for me reading books on happiness could qualify as a pastime of mine given the number of them i've gone through. anymore it is an exercise in comprehensiveness than true searching. that said, this one delivered a right jab to my temple that left me dazed. it happened straight away, in the author's forward. here the author explained how the happiness paradigm typically works, by western standards at least: you do good things, people reward you (in various ways) for your good things, you feel better about yourself. easy, cheesy. this is known as the basic ego-driven system. immediately after describing this familiar format, the author says it is has been proven that this model is flawed, very flawed. he goes on to explain that in eastern teachings, for thousands of years, the following five things have been widely understood to be the greatest fears of mankind and thus, the most prevalent obstacles to one's happiness.
- not knowing your true identity
- clinging to the idea of permanence in a world that is inherently impermanent
- fear of change
- identifying with the socially induced hallucination called the ego
- fear of death.
i've never read five lines of anything, even that i myself have written, that seemed to more succinctly describe me. "fear of change" ... "socially induced hallucination called the ego!" ... "fear of death". the words haphazardly tumbled through my head as i repeatedly read the section. needless to say i tore through the remainder of this short book with a rapaciousness i reserve for few things. in the end do you know what i found? i found that mr chopra didn't answer a single one of the five introductory points. #*&!$@ !!!
a week after finishing the book i saw the woman who referred it to me. she asked how i liked it. i said #*&!$@ !!! again. i raged. it picked at five predominately suppressed scabs. it cited them as being the problem. and then it didn't give answers to a single, damn one of them. that's how it went. terrible. horrible. she looked at me with a calm and understanding face. she all but put her hand on my arm and said, "he does answer the points troy, you're just not hearing the answer. you might not be ready." might not be ready? what kind of obi-wan nonsense it that? i explained that i give whole parts of my day, of my life, for years, in trying to better understand these matters. there's no way i'm not ready. she then said the problem is often that the ego-based paradigm is too ingrained in our thought to grasp some of the new notions. great. by many standards, i've done ok using this ego-based system. this system that has now been called, by at least one, a socially manufactured facade. #*&!$@ !!!
while i'm a tad pissed about all this, i'm still convicted to getting my arms around these concepts, to at least have a reasonable grasp at what he says is the fix. to this end, i'm re-reading the book. although to call what i'm doing reading would not be accurate. what i'm doing is studying the text one paragraph at a time. i assure you there are serious scholars who have treated the torah less seriously than i'm treating this short but dense book.
#*&!$@ !!!
read at your own peril.
#*&!$@ !!!
