St Mary's

HAPPINESS

How happy are the poor in spirit

Theirs is the kingdom of heaven

Happy the gentle

They have the earth for their heritage.

Happy those who mourn

They shall be comforted

………

Happy the peacemakers

They are called children of God

This Gospel reading is a blueprint for our happiness, not only to be looked forward to later in this life or in some future existence, but to be experienced and enjoyed here and now.

I was about 10 years old when my Aunt May came to visit us on New Year’s Day. I can still hear her greeting to my mother, “Ah Mon, what troubles will this year bring?”  Not exactly a happy New Year greeting.

What my aunt didn’t realise is that happiness is our true right, it is our very nature; in Life itself, as human beings, resides our happiness. Animals may be happy, plants may be happy, rocks may be happy, but they do not know it. In those millennia when we were becoming human, the awareness of our right to happiness was also evolving. As Ecclesiasticus reminds us, ‘Nor let anxious thoughts fret your life away; a merry heart is the true life of man and woman; length of years is measured by rejoicing.’ Ramana Maharshi, one of the greatest sages of the C20, declares,’our essential nature is happiness. Happiness is inherent in everyone and is not due to external causes.’ The desire for Happiness is embedded in our consciousness, developed there over countless aeons, reflected in our fairy stories, where the prince and the princess live happily ever after.

There is a song that begins, ‘A contented mind is a blessing kind.’ Contentment would have to be one of the essential elements of happiness. No matter what we possess, if we are not content with it, then we are sad. Happiness in Yoga terms is Santosha, a guiding principle that encourages us to develop contentment. It prescribes being grateful for what we have rather than continually yearning for new and different things. We’ve all experienced the thrill of expectation, that gathers momentum until we reach the peak of attainment. But when the wave falls flat then we, like the shattered wave, dissolve in sorrow. Even worse, of course, is to expect the worst-it will surely happen. The solution to this all too frequent disappointment is to abandon all expectation – then whatever we do receive is a bonus.

Our expectations aim at satisfying the ego. Happiness, on the other hand, requires at least a certain degree of selflessness. Sharing, caring for others, compassion- all these generate our own happiness.  Separation, isolation inure us against happiness. St Therese of Lisieux writes in her autobiography, ‘Ever since I began to forget myself I have lived the happiest life.’ To embrace life in all its magnificence, to be aware, this moment, of our participation in the endless stream of existence, of our connectedness with all beings – that is the source and the sustainer of our happiness. During this tragic week this sense of connectedness emerged in all its brilliance in a community spirit that has encouraged thousands of people to reach out to others. As a fellow-volunteer remarked to me, ‘We are no longer a city, we are a family.’

The present moment is our moment to be happy, in fact it is our only moment. To be immersed in the glorious present moment, leaving behind the baggage of our past and abandoning our expectations for the future – this is real happiness, this is truly heaven on earth. Shqipe Malushi is an Albanian woman who assists both leaders and people in troubled spots in the world to rebuild their lives and their countries. She says of her time in Afghanistan, ‘Afghanistan taught me to be in the present and to live every moment as it is. It taught me to accept people and situations and offer compassion and understanding without trying to fix anything.’

Getting back to more mundane considerations, it is interesting to observe the various things or experiences that make people happy – one person’s happiness can be another’s  nightmare, and this is largely dependant on our personality and temperament. Psychologists tell us we all need something in our lives that we are passionate about. For many of us music, or an enthralling book can take us out of ourselves;  self-consciousness disappears, and the ego is temporarily suspended.  Then there is gardening. Gardening is about the peace that comes from creating something beautiful –and delicious, in the case of vegetables; it enables us to commune with and relate to nature. For some it is football. The person who recently completed 52 marathons in 52 weeks – we can only surmise that for him that equates with Happiness

Happiness may be our true nature, but our possession of happiness is continually under threat. Grief, sorrow, loss, failure, disappointment, pain and illness, depression and even despair – all these come knocking at the door of everyday life. As a city and as a nation we are right now affected, brought down, by our recent floods. Then there are the self-imposed obstacles to our happiness- overwork, over-indulgence, overactivity, overload of possessions, our selfishness, our laziness, our addictions. All these things bring disharmony into our lives. Happiness, on the other hand, according to Gandhi, is when ‘what we think, what we say and what we do are in harmony.’  Harmony comes from moderation in our lives-not too much of anything, not too little; but this is something we have to work at every day of our lives. Self-control, not self-indulgence, not only enables us to achieve that state of harmony and balance, but it greatly enhances our capacity for enjoyment.

We all need coping mechanisms, and some are more successful  than others. Drugs and alcohol, pleasure and distraction can deaden pain but hardly restore happiness. The real measure of our Happiness is our capacity to cope with sorrow. This week we have been amazed at the resilience of people as they face loss – of life, property, livelihood. The most outstanding examples have come from those who, in the midst of their own losses, can still go out to others.

Our premier spoke for all when she said, ’We’re the ones that they knock down, and we get up again.’ A 13- year- old boy called to his rescuers, ‘Save my little brother, save my Mum,’ just as he himself was swept away on the raging waters. Where does this extreme courage come from? What is its source? It is,  of course, the  mystery of life itself, which persists beyond all odds.  The poet Dylan Thomas describes this relentless life- force,

The force that drives the water through the rocks

Drives my red blood

Then we have the example of Jesus on the cross – in the midst of excruciating suffering, he shows only love and compassion towards his persecutors, ‘Father , forgive them they do not know what they are doing.’ Teilhard de Chardin advises us, ‘let us go beyond the surface, and, without leaving the world, plunge into God.’ Real happiness is able to transcend all  vicissitudes; they are only the ripples on the surface of our ocean of happiness. They say we shouldn’t put things off, procrastinate, but I think that in the case of Unhappiness we can, and should. There is a grave near Auschwitz, and on the tombstone is the inscription, ‘I may be sad, but not to-day.’

There is a meditation teacher, Goenka, in the Vipassana tradition. He has the deepest voice imaginable, he ends every discourse and every instruction with just two words,

BE HAPPY,    BE HAPPY,  BE HAPPY