The Carrier Wave of Life

Finally, time for some quiet reflection. This is one of the joys of blogging. In a way it is like writing in a journal because it is personal, but expressed in a public way. I've been thinking about this week's topic last night and the thought that occurred to me is the subject of happiness. But a quick check revealed that, I've written about this subject many times before.

Perhaps today we could examine what are the things that make happiness elusive. Is it seemingly elusive because we always define happiness as something that we do not possess now but aim to get in the future? What is your present state of mind? Are you happy? If not, why? Why in the world are you not happy?

When asked this question, the mind would come up with a litany of complaints: I hate my job, I don't have enough time with my loved ones, I have mounting debts, someone backstabbed me in the office, my spouse or partner is not faithful to me. And the list goes on, ad infinitum.

If you think about it, it appears that we define happiness as some ideal state where all the troubles and inconveniences of life are absent. Is this what real happiness is? Perhaps this is why heaven is such an allure to some religious minded people: there all my needs will be met and everything will be ideal and perfect. This mortal world of matter is an imperfect one, created by a lesser God perhaps, like what the Gnostics believe.

Life by definition is inconvenient. If we always envision happiness as some idealized state of perfect bliss, then we may never be happy. Happiness and gratitude goes hand-in-hand. Be grateful that you are blessed with some challenges which you have to strife hard to overcome.  To embrace challenges is to live.

I have an apartment filled with books. That makes me happy. But the apartment roof has a leakage problem, and rain-water seeped into my shelves and ruined some of my books. Does that make me unhappy? It sure perturbed me for a while, but then life is full of such inconveniences. Some people lost all their possessions to the flood recently. My problem, if it is even one, is trivial and petty. And I also know that any attachment causes pain. In this case, I certainly have a lot of attachment to my books--their destruction certainly is a cause of grief. But understanding these things make you see things in their proper perspective.

So life goes on. You have to deal with the maintenance of material possessions because it is their nature to break down. Impermanence and the Second Law of Thermodynamics rule supreme. Being able to see these truths, and seeing them in action in the world, surprisingly brings me a sense of joy.

Because we always define happiness as some sort of peak state, they become elusive. Behind the ups and downs of life there's a constant underneath--I call that the carrier wave of life. It is there to carry the signal of happiness and sadness, the fluctuations in the wave that carry 'information'. If you focus too much on the signal, you miss that state of bliss, the sat-chit-ananda of the mystics, which is that underlying carrier wave.

And what is this carrier wave that underlies life's turbulent experiences? It is that knowing, the wisdom and the truth that reveals itself when we are not distracted by the ecstasy and agony of living. Being able to tap into it gives one the foundation for--not happiness--but, equanimous joy. 

The peaks and troughs of life will come and go but the carrier wave--it is always there. And if you know how to tap into it, you are in touch with your innermost soul. Call it what you may: soul, essence, core, spirit; just remember, it's there always, and at anytime you can  tune into that carrier wave of life.