Now What?

When you look back at a lifetime of attempts to possess and control, you can reflect on the meaning of these efforts by asking "What for?" Most people answer, "to enjoy, just that."

To say "to enjoy" indicates that we are not fully satisfied and therefore we seek something to give us greater enjoyment or satisfaction." The problem is that because we are not fulfilled, we seek something to give us more pleasure. But since nothing material can completely satisfy us, we continually seek newer forms of enjoyment. For the vast majority of people, this cycle never ends.

Perhaps a better question to ask once we get what we thought would make us happy, only to find it didn't truly satisfy us is, "Now what?" In other words, now that we have gotten what we always wanted, yet are still not completely fulfilled (if you were fulfilled you would not be looking for more to do or have to make you happy), it would be better to ask, "Why doesn't this work?" Then we should ask, "Does anything work, and if so, what is it?" In other words, rather than endlessly seek fulfillment in things that cannot give ultimate satisfaction, we should ask "How can I actually become fulfilled?" If we don't ask this question we will do the same things we have always done and get the same results we have always gotten, which as I said is simply to be caught in a vicious cycle of accumulating without end.

People who have everything we hanker for are not completely satisfied. They also are hankering for more. Just because we don't have what we want now makes us think it will make us happy when we get it. But right now we have so many things we previously didn't have that we thought would make us happy, but we still want more.

Therefore, it is only the person who is satisfied with what they have and with who they are that is happy. A poor man is a man in need. A rich man is a man who is without need. This has nothing to do with the amount of possessions or wealth a person has; it has to do with their consciousness. A "wealthy" man is poor when he hankers for more. A "poor" man is wealthy when he hankers for nothing.

The point of my post was for us to realize that modern society is programming dissatisfaction into the core of our beings in order to get us to continually buy things we don't need. Most people's lives look like this: They work hard at jobs they don't like to buy things they don't need that can never make them truly happy. Spiritual life helps us out of this cycle, but we have to first know how deeply rooted in this cycle we are - and we have to want to get out of it.

Here is another important insight: It is by coming to a higher level of consciousness that we will find spiritual peace and satisfaction. To think we will find peace and satisfaction by changing external situations is an illusion. We find satisfaction by elevating our consciousness. Always remember that we live with and experience our own consciousness. So if our consciousness is low, no amount of possessions will change the fact that low consciousness does not make us happy. It is only through spiritual practice that we elevate our consciousness, not through having more, and it is only a person with an elevated consciousness that is happy.

In other words, we don't become happy by changing circumstances, we become happy by changing your consciousness.