Hari Krishan Singh, April 2012I recently saw an ice cream advertisement stating ‘Ice cream makes you happy’. They even have proof of it: “Few foods are guaranteed to put a smile on your face like ice cream. And now we have proof that eating ice cream actually makes you happy by lighting up the ”pleasure zones” in the brain. (This was proven in a study conducted in April 2005 by Unilever at the Centre for Neuroimaging Sciences, Institute of Psychiatry London)”.
Simple enough, right? Just eat an ice cream and be happy. Yogi Bhajan said that ‘Happiness is your Birthright’. So I guess I go get myself an ice cream then.
But what does being happy mean? Did Yogi Bhajan mean the same happiness as ‘lighting up the pleasure zones’? I am not so sure. These pleasure zones seem very temporary, and I have the feeling Yogi Bhajan meant something more lasting. And if it would have been so easy as eating an ice cream, he would not have described the whole process: THE 7 STEPS TO HAPPINESS.
If you imagine the temporary happiness the ice cream provides as a temporary distraction from the daily worries, then worrying could be the main obstacle for happiness. And if you manage not to worry at all, you might well be able to achieve this permanent state of happiness.
So how can you be continuously without worries? Yogi Bhajan gives the answer: commitment. Celebrate your uniqueness and commit to living it fully. This can be an absolute joy, but can also be a difficult road. Through spiritual practice, or sudden insight, your Mind can achieve the right understanding and come to stand under the guidance of your soul. Your true potential. That part of you that is always ‘in the flow’, your ‘gut feeling’, your intuition. And that is different for everybody.
To stay with your commitment and to give it shape leads to character, the second step to happiness. Character is related to your integrity. You made a choice, you recognized your direction, you committed to that, and you stick to it no matter what. That is character. Your character might be confronting to others, you might be deemed stubborn or extreme, but as long as you keep yourself to yourself and not impose your way on others, this will support you and lead to dignity.
Dignity already gives a little shine to your character. Your commitment has sunken in, and you have put it into action, you gave it shape, and it is noticeable in the way you carry yourself through life; with dignity. Keeping up is a key factor here. Yogi Bhajan kept emphasizing that, when you keep up, you will be kept up. This makes dignity develop into divinity.
You have made yourself transparent to the point that the divine can really shine through. Not transparent in the way that you are not there, but transparent so the divine light from within, from your soul, can come through. Your unique light which represents the universal light, but manifested in a form, a person, a character. God and me, me and God are one. A calmness will descend over you, a calmness of the divine that will be noticed as your grace.
Grace is working through you. It can hold any situation, not just hold it, but uplift it. Your presence is uplifting. You being present is enough, nothing else is needed. You have the power to sacrifice because you are aware that you have the power to be powerless. You put yourself in service of the moment.
Even without saying anything, without doing anything, people will be inspired by you. They will be happy to be with you. So apart from your own happiness, you even bring happiness. Your happiness doesn’t just start or end there, it is more a permanent state of being which comes from the alignment of the Mind with the Soul through commitment. Happiness is the Mind’s interpretation of eternal bliss which is the original state of your Soul. A blissful light that cannot manifest because it will blind all and everything. Happiness, real happiness, is a way to experience and manifest this eternal bliss.
A very powerful technique that Yogi Bhajan gave us to keep up our commitment is to have Sat Nam on our breath as often as possible. This will open the door to experience your true identity, put it into practice and shine the light of your eternal bliss.
7 Steps to Happiness:
1. Commitment gives you
2. Character gives you
3. Dignity gives you
4. Divinity gives you
5. Grace gives you
6. Power to Sacrifice gives you
7. Happiness
Wahe Guru! Thank you Hari Krishan. Very beautifully written.