Rupert Spira - You Are the Happiness You Seek: Uncovering the Awareness of Being

sahaja publications

P O Box 887, Oxford ox1 9pr

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A co-publication with New Harbinger Publications

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United States of America

Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books

Copyright Rupert Spira 2022

All rights reserved

No part of this book shall be reproduced or transmitted

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without written permission of the publisher

Designed by Rob Bowden

Printed in U.S.A.

isbn 9781684030125

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file with publisher

Printed on paper made from wood sourced from

responsibly managed forests and recycled materials

To be open to the source of all happiness is the highest religion.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank all those who have helped with various aspects of the writing, editing, designing and publishing of this book, including all those who have attended my meetings in person or online, the responses to whose questions are woven into its pages.

In particular, I would like to thank Caroline Seymour, Jacqueline Boyle, Bridget Holding and Lynne Saner for their editorial work, and Rob Bowden for preparing the manuscript for publication.

I would like to thank Ruth Middleton and Francesca Rotondella, without whose support in the background Im not sure this book would have ever emerged, and Stuart Moore and Tom Tarbert for their generosity and kindness. I would also like to thank everyone at New Harbinger Publications for their continued help and support.

INTRODUCTION:

A Silent Prayer

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

T. S. ELIOT

It is mid-afternoon on the 20th of March 2020, and a silent, invisible intruder has brought humanity to a standstill. Almost overnight I have cancelled all live speaking engagements for the foreseeable future and have transferred my activities online. My first online retreat, with five hundred people from around the world, will shortly begin.

When holding a meeting or retreat, I do not plan what I am going to say. I often sit quietly in an attitude of unarticulated prayer that my understanding, such as it is, might formulate itself in response to the moment. And this is no ordinary moment.

I check my emails, and my attention is attracted to one whose subject is World Happiness Day . A friend has sent me a message letting me know that today, the Spring Equinox, has, since 2006, been designated by the UN an international day of happiness, in honour of the understanding that the happiness, well-being and freedom of all life on earth is the ultimate purpose of every human being, nation, and society.

How poignant and how ironic, when the world finds itself plunged into a crisis which will bring untold distress and hardship to so many people, that this day should be consecrated a day of happiness, well-being and freedom.

The familiar objects, activities and relationships that we take for granted are rapidly being removed from us: the freedom to earn a living, to socialise and to travel, a plentiful supply of food and goods in shops, education for our children and grandchildren, and security for our future.

But what about happiness? Can it be given and withdrawn? If so, by whom or what? What is its cause? Is it something that is taken in from the outside, or does it originate within us? Is there such a thing as lasting peace and happiness, or is this destined to alternate with suffering for the rest of our lives?

These questions have troubled the minds of innumerable people for thousands of years, and as I ponder them I recall the first time they formulated themselves in my mind. It was 1980 and I was twenty years old, living on the edge of Bodmin Moor in Cornwall in the South West of England, studying pottery with Michael Cardew, then eighty years old and one of the founders of the British Studio Pottery movement.

It was a somewhat monastic existence, and in many ways life at Wenford Bridge Michaels home and pottery resembled an apprenticeship with an old Zen master. However, I had a friend, and, although we rarely saw each other due to the remoteness of my circumstance, her presence in my life was a source of consolation and happiness.

Every Friday evening after dinner, I would walk a mile or so up the hill to the phone box on the edge of the village of St. Breward, beneath which the pottery was situated, and call my companion. It was something of a ritual whose anticipation and memory, as much as the event itself, sustained me throughout the week.

On this occasion, the quality of her first Hello conveyed everything I needed to know. The brief conversation that ensued simply confirmed it. Little did I know then that her parting words were to be one of lifes great gifts to me.

Later that night, lying awake in bed, as the initial wave of confusion and sorrow began to subside, I kept asking myself how a person can be the source of happiness one moment and the source of misery the next. For the first time in my life, I became acutely aware of the extent to which I had invested my happiness in my circumstances, in this case in a relationship.

I had already been interested in spiritual matters for some time, and since my mid-teens had been studying philosophy and practising meditation in the Vedantic and Sufi traditions at Colet House in London, under the guidance of Dr. Francis Roles. However, this event injected intensity and urgency into my interest; it became a passion.

It was obvious that I loved happiness above all else. It was also clear that nothing objective is certain or secure, and clearly does not unfold according to ones own wishes and expectations. And now the absurdity and futility of investing ones desire for lasting happiness in objective experience was inescapable. I fell asleep that night with a simple question in my mind, How may one find lasting peace and happiness?

Almost exactly forty years later, circumstances are again demanding this question be addressed. However, on this occasion it is not just my personal circumstances that have precipitated the question in my mind, nor is it individual happiness that is at stake. It is the shared circumstances of each one of us that requires a response, and our collective happiness that is calling for attention.

The universe had responded to my silent prayer. Our online retreat began with this question, and the exploration of it evolved into this book. It is my hope that this book will take you from your self, who seeks happiness, to the happiness that is your self.

Rupert Spira

April 2021

CHAPTER ONE.

The Search for Happiness

Happiness, being found to be something final and

self-sufficient, is the end at which all actions aim.

ARISTOTLE

We seek happiness above all else

Imagine a survey in which all seven billion of us were asked what we want in life above all else. Most of us would respond that we desire better health, increased income, an intimate relationship, improved living conditions, a family, better work or preferably no need to work at all, and so on. Some of us would ask for less tangible things: enlightenment or knowledge of God. Whatever our priorities, most of us would select from a relatively short list of possibilities.