Searching for Happiness?

I have been looking for happiness for 20 years now. I've done everything correctly, everything I was supposed to do. But I can't find happiness or joy. Please help. I am glad you asked the question. The answer of course is very simple. You have to give up your search for happiness because it hasn't worked in 20 years. So it's not going to work in the next 20 years. The very search for happiness prevents you from finding the happiness that is available to you already. Because the search for happiness implies that you are not fully inhabiting with your conscious attention this moment. And you cannot fully accept it because it is judged as in some way lacking. The present moment is judged as something lacking here always. And the search for happiness implies you are looking for some future state. You imagine yourself at some point in the future when you are going to be happy. Happiness as such is also a strange term. I don't use it usually to really point to the state of connectedness with your essential identity in the present moment. That perhaps a more suitable word for that would be joy. A joyous sense of aliveness. A quiet but intense sense of aliveness and joy and peace. Some people may call that happiness. Ramana Mahasi, the Indian spiritual teacher, a great teacher who lived in the 40s, 50s, he used the word happiness to talk about this. But when he uses the word happiness, he does not mean the happiness, the conventional way in which this word is used. So he says happiness is your true nature. So you just have to find your true nature and then you find happiness. And what he means is find the essence of who you are and then you have that state of joyous aliveness that some people call happiness. At least peace. An inner peace, not a dead peace, not the peace of unconsciousness or drunkenness. Are you peaceful? Yeah, not that one. The peace where you have risen above thought, not fallen below thought. The vertical dimension again. So what to do? You give up your search for happiness and give more attention to the present moment. And don't look for happiness in the present moment. Don't look for anything. Just be with the present moment and make it your friend. You might as well, since there's nothing else ever. And since your entire life is experienced as the present moment, you might as well have a friendly attitude towards is your entire life. It can only be experienced in and as the present moment. Even memories. You remember something that once was the present moment and you remember it in the present. Mom. If it hadn't been happened in the present moment when it happened, it couldn't have happened. And you couldn't remember it if it were in the present moment. Now, don't try to work that out mentally. So everything is the. Your entire life is only ever now. And so by appreciating the now, becoming friendly with the now, aligning yourself with the now, your life unfolds differently and you appreciate the little things. Instead of thinking of the big things that would make you happy if you could only achieve them, including the idea of enlightenment or whatever else it is. Those big things that are going to make me happy instead, appreciate whatever is here in the present moment. And then you may find one day that listening to the leaves of a tree moved by the wind, that sound suddenly makes you happy. And you may find looking at the sky suddenly makes you happy. To become aware that you are breathing and to feel the aliveness within the body makes you happy. Touching paper that has been in the sauna for a while and the soft touch of it, everything suddenly is fine and good. And if something unpleasant arises, as it sometimes does, of course if action is possible, you take action towards changing the situation or removing yourself from the situation, if that either is not possible or not possible yet, then you simply practice acceptance of what is, instead of generating unhappiness about what is. And even if action is possible, the basis is, well, this is what is now, what can I do about it? Well, this is what is. There's still an acceptance of what is. And then that acceptance of what is that before would have been judged as highly undesirable, instead of making you unhappy, produces more depth in you, because more acceptance means more depth, a greater depth in you, vertical dimension. So you appreciate the good things or the little good things, they are continuously arising around you. So you practice that gratitude for all, that appreciation of all the little things. And then happiness arises. And when something not good happens, or the mind says it's not good, or it is actually unpleasant, really unpleasant acceptance, and that can take you even deeper than the little good things. One big back, one big bad thing can take you quickly deeper than many good things. By accepting, accepting means the egoic structures that create continuous resistance subside and this gap opens up and you as a person, the ego lives in and through resistance in one form or another, you as a person suddenly give way, dissolve, become transparent, and then something deeper arises is there. And that is what Jesus called the peace that passes all understanding. Because you cannot figure out the relationship in your mind between this so called bad event and the peace you feel. The reason of course being now I'm explaining to you so you can actually understand it. The peace that passes all understanding is this relationship. Normally a good thing produces inner peace or happiness and here a bad thing produces an even greater much greater inner peace and happiness and that is because through acceptance it causes the ego which is the mind made self to get out of the way, dissolve, become, they're much weaker become transparent instead of dense and then your essence identity as consciousness itself shines through. In other words the ripple which is the ripple on the ocean lives on the horizontal dimension all ripples are on the horizontal dimension when the life becomes too unpleasant for the ripple that may force the rebel to become aware of that which is beyond the vertical dimension so more present moment awareness instead of looking for happiness appreciating the many beautiful things and then also gradually becoming aware of your presence which ultimately is what the now is it is the presence of consciousness the space in which everything happens and you are that Sam.