“True happiness is uncaused.”
Anthony DeMello

In a lecture once, Anthony DeMello said that most of what passes for happiness isn’t happiness at all but merely the “fulfillment of desire.”  For instance, you want a new car, you get it, you are happy; fulfillment of desire. I wonder if he’s right.

Today we hear a lot about The Secret. (I guess it’s not a secret anymore.) We’re becoming well acquainted with our power to manifest things in our life. It seems to fly in the face of what DeMello says because in order to manifest something:

A  You have a desire for something
+ B  You manifest it
= C  You are happy

Isn’t that the fulfillment of desire?

“Desirelessness”?! It isn’t going to happen for me any time soon. I’ll admit to wanting things! But there is something in the middle that I’m shooting for. I want my happiness to be the cause and not the effect of what happens in my life. I don’t want to be happy because something happened; I want something to happen because I’m happy.

If I’m feeling unhappy then something happens which makes me happy, I feel like I’ve still failed, as if I’m an emotional puppet! I’d rather think I could greet the day with an optimistic attitude, a happy spirit and that spirit would manifest my happiness. I want to be that person for whom things can come and go and her happy spirit remains. I’m a far cry from that right now but I’m working on it.

In Marci Shimoff’s book, Happy For No Reason, she claims happiness comes from the inside and is independent of events out there, factors such as success, material acquisitions, money or even relationships. Seems hard to believe, doesn’t it? I don’t know, but one thing I do know; I want to be in the drivers seat when it comes to my happiness.

What makes you happy? Do you believe true happiness can be uncaused? Who’s in the driver’s seat when it comes to your happiness?

Photo credit: NRMA Motoring