Unreasonable Happiness

"The only happiness you will ever experience is to be happy for no reason at all, because if you depend upon reason, you will never have a reason to be happy."

-- Ananda Abinou

Now, wait a minute, you say. I have lots of reasons to be happy. I have a job, a nice place to live, good friends, and my kids love me, even when they're not acting like it. OK. But then you probably also have lots of reasons to be unhappy, as well -- the economy is in the crapper, you're starting to feel your age, there never seem to be enough hours in the day, and you can't remember the last time you really let go and had BIG, BIG fun. So, it seems, your happiness depends not just on external conditions, but also on which external conditions you choose to focus on.

But what if it didn't have to be that way? What if your happiness was not dependent upon reasons, or events, or causes? What if day after day you were just unreasonably happy?

Sounds almost like a pathological condition, doesn't it? Affective Euphoric Syndrome it might be called in the good ole DSM, the bible of psychological disorders. But even though unreasonable happiness is not the norm, is it truly pathological?

If so, then every mystic from every great spiritual tradition was one sick puppy! Each one of them touted unlimited happiness or joy or bliss as a hallmark of all of their teachings. The Kingdom of Heaven lies within, peace begins within, enlightenment is not based upon external conditions, contentment doesn't come from getting what you want, but from wanting what you get. We're told all of this over and over again in various languages, holy books, and metaphors. And yet, we keep searching outside ourselves for the Holy Grail of happiness.

Let's reboot our psyches and refocus our minds on the true experience of happiness, rather than upon the things we think we need as prerequisites for happiness. Remove the middleman, remove the middle object of our desire. 

The one thing that we all truly desire is happiness. Everything else we want is really what we think we need in order to be happy. Let's give up means and reasons and just be happy! We may discover that the mystics are right -- unreasonable happiness is indeed  our natural state.