Where can you find true happiness, power and freedom?

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Einstein is supposed to have said that the solution to any problem can never be found at the level of the problem itself. Instead, it is only ever found at a level above it.

The metaphysical version of this truth is the truth about our happiness, our source of power and our nature of freedom. What do I mean? Let me explain by using an analogy.

Let’s say you decide to take your car to a mechanic for a routine service. A few hours later, you receive a call from him saying that your gear box is in trouble and will need immediate attention, possibly replacement. You are surprised and disconcerted. There had been no indication of a problem when you drove your car even up to the point of leaving it at the garage. But now that you have been told there is one, you are concerned that if you don’t fix it immediately, you may find yourself in an awkward if not dangerous situation should you continue driving your car.

You consider getting a second opinion but when you think of the time and effort it will take to find another mechanic, your motivation starts to wane. Besides, how can you be sure that this mechanic is going to be any more trustworthy? So, somewhat reluctantly and mostly out of fear, you decide to let this mechanic go ahead and do the repairs and replacements that he has recommended. What you don’t know (although you may have suspected it) is that there never was a problem with the gearbox to start with and that it was this untrustworthy mechanic that had deliberately created a problem and then opportunistically and urgently offered to fix it.

This is more or less what happens with our conditioned mind, our mind that has learned how to see the world in the way it does and one of the most persistent ways in which it does this is to see/construe problems. The conditioned mind is forever perceiving situations as problems. This is how it has been conditioned. This is the very nature of its conditioning. It has learned to create problems from events that our senses pick up.

We see things but we don’t just see them as they are, we see them as we have learned to see them through our judgments, our fears, our history, our projections, our likes and dislikes. Needless to say, once we have perceived something to be a problem, we must find a solution. But, as you might have experienced, the solution is only temporary, lasting only until the next problem is perceived/construed. Even more insidious than this is the fact that the conditioned mind, like the mechanic, is actually creating problems from ‘events’! (Think: The glass is half empty or half full)

In Buddhist and Hindu teachings, the example is given of a coiled rope that a man sees in a dimly lit room. The man thinks the rope is a snake and is filled with fear. He spends the entire night running various scenarios in his mind about what is likely to happen, scenarios of struggle with the animal, of being poisoned, of death even and so on. As the first light of dawn filters into the room, he realizes much to his relief, that the snake is in fact just a coiled rope!

I am sure you can relate to both these examples. So, tying this in with Einstein’s observation, we cannot expect to find the solution to a ‘problem’ using the same level of thinking or consciousness that created the problem in the first place! We must go to a higher level of thinking or consciousness. We must in fact, enter into the level of sheer Awareness i.e. the Unconditioned mind!

Here, the illusions and distortions of the conditioned mind are penetrated and we can see clearly. Here, the investments of our personality, our history, our prejudices, our likes and dislikes, our needs, cravings, attachments, fears and aversions are all dropped. Here is where we find our true nature of happiness, power and freedom for we are no longer shackled by the conditioned mind and its habits of fear and self-protection.

Wouldn’t you like to be able to look at your ‘problems’ without the usual distortions and biases that have become so ‘natural’ to you? I assure you, there is nothing ‘natural’ about them! Just because they are familiar and widespread among all human beings does not make them ‘natural’! They are learned habits and unfortunately, they are disempowering habits that keep you trapped in fear instead of being creatively free or fearlessly creative (even and especially in ‘problem solving’)!

The fact is, you are naturally happy, powerful, peaceful and free! That is your true nature! Refuse, therefore, to take the advice of the ‘untrustworthy mechanic’, your conditioned mind :-).

Would you like to know how to enter into your natural, unconditioned state where you will experience true happiness, power and freedom? Email me for my free meditation course!

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