THE ORIGINAL PANDEMIC

An excerpt from Rupert Spira's new book:

You Are The Happiness You Seek.

Uncovering the Awareness of Being

Pages 12 + 13:

At the time of writing, many people are concerned that they may be infected with a virus that will cause sickness and possibly death to themselves or their loved ones. I do not mean to disparage such concern, or the attempts that individuals, communities and nations are taking to minimise the spread of the virus. I only want to point out the attention we give to this virus whilst ignoring another malady that has infected the vast majority of people without their realising it.

This malady is the belief that peace and happiness is dependent upon external circumstances. We have allowed a single belief to steal our innate happiness, to rob us of the one thing we love above all else. And yet, so ubiquitous is this condition that we do not even realise it as such; we consider it the natural state.

This syndrome has a simple symptom: suffering! Our suffering, whether it be an intense emotion of hatred, anger or jealousy that erupts temporarily in response to a particular circumstance, or simply a mild but chronic feeling that something is missing, is the litmus test that indicates we have overlooked our essential nature or being and that, as a result, its innate peace and happiness has been obscured.

Just as physical pain is a signal from the intrinsic intelligence of the body letting us know that the body requires attention, so suffering is a message from the happiness that lies in the depths of our being: 'You are looking for me in the wrong place! I am not caused by anything outside of you. I am the nature of your being; there is no other place to find me. Turn towards me and I will take you into myself:

As the Sufi mystic Bayazid Bastami said, For thirty years I sought God. But when I looked carefully I found that in reality God was the seeker and I the sought.* Whenever we are seeking happiness, it is in fact our innate happiness that is seeking us. The happiness we seek is the happiness we are.

The great understanding that lies at the heart of all the main religious and spiritual traditions consists of two essential insights: happiness is the very nature of our self, and we share our being with everyone and everything.

* As quoted in James Fadiman and Robert Frager, Essential Sufism (HarperCollins, 1997).

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The second insight will be touched upon towards the end of this book. As regards the first, in order to liberate this happiness from its hiding place in the depths of our being and bring it out into our lived and felt experience, it is necessary to go to one's essential being or self and recognise its nature. This is why self-knowledge stands as the foundation of all the major religious and spiritual traditions. It is the great understanding that gives us access to the peace and happiness that is our very nature.

An excerpt from Rupert Spira's new book:

You Are The Happiness You Seek.

Uncovering the Awareness of Being