"Too Happy?!"

During a recent gathering with relatives a discussion began about my own explorations and practice of self-help methods. Feeling excited about my family’s fresh interest, I enthusiastically shared my learning experiences, only to be met by, without pause: “Gosh. Sounds like after all of that work you’ll be perfect… how boring!” and “No one likes someone who is too happy.” These retorts felt like a slap upon my face. An abashed “What??!” resounded within. “How boring??! Too happy?!? Is that even possible? You’ve got to be kidding me!” The confusion continued to unfurl, “What is so wrong with seeking perfection? Don’t we all wish to feel more whole, happy and loved??” Soon an inner aggravation arose for not receiving the response I had expected. “They’re just jealous!” I smugly analyzed. “They feel insignificant in comparison to my way. They see it’s better! Yeah!! That’s it!! And…” Mid-thought a nearly audible squeal of self-awareness brakes echoed through my mind forcing me to pause. Like a gentle thump upon the brain, I felt Holy Spirit’s presence shining a light of realization upon the situation. Ah, and there is the absolute cleverness of the ego.

“I have said that the ego's rule is, "Seek and do not find". Translated into curricular terms this means, "Try to learn but do not succeed".” (ACIM Text, pg. 226)

What does the ego really want? Consciously and rationally, we may believe that the ego only wants to feel a sense of love and be complete. It wants to be happy. However, with this lucid assumption, we forget one key concept: the ego is NOT rational. The ego is, in fact, conflict in context. Through its insane beliefs, the ego denies its own Truth. It seeks outside itself for completion all the while paradoxically fearing to accept it and doubting even the possibility of happiness’ actuality. Therefore, the ego really doesn’t want anything at all except more experiences of its own belief in contradiction.

What does this recognition mean for our own experience of personal happiness? Essentially it means that genuine happiness and the perception of happiness, as defined by the ego, are two rather different concepts. As long as we are conceiving happiness with the ego’s insanity, we will counterproductively wish for and curse our own experiences of it. At best, the ego can accept a deluded, dualistic and limited idea of happiness. This form of happiness allows the ego to temporarily forget its investment in struggle. However, due to the ego’s pervasive fear of losing itself to the unknown, all temporal experiences of happiness are eventually met with judgment enacted on the basis of justified suspiciousness. Therefore, to the ego, it indeed is quite possible to be “too happy.”

Likewise, here are a few ways that the ego conceives and practices its own understanding of limited or deluded happiness:

1. False Bliss: The term “blissninny” was coined by Dr. Kenneth Wapnick as a way to describe people who deny the everyday emotions and circumstances of the world of form. The Blissninny suppresses their very humanly existent ego beliefs. They pretend that he or she is always happy and demands all others to play along in false bliss so to avoid any residual perception of threat. This “fake it until you make it” or “just suck it up” attendance to happiness is similar to Marianne Williamson’s observation where we “pour pink paint over a pile of poop.” Obviously this does not make the manure of perceptual existence more fertile or less odorous. False Bliss can be compared to the euphoric high felt with addiction. Here, pleasure is only a temporary mask for concealed hurt. This temporary and chemically induced exhilaration leads only to dependency and proliferated pain.

Within my own study and application of the Course, I quickly found that although the ‘blissninny’ state of being can seem superficially attractive, it is only denial and only the ego has purpose for denial. As mentioned above, the ego exists in the state of Self-denial. Metaphorically, the ego turns its back on the Light of Truth to pretend another illusive reality. Similarly, this is the same trick of the Blissninny who denies their own experiential perceptions, seeking to hide the inner torment with outer affectation. The Course does emphasize that the ways of the world are not God’s reality. However, never does it suggest that we deny our experiences. In fact, The Course repeatedly teaches that we should be aware of what we believe so that we may offer these beliefs to Holy Spirit and heal. The bottom line is that Holy Spirit cannot heal what we conceal. Therefore, the practice of False Bliss will never result in genuine happiness because it is living in a state of deception, and falsehood is not peace.

2. Success: I can bet what you are thinking, “How can success not be genuine happiness??!” There is a single experience answer to this question and it is: the existence of failure. In fact, the word success itself reveals its true meaning:

succeed: 1375, "come next after, take the place of another," from L. succedere "come after, go near to," from sub "next to, after" + cedere "go, move."

