Everybody wants to be happy. Sometimes that’s just not happening. And we struggle and suffer as we navigate this human experience of feeling very SEPARATE from everything and everyone. Because we feel separate from our happiness, we go about trying to find it. So we look for it in our relationships, our work, our possessions, our experiences- all the while not realizing what we are seeking is ALREADY HERE NOW. It’s WHO WE ARE...LOVE, JOY, PEACE, NONJUDGMENTAL PRESENCE, CONSCIOUSNESS, SOURCE, ALL THAT IS.
By LOOKING FOR happiness, it may tend to ELUDE us, or if we find it, it’s fleeting because we are looking everywhere but HERE NOW. The way to grow a happy heart is to OPEN to what’s already HERE NOW.
Imagine being a flower seed...you get put in the ground and watered. Arrrg! You scream, I’m being buried alive! I’m dying! You don’t realize the first stage of growing is to experience complete darkness, death to the seed, so you can sprout.
Then you finally do sprout, and you say, Whew! I can finally breath and stretch out. This is great! But then a thunderstorm arises out of nowhere, and you scream, WTF?! as you are tossed around feeling like you will drown. Soon the storm passes, and you go to sleep. When you wake up, you notice you have grown some leaves, which you feel very proud of.
So you look around and notice other leaves and flowers too. They are much bigger and prettier than you, and you begin to feel insignificant and jealous. As nighttime comes, it gets very dark, and you start to feel afraid and alone. You say to yourself, This here being a plant is not so fun at all. In fact, it sucks!
The next day after you wake up, you notice your head has formed into a bloom. You get very curious because you have no idea what’s happening. You’re not really sure if this is a good or bad thing. After all, there’s a big ball where there wasn’t one the day before. So you start thinking again, back and forth, good or bad? All this RESISTANCE to your round bloom head is giving you a headache! Finally you give up resisting the ideas of good or bad and say, IT IS WHAT IT IS, and relax and fall asleep.
The next day, you open you eyes and say, OMG! What in the world? I AM OPENING. Check me out! I got color! I’m FANCY! Oh yeah! I AM one HAPPY flower!...because you realize no matter how afraid or alone or insignificant or jealous or confused you felt... you ARE a FREAKING FLOWER that shouts to the sun with color!