Words of Wisdom

Isn't it amazing how much of our lives we spend 

seeking and demanding to be right? We can be 

right or we can be happy.

- Dr. Roger W. Teel

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Consider this: Whatever we say about anybody else contains at its core an affirmation about ourselves.

- Dr. Roger W. Teel

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"This most basic question, who am I, is the one that is most overlooked. We spend most of our days telling ourselves or the other we're someone important, someone unimportant, someone big, someone little, someone young, someone old. Never truly questioning its most basic assumption. Who are you, really? How do you know that is who you truly are? Is that true, really?

When you turn your attention to your question, who am I, perhaps you'll see an entity that has your face and your body. But, who is aware of that entity? Are you the object, or the awareness of the object? The object comes and goes. The parent, the child, the lover, the abandoned one, the enlightened one, the victorious one, the defeated one, these identifications all come and go. The awareness of these identifications is always present.

The misidentification of yourself as an object or awareness leads to extreme pleasure or extreme pain, and endless cycle of suffering. When you are willing to stop the misidentification and discover directly and completely that you are the awareness itself and not these impermanent definitions, the search for yourself and thoughts ends. When the question "Who" is followed innocently, purely, all the way back to its source, there is a huge astounding realization. There is no entity there at all. There is only the undefinable, boundless recognition of yourself as inseparable from anything else. You are free, you are whole, you are endless. . . Ganjali

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"Everyone wants to be happy but what makes for lasting happiness? Interestingly, research is now validating ancient wisdom in many ways. Money, for example, is surprisingly ineffective-- it can alleviate the suffering of deprivation, but above a certain minimum does precious little to increase lasting happiness.

So what does work? Many things will bump up happiness temporarily, but long term is a very different matter. Researchers have found three thing that succeed in doing this. What are they?

1) Cultivating gratitude, and particularly effective is writing down something each day for which you feel grateful.

2) Reframing difficult experiences in a positive way. This, of course, is the old practice of looking for the silver lining.

3) Generosity. The old wisdom is true--in giving to others we give to ourselves, and the happy result is what's called a "helper's high.

May you be happy!"  -Roger Walsh