Thomas Carlyle and Happiness

Thomas Carlyle

First posted Feb 6th, 2007 to my Zaadz/Gaia blog

This is a comment to Siona’s  blog posting  on Thomas Carlyle on the anniversary of his death. Quoting from her post:

“But this I love more: Carlyle had an unblinkered awareness of the suffering inherent to the world. He believed the point of life is to make man blessed, not happy, and that the pursuit of happiness is one of the things that prevents people from achieving blessedness.”

To which I comment:

“Yes, yes, yes. Carlyle seems amazingly close to the core! – But I wonder if the blessed / happiness distinction doesn’t suffer from issues of definitions of terms. I really like Eckhart Tolle’s idea that unhappiness is any state of identifying who we are with emotions we’re having an aversive reaction to, such as feelings we should have something or shouldn’t be experiencing something else.

When viewed with detachment, the same feelings are clearly seen as an ineffable, invaluable part of the unblemished suchness of each moment. Without the story attached to the feelings, the background of joy emerges, as the content, no longer resisted, merges with the whole mass-of-what-is, penetrated through and through by the vast, spacious awareness. Then we fall into being, consciousness and bliss. How can this not be happiness?

So, the pursuit of happiness is exactly its opposite when we are grasping at any “thing” that we dream will somehow finally complete the image of “Me,” completely impossible within the temporal framework of the world of form. And is utterly transformed when we release attachment to outcomes and to the chronic reaction to the sense of unsatisfactoriness that drives the imaginary self. The pursuit becomes effective and practical when directed by a seeing of what is along with complete acceptance of what’s seen. Then we are truly blessed, but not by anything outside of ourselves. We are blessed by surrender to that to which we are directly connected at the center of our being.”

And as Siona ended, Yes.