We do not do anything - whether through mind, speech or body - which is not driven by our fundamental desire to be pleased. Each one of our actions is inspired by our desire to be perfectly happy. For who do we desire happiness? Do we not each wish happiness for our self? First and foremost, we every want our self to be happy.
Though we may additionally want other people to be happy, we want these to be happy because seeing their happiness makes us really feel happy. All our actions of mind, speech as well as body are impelled by our desire for our own joy. However unselfish we may think our actions to become, they are still all motivated by our wish for our own happiness. Even if we sacrifice our own time, our money, our comforts and advantages, or anything else that is precious to all of us, in order to do some altruistic action, whether to help some other person or to support some commendable cause, the ultimate driving force behind such sacrifice is actually our desire to be happy.
We do altruistic activities only because doing so makes us feel happy. Simply because we feel unhappy when we see other people struggling, we are ready to do anything to alleviate their own suffering, even if by doing so we appear to cause some suffering to our self. We feel more happy suffering to help other people than we would feel when we did nothing to help them. In fact we might derive positive happiness from our suffering, because we all know we are undergoing it for the sake of other people. Taking this to an extreme, some people really choose to suffer for the sake of suffering, simply because they cannot feel happy unless they feel that they may be suffering.
They derive pleasure by undergoing what seems to be suffering, because for them that seeming struggling is not really suffering but is only a kind of pleasure. Whatever extreme form our desire might take, whether some truly noble altruistic form or any deeply perverse masochistic form, in essence it really is still only a desire for our own joy. Why is our desire for our own happiness the essential and ultimate cause of our desire for the joy of other people? Why do we desire their joy primarily because it contributes to our own happiness? The reason why, in other words, do we ultimately desire our very own happiness more than we desire the happiness of other people?
We are primarily concerned with our own happiness simply because we love our self more than we love any other individual or thing. We love other people and things simply because we believe that they can contribute to our own joy. We love each of them only to the level to which we believe that they are able to create us happy, and if we thought that they failed to or could not in some way or other help with our happiness, we would feel no particular really like for them. Our greatest love is only for yourself, and it is for our own sake that people love other people and things.
We love us, our friends and our possessions because we believe that they are ours, and because loving them can make us feel happy. Our love for our own joy is inseparable from our love for our own personal. Because we love our own self above all other activities, we desire our own happiness above all other activities. We love and desire whatever makes us pleased, and we dislike and fear whatever makes us disappointed. All our likes and dislikes, all our wishes and fears, are rooted in our love for the own happiness, which in turn is rooted within our love for our own self.
Why do some of us love our own self more than we really like any other person or thing? The reason we really like certain other people and certain other things is because all of us feel that they make us happy, at least can make us happy. Which is, we love whatever we believe can give all of us happiness. If we know that something does not create us happy, and cannot make us happy, do not feel any particular love for it. Is not really happiness, therefore , the fundamental cause of almost all forms of love? Is not all the love that people feel for various people and things in essence just our love for our own happiness?
Do we not really love only those things that are potential sources of joy for us? Therefore , since we love our very own self above all other things, is it unclear that we our self are foremost among all the actual sources of our happiness? In fact , we have been the only true source of all our joy, because whatever happiness we seem to derive from all other people or things arises only from within all of us. Since all our happiness ultimately comes only from inside us, is it not clear that happiness is something inherent in us? In fact , happiness is our very own true and essential nature. Therefore , the key reason why we love our own self more than every other person or thing is simply that we our self tend to be happiness – the fullness of perfect happiness, and also the one ultimate source of all the various types of happiness that we seemingly derive from other people as well as things.
Our love for our own self as well as for our own happiness is not wrong. It really is perfectly natural, and therefore unavoidable. It might be wrong only when, due to our insufficient correct understanding about where true happiness lies, this impels us to do actions that cause harm to others. Therefore , in order to avoid doing any kind of harm to anyone - to avoid making anyone else disappointed - it is essential that we understand what true joy is and where our true happiness lies. To be able to understand this, we must first understand more our self. Since love and happiness are subjective emotions that are experienced by us, we cannot be aware of true nature of either of them without first knowing the true nature of our self.
Only if we comprehend our own true nature will we be able to know how the desire for happiness arises within us, as well as why we love our own self and our own joy above all other things. The converse side of our own desire to be happy is our plan to be free from pain, suffering, misery or some kind of other form of unhappiness. What we all wish is to be perfectly happy, free from the particular least form of unhappiness. In fact , a strategy that we refer to as happiness is just the state in which we have been free from unhappiness. Our natural state is usually to be happy. Our desire for happiness is our own desire for our natural state.
Consciously or subconsciously, we are all seeking what is natural for all of us. For example , when we have a head ache, why do we wish to be free of this? Because a headache is not natural to all of us, when we experience one, we plan to be free of it. The same may be the case with all other things that are not organic to us.
We cannot feel entirely comfortable or pleased with anything that is not truly natural to all of us. That is why we never feel perfectly pleased, in spite of all the material, mental as well as emotional pleasures that we may be enjoying. All this kind of pleasures come and go, and hence they may not be natural to us. Whatever is truly organic to us - whatever is inherent in our essential character - must be with us always.
Since the actual physical body that we now take to be our elf has experience by us only in our present waking condition, and not in dream or in deep rest, it is not our essential nature. Similarly, since our mind is experienced by us only in the us of waking and dream, and not within the state of deep sleep, even it is far from our essential nature. Because in deep rest we remain peacefully and happily without either our mind or even our body, neither of them is natural to all of us.
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