Find Happiness
It’s completely natural to want more fulfillment, more achievement, more love, more of everything good—and to be happy. Happiness is the brass ring. Unfortunately, countless women say they are not generally happy.
Many of us have only temporary periods or sporadic moments of happiness. We feel happy when we fulfill our desires, such as securing the job or home we want, when our loved ones are well, and even from fulfilling smaller desires like finding the right dress for an event. When our wishes are gratified, we feel happy.
However, after we experience fulfillment of some desire or need, we eventually start to wish for something else that seems important to our happiness. We seem to have a perpetual desire for something more: We graduate from the right school, and then we want a good job. We get the great job, but we want a higher position in it. We get the higher position and then want a better home. We get the better home, but we feel lonely. We develop a great relationship but if it doesn’t progress, we start feeling anxious and unfulfilled. Does happiness have to be temporary?
Sometimes we coast along emotionally in neutral—neither happy nor sad—and we might be content with that. But when we are unhappy, we follow all sorts of advice and do things to distract ourselves from the blues (movies and books are effective; substance abuse is not), we engage in new pursuits, we call our friends and hope for comfort, we try positive thinking, we negotiate with God.
When we are feeling down, it seems impossible that we will ever crawl out of it. And yet, sooner or later, we do. We might credit some change in our life, or we might not know the source of our relief. We all have within us some measure of resilience that allows us to heal and bounce back. This resilience comes from something inherent, inside—one day we just wake up feeling better. When we learn the Transcendental Meditation technique, we directly experience this source within and find that it is abundant with happiness and peace.
TM: access to the ocean of happiness
Most of us think that we get happiness from something external—after all, that has been our experience. And because our well-being seems dependent on things, people and circumstances, finding happiness is dependent upon ever-changing situations that are often out of our control. However, by turning our attention within, away from the arena of chasing our dreams, we find happiness awaits us. And, with TM, it’s easy to do.
The TM technique is simple, natural and easy to learn, and it doesn’t require clearing your mind of thoughts or concentrating. It’s so effortless that, within just a few minutes, anyone can transcend or go beyond the activity of the mind. This transcending process takes one’s attention to the mind’s deepest level of consciousness from where the energy and intelligence expressed in our thoughts arise—one’s inner potential. That transcendent level, beyond all thought and anxiety and questing, is the ultimate field of happiness from which all our streams of happiness come. The direct experience of this expansive consciousness satisfies our ceaseless quest for happiness.
In contrast to evidence that American women have become increasingly unhappy despite greater freedom, education and career opportunities, research on women who practice the TM technique shows they experience increased happiness and fulfillment.
In Science of Being and Art of Living, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi explains that expansion of happiness is the purpose of life, and evolution is the process through which it is fulfilled. Life begins in a natural way, it evolves, and happiness expands. He says that if one is not happy, one has lost the very purpose of life. To find everlasting invincible happiness, one must take recourse to the infinite nature of the mind that is within each of us.
“There is nothing in the world which can really bring lasting contentment to the mind because everything in the world, although it provides some happiness to the mind, is not intensive enough to satisfy the great thirst for happiness of the mind. The only field of contentment is the transcendental field of bliss consciousness.”
Taking time each day for Transcendental Meditation, to bring our mind to the settled state of transcendental consciousness, impacts and improves our overall level of happiness increasingly over time until unbounded happiness is a feature of our everyday life.
Learning TM will begin the process of satisfying our need for happiness from within ourselves while giving us the tools of increased energy, intelligence and creativity to fulfill desires. Happiness upon happiness, layers of happiness—the brass ring.
Experience inner happiness. Contact a certified TM teacher near you.
About the Author
Janet Hoffman is the executive director of TM for Women Professionals, a division of TM for Women in the USA
