It seems that nature — or if you will, the process of evolution — has endowed every living being with the wish to live, and whatever he believes to be his reasons are only secondary thoughts by which he rationalizes this biologically given impulse.

That we want to live, that we like to live, are facts that require no explanation. But if we ask how we want to live — what we seek from life, what makes life meaningful for us — then indeed we deal with questions (and they are more or less identical) to which people will give many different answers. Some will say they want love, others will choose power, others security, others sensuous pleasure and comfort, others fame; but most would probably agree in the statement that what they want is happiness. This is also what most philosophers and theologians have declared to be the aim of human striving. However, if happiness covers such different, and mostly mutually exclusive, contents as the ones just mentioned, it becomes an abstraction and thus rather useless. What matters is to examine what the term “happiness” means…Erich Fromm

This is indeed well understood by any gardener. The aim of the life of a rosebush is to be all that is inherent as potentiality in the rosebush: that its leaves are well developed and that its flower is the most perfect rose that can grow out of this seed. The gardener knows, then, in order to reach this aim they must follow certain norms that have been empirically found. The rosebush needs a specific kind of soil, of moisture, of temperature, of sun and shade. It is up to the gardener to provide these things if they want to have beautiful roses. But even without the gardeners help the rosebush tries to provide itself with the optimum of needs. It can do nothing about moisture and soil, but it can do something about sun and temperature by growing “crooked,” in the direction of the sun, provided there is such an opportunity. 

Why would not the same hold true for the human species?

Even if we had no theoretical knowledge about the reasons for the norms that are conducive to human’s optimal growth and functioning, experience tells us just as much as it tells the gardener. Therein lies the reason that all great teachers have arrived at essentially the same norms for living, the essence of these norms being that the overcoming of greed, illusions, and hate, and the attainment of love and compassion, are the conditions for attaining optimal being. Drawing conclusions from empirical evidence, even if we cannot explain the evidence theoretically, is a perfectly sound and by no means “unscientific” method, although the scientists’ ideal will remain, to discover the laws behind the empirical evidence.

And what we do know is that there are the universal laws and these do explain this differentiation between what people call their path to happiness and fulfilment. Firstly we know that there is a hierarchy of all things. Hence there are emotions at the bottom of the consciousness cone which belong only to those exceedingly passionate about seeking extremes of high and avoiding at all cost the opposite. These are ultimately, the greedy, the disillusioned and hateful. Because it is only in extreme thinking that these extreme emotions can exist. The individual on one hand will seek extreme happiness extreme illusion and extreme love or that would be what they call it. On the other hand those who are not seeking polar extremes will automatically find themselves in a state of love and compassion and optimal being.

Know that there are two sides to everything. The individual at the bottom of the consciousness cone will not accept this information. They will believe there are emotions that make them feel high that have no negative partner and therefore no consequence. But in the life of that individual there will be a perpetual depression or complaint that the world is causing them to suffer unnecessarily. The only way therefore, to exist in this extreme polarity is to blame and shame others. Pop of the consciousness cone there is an awareness of the duality that exists in life and therefore there is recognition of this balance and no need to externalise blame. Learning balance is the key to continued improvement in our happiness in life.

Of the rosebush is so perfect because it will say that some of the circumstances under which the rosebush exists are beyond its control such as the fertility of the soil and the water it receives. But the rosebush will not stop growing in the direction of the sun irrespective of these things.

So we seek happiness. 

And there are so many million ways to seek it.

What are we to choose?

First, may I explain why this is so complex.

There are seven areas of life.

Each compete with each other. That’s normal. You run out of money while on a family holiday, the financial issue is going to be like hammering your thumb with a sledge hammer. Your happiness of the holiday could be destroyed by either worry or fear of the financial ruin you face. 

So there are chains that bind us to the extrinsic world. Those chains are survival and then, eventually, some hollow material proof that we are alive, even living. A house, a car, a bigger house, a faster car, more children, etc

But there are equally as many intrinsic chains. Those are more sinister because at least the extrinsic chains can be seen. The inner ones are absolutely hidden from observation, particularly by the person concerned. They cannot examine themselves through the mind that created themselves.

The intrinsic chains also demand attention. Wanting safety, approval, validation, comfort, love, friendship and belonging. All fabulous fodder for religious and self help guru’s.

Seven areas of life and now we see seven levels inner or intrinsic of life. Each aim or feeling we have in each level is independent of the others. In other words, we can feel, want, need, should and got to ourselves all at once. 

Now we have seven areas of life competing at seven levels of life. Each demanding happiness. “I’ve got to have you in my life” family emotion got to screaming while “health, health, I need a whiskey” screams. Two powerful external chains pulled by two powerful internal emotional levels of thought, and both at once. Now add work, sleep and some need for social contact along with seven other levels of emotion and you have, what is called “MIND NOISE.”

In meditation the objective is to get control of these voices. And some do. Until they all start screaming in the real world. I need this, I want that, I should be doing what they want, I’d love to punch him in the nose.” Boom, unless you live in a padded cell, that ain’t going to work. No way.

There’s another equally stupid idea. Agitation. You see, the busier we get the more one voice screams the house down and agitated so loud that the others get drowned out. Yes, get busy, go shopping, work late, run a marathon, yes, come on, you can do it as long as there’s one voice screaming you can’t hear the rest. Stupid, but the most common solution. Stupid because just because you can’t hear them in all the agitation it doesn’t mean they are silenced. Instead they, the other voices, start eating away at you, killing you softly. Illness, nearly all of it, comes this way.

Finally, there’s the walker way. Nature’s way. You see each voice has a right. Each can be useful. The trick is not to have them competing. So, first we satisfy the “got to’ voices. Then the should’s, then the need to and now the want to. The more satisfied the lower voices are, the less they scream. Then, we evaluate which external chain is least, and which is most important. We satisfy the least first. Until we get to the love to area of life. Now we have silenced the inner and the outer voices. Because they are fulfilled. 

This process, the VIP process, is super powerful. Easy, travels with you and needs a minimal amount of maintenance daily. (called the power hour).

Simple, natural, organic and fun. Filled with joy, you get to do what you love and love what you do, regardless. It works.