The Great Machine of consumerism is always at work, spinning the gauzy web of illusion that enthralls much of modern consciousness. It persuades us to look outward for the secret to happiness, which today might be contained in a new-and-improved formula of this, tomorrow as an upgraded model of that, next year in some revolutionary medicine coming to market, or the new lease on life promised at retirement. Maybe it’s this sexy thing, or that job promotion.
But it never comes.
Make no mistake: we end up spending or sacrificing what we have to in order to acquire the key that will unlock our truest joy. But now it sits in the garage or on the shelf and under a pile of other keys that have let us down. The problem is, we can never know for sure if the real problem was that we tried too hard, or not hard enough; that we started too late or quit too soon; that the dosage wasn’t quite right, or that we didn’t have things in the right combination. Maybe it’s our own damned fault after all.
And that’s how it works.
It gets going very early, long before we’re old enough to have money in our pockets or sense in our heads. The first trick of the Great Machine of consumerism is to convince us that we are empty inside, that we’re ‘not enough’ and need something else to make us complete and full-filled. We can’t be happy in and of ourselves since, left to ourselves, we are lacking what it takes – whatever it takes to make us happy.
When we find our answer and place our bet, the desperate need that it be the key we’ve been looking for puts upon it an impossible expectation: “Complete me.” For a little while, the novelty and excitement seem to do the trick (this is the second trick of the Great Machine). And if our key to happiness happens to be another person, all our lavish affection is received with equal fervor – particularly if that other person is empty inside and believes she has found her key in you.
But (you know the story) our impossible expectations cannot be realized. Disappointment is inevitable, our frustration mounts, and we grow increasingly anxious as this latest secret to happiness is exposed for the counterfeit it is. The fault, contra Shakespeare’s Cassius, must be in our stars, certainly not in ourselves. So … it’s time to find the real thing.
And off we go.
In the dark wake of our programmed bereavement, many are ready to agree that this so-called ‘pursuit of happiness’ is a misguided pipe dream. Who told us that we always needed a smile on our face and a lift in our spirit? Why do we have to always be of good cheer and turn our frowns upside-down? Let’s just take happiness as it comes, if it comes, along with everything else. If we need to talk with someone or take medication to help us stay in the game, then maybe this prophylactic margin of cynicism (how about we call it ‘realism’?) will keep us from having to suffer … very much.
Of course, you see the real problem, don’t you? It’s neither in the stars (out there), nor exactly in ourselves. The joy we’re looking for cannot be found, because it’s already ours. It is a spontaneous expression of inner peace, of our spiritual release to the grounding mystery of being itself. This ability to simply relax into being and rest in the rise-and-fall of the life process is what we naturally did in our mother’s womb, and for a short time afterwards.
Then we got pulled under the spell of our own emptiness and helplessness, and of our need for a salvation from outside us. Unhooked from our inner peace in this way, the secret to happiness could only be out there. From that moment, the natural inside-out flow of our self actualization got reversed to an outside-in program of gulping consumerism; we were re-hooked, but now to the Great Machine.
The good news – the gospel, dharma, or whatever you want to call it – is that we don’t have to stay under the spell. True enough, we have a choice between a genuine joy arising from inner peace and the cheap thrills (though much of it ain’t cheap) beckoning to us from the TV screen. But when we do choose to turn off the Tube and let our focus sink into the Real Presence of mystery within, we find ourselves resting in a provident universe – from the circling stars in their galaxies overhead to the quantum oscillations of consciousness inside our cells. The still center of this turning magnitude resides right there, in you; and the other one is right here, in me.
When we live out of this center, an inner sense of wellbeing rises and fills us with joy. This is not the fleeting thrill and spasmodic cheer we often mistake for true happiness. Joy is a perennial bloom whose secret source is not outside us, but not exactly inside us, either. A better term would be ‘within’ us – with and in and deep beneath the persons we are pretending to be. Joy is not ‘mine’ or ‘yours’, but is rather the lift of being and fullness of life in us, manifesting as us, and flowing through us.
Perhaps it is another name for the human spirit.
Joy, or genuine happiness, is inwardly rooted, deep in the peace of our grounding mystery. We don’t need to look for it because we already have it. Once we realize this – the moment we really get it, our understanding of love makes a radical shift. What had been our lust and longing for what will complete us and make us happy is transformed into an outflow of creative goodwill and selfless generosity.
Because we no longer need something or someone else to make us happy, the deep contentment of inner peace and our spiritually grounded joie de vivre can move us into the world without this complication. We can reach out and give of ourselves with no strings attached, no demand for reciprocity, no expectation of reward.
Love which is as joyously free as that, is a love that can save the world.
Tracts of Revolution 