Commentary on Happiness:
Happiness is our natural state, quite literally. This is difficult for many people to believe since the ego is constantly chattering that we need one thing or another in order to be happy. However, the only thing that blocks our natural state is belief in the ego’s ideas. Therefore forgiveness, which is removing attention from ego, is the means of realizing happiness.
Let me give you an example of happiness as our natural state. We’ve all experienced happiness. Sometimes we experience happiness because of the simplest things. For example, imagine you are biting into the best piece of fruit or best chocolate you’ve ever tasted. The fruit is juicy and full of flavor. The chocolate is creamy; you just want to hold it in your mouth until it melts on your tongue.
During the brief period of time that you are giving your full attention to the fruit or chocolate, you are happy. Why? It’s because you aren’t listening to ego. You have literally disengaged from ego to give your full attention to the experience of this piece of fruit or this chocolate.
Every time you disengage from ego and bring your attention fully to the present, you are happy. You may make the mistake of thinking it was the fruit or candy (or hike or playing with your grandchildren, etc) that made you happy. However, in actuality you are happy because you temporarily disengaged from ego, so there was nothing to block your natural state.
In the language of A Course in Miracles, the act of removing your attention from ego is called forgiveness. A Course in Miracles teaches that forgiveness is your function. Since disengaging from ego returns you to your natural state, our function (forgiveness) and happiness are one.
In order to see that this is true, pay attention to your experience. Notice that whenever you are not happy, there is a thought or story present that is driving your experience. Whenever you are happy, notice you are being present with your current experience and not caught up in ego ideas in that moment. By observing this in yourself, you will come to see that ego blocks happiness and happiness is natural when we are not lost in ego’s thoughts or perceptions.