security in any of our relationships? Have we found love without brokenness? Perfect love? No. Why?

Let’s ask another question. Can we ever love purely, truly love, when each one of us are seeking our own security? When we are seeking love to experience it for ourselves not seeking to give love?

When we say we love, maybe it is the projection of our own imagination covered in a form of respect. We say, I love my country, I love this book, I love that mountain, I love pleasure, I love my partner, and so on. To some of us, Love is being possessive of another person, or having a form of attachment. From all the possession, attachment, and projection arises jealousy, and jealousy is of the past. But we conveniently label as love.

To us today, Love is just an idea or a desire that we twist in any way we want. What we call love is where there is pleasure, competition, jealousy, desire to possess, and control.   Love is not the product of thought, which belongs to the past. Real love – pure love - is when we can find complete freedom in all our relationships. It is when we seek to give love rather than to find it for ourselves and to fill our needs. Experiencing true love does not require us receiving it from someone else. True love is within ourselves and that is the real normal that we must learn to live.

In this crisis of pandemic, we have an opportunity to learn, to become active and present. We are being reminded of the uncertainties and insecurities that are a constant within our world. We are being given a chance to re-frame what we understand as normal and to find calm in the chaos by looking within for safety, security and love. We are being given an incredible chance to become more whole, happier and more peaceful.  As we enter into the new year, let’s explore this line of thought and discover something new about ourselves. To go into the question of what love is we must first free it from all ideals we’ve created.

At the Happyness center our main aim is to help you develop mindfulness and deeper awareness of your inner self. We learn to enquiry and challenge ourselves to grow as human beings for a better quality of life. We invite you to join us as we seek to first free ourselves from the ideals and ideas of love we have created, and to re-learn what love is and what our lives can look like when we experience love in its true form.

Due to COVID and the most recent restrictions, we will be having our meditation online. Come join us at the Happyness Center for our Monthly Meditation as we explore and discuss about building love and inner awareness. We all lead busy lives, and meditation can help us relax and renew. We will share, learn, and practice together. Group meditations has many advantages that can reinforce our desires of daily practice that inspires us and others.

Register for the mediation here.

We all hold beliefs. Some are religious in nature, others sectarian and national, and some political. Others are complex beliefs about parenting, social ideals or resource consumption. Some things that we believe were instilled in us from a young age by our parents or caregivers, schoolteachers and other outside sources. Others we have chosen for ourselves with careful thought and consideration. Some beliefs we are passionate about, others we have given little thought to, yet all beliefs we hold we call our own. And in the face of challenge we are most likely to hold firmly to them with defense and zeal, and to try to convert the naysayers and those who disagree. We spend a great deal of our lives, often unconsciously, trying to convert those around us to our own set of beliefs.
 
While beliefs bring people together, they also separate and create intolerance. One only must turn on the news, or open social media to see countless examples of both.
 
So, what does this mean for us and our personal beliefs? First, we must find out if we can study ourselves in relationship to a belief. We must see if we can open ourselves enough to look at our beliefs objectively, with non-judgemental questioning. And we must get to the root of our beliefs – the very “why” we have them in the first place.
 
Why do we accept beliefs?
We accept beliefs in our lives out of fear – fear of emptiness, loneliness, stagnation, not succeeding, not achieving, not becoming something or someone. To escape from this fear, we create beliefs; they give us an anchor in this complex universe in which we live. They provide a sense of purpose and of reasoning for our lives and our place within it. This is why we accept beliefs so eagerly and greedily in our lives – we are constantly seeking comfort and security, and beliefs, often unconsciously, provide that for us.
 
But beliefs in fact, hinder our understanding – of self, of others and of the world. Belief is like a veil or layer through which we are looking at ourselves and the world. Beliefs feel like a safety net for us through which to determine our place and purpose in our lives, and yet this safety net does more constricting than freeing.
 
So, what is the alternative? If we had no belief, what would happen to us?
 
Is it possible to live without beliefs? To not change beliefs and not substitute one for another but to live entirely free from held opinions?

It is challenging, but yes this is possible and the freedom it provides is life-altering.
If we have no beliefs with which the mind has identified itself, then the mind, without identification, is capable of looking at itself as it is—and then, surely, there is the beginning of the understanding of oneself, of others and the universe. Then we have the capacity to be without conditioning and reaction to the past. We become able to meet life afresh each minute and to live in true freedom and joy.
 
At the Happyness center our main aim is to help you develop mindfulness and deeper awareness of your inner self. It is within silent observation that we can learn to see ourselves.
 
We invite you to join us for our Monthly Meditation on Saturday November 28th, as we explore how our thoughts and beliefs affect our lives and discuss how we can building the inner awareness and attention we need to rid ourselves of beliefs and find peace.
 
We all lead busy lives, and meditation can help us relax and renew. We will share, learn, and practice together. Group meditations has many advantages that can reinforce our desires of daily practice that inspires us and others. 

One of our main goals at the Happyness Center is to help you develop inner awareness and a deeper observation of the ego self. It is only when we spend the time looking within, with curiosity and openness that we can truly find peace. This practice can be very challenging as many have no prior experience with it; it is not a common teaching in our culture. This is why we exist – we want to aid you in this journey – one of the most (if not the most) profound and important journey’s you can take in your life. So how do we do this?
 
We can observe the inner chatter of our ego-mind or ego-self and note the contents and nature of how it always ends up creating mischief and chaos in our lives. The ego-self generates insecurity with us – whether it’s with our colleagues at work, within our marriages or partnerships, in our own selves and our relationship to others via social media -  and it inevitable grows uncertainties in our relationships.
 
The practice of meditation provides us with the opportunity to watch this confusion happening inside our mind, and the chance to change how we respond to it, so that we don’t bring it outside of our self and manifest it in our relationships. Meditation is a significant tool to observe what is occurring daily in our thoughts, feelings, and sensations. Whether we are aware of it or not, our mind is always busy looking for outward solutions and is quick to run away from what is not pleasant inside. Its primary objective is to and ignore the uncomfortable and change it immediately through avoidance. But when we become capable of being mindful and still inside of the inner disturbance without trying to escape, we gain more insights and understanding about the contents and nature of our ego-self. This allows our mind to stay silent and observing rather than developing more noise and chaos. In this stillness we can find freedom from judgement, change and inner peace. In the calm we develop the ability to be aware at all times and in all surroundings, especially in our relationships, which has a positively life-altering effect on our lives.
 
Observation, awareness, and attention are the three important pillars of mindful practice. Research has shown that observation and awareness can help calm the mind chatter at a quantum level. Then right action will happen without the control of the ego-self.
 
We invite you to come and learn more about the deceptive ego-self and how to engage in the practice of observation. Join our team and others from our Happyness Community at our Monthly Meditation, Sunday October 24th, at Kamloops United Church, from 10.30 am – 12:30pm. Let’s explore together and discuss about building inner awareness and attention through observation.
 
We all lead busy lives, and meditation can help us relax and renew. We will share, learn, and practice together. Group meditations has many advantages that can reinforce our desires of daily practice that inspires us and others.