As we can see, success depends upon instability. It is constantly moving in states of variation. Success can be made and success can be lost. What may seem like success to a certain individual’s experience could still appear to be failure through another’s eyes. Generally, success is considered happiness only because it temporarily eludes the typical struggle defining the core of human experience. Overall, success is a dependent state of living and dependency is not happiness. In addition, is success without need? Is it eternally complete and free of all forms of threat? Again, the answer is no, since worldly success requires protection. Therefore, because success requires constant upkeep and wariness, never can it reflect genuine happiness and thus must live only within realms of the ego’s idea of happiness.

Now, here is the place that the uncertain mind asks, “Does this mean that I can never be successful in the world?” No. God’s Holiness is always blessing our endeavors, no matter what form or belief supports them. However, He does not need you to attract or do anything in particular. God does not require you to magically think your claim to draw on success. Lo instead, He Created You as perfect now and only sees this perfection within You no matter the outer experience. Truly, these assertions are only for your conceptual mind to remember, not God’s. God’s Holiness blesses all that you see, knowing only the Vision of Truth as eternal. Furthermore, God’s Holiness is always without limitation or judgment. He only desires our perfect happiness. Hence, if we choose to align with a yearning for temporary completeness, so be it. In fact, God knows that you are inordinately more than any worldly idea of success. Consequently, God’s Holiness blesses all our wishes until we are ready to realize that this is only the tip of Reality’s iceberg for Who We Really Are. Eventually, as we seek to know our Self as God knows, rather than crave transitory distraction, we will recognize how genuine satisfaction fully compensates without our forethought, interference or effort. This genuine happiness cannot be taken, nor can it be earned. God’s knowing of happiness is not success. In His Truth, it simply, lovingly and always is as God Created.

Overall, Alexander Pope appropriately described the ego’s idea of happiness:

“False happiness is like false money; it passes for a long time as well as the true, and serves some ordinary occasions; but when it is brought to the touch, we find the lightness and alloy, and feel the loss.”

Therefore, any egoic idea of happiness will either falsely deny loss or temporarily delay its existence. Without an investment in loss, the ego cannot value its justifications or judgments, nor can it be variable. Although through egoic happiness, perhaps we will believe that we are getting what we want, overall the reality is that we in actual fact have no clear idea of what we want. Here, we can be “too happy” because we feel that we are at a loss for the drama that has routinely guided our self-identity and given us a seeming reason to strive.

Recognizing this point of view, I realized how my relative’s opinion on my self-help practices were quite on-target from where the ego stands. I say this not out of judgment, but only out of the clear realization that without justifying loss, or the protection from loss, the ego does not understand happiness and so does not believe a non-dualistic form of happiness is practicable. To the ego, happiness without the potential for loss is boring. Is this not one reason why we excitedly engage in the game of delusion, because we simply value the chase?

What do you feel God’s answer to being “too happy” would be? Personally, I conceive that God’s answer would be one of peace. Peace is neither “too happy” or pensive in its wishes for happiness. Peace wholly and eternally witnesses to the reality of God’s eternal state of simply being. God’s perfect limitless happiness neither is dependent, deluded nor defined. It has no comparison or alternative and lives only to welcome more of its wholly fulfilled Self.

In summary, if we sought to know and practice Spirit’s awareness of happiness in our everyday experience, the very first step would be to observe every mannerism and thought that limits or judges happiness. Here, we do not superimpose our own ideas, leaving our thinking minds open for disappointment. Lo instead, in our practice of genuine happiness, we enthusiastically recognize both where we counterproductively effort for and fear our own experiences of happiness. Next, we would gently and lovingly choose to moment by moment release these judgments for peace. We notice where we try to make happiness rather than simply be happy. Here, “too happy” or “not happy enough” becomes contentment now, accepting all that now is. In our practice of genuine happiness, we would meet each day as a effortless opportunity to know our Self in serene ease, generously offering any other recognized idea up for healing. In this practice of genuine happiness, fulfillment is the complete acceptance of the Unified Self, and in this Self-awareness of being happy we contently rest.