sky to heaven - the invisible life.

Like the secondary objectives, people tend to seek happiness and love in the outer world. They think, “If I have a certain thing in my life (car, house, clothes, etc.), I will be happy.” Or , “If I have a certain person in my life, I will have love.” They project their internal desires onto certain things in the external world, and hope that these material things will satisfy their spiritual needs. But I believe this is logically and physically impossible. One can not use a material solution to solve a spiritual problem. A material hunger requires a material food, and a spiritual hunger requires spiritual food. This is why people who project their spiritual desires onto material things usually enter into a cycle of wanting, possessing, and wanting more. After they acquire a certain material object, whether it is a dress, a car, a house, money, or whatever, they are only satisfied for a short period of time, after which they will seek to possess more quantity of the object (more clothes or money), a better version of the object (a better car or computer), or a different class of material object (now I want an island, not just a plane). In my opinion, any life that is built and organized upon such a principle will not be completely fulfilling. Over the long term, I do not think it is possible for a material thing to satisfy a spiritual need.

Like the other assets, I believe true happiness and love must be cultivated inside the heart. True happiness is a state where if someone asks you, “What do you want more of in your life? What do you want different? What can be better?” and you can answer “Nothing.” (I do believe happiness consists of more than this, but that, too, is the subject of another paper.) Unfortunately, many people mistake happiness for “having everything,” or “having the world” – because they believe that if they have everything, there will be nothing left to want. But I believe happiness is when you have no particular need of anything in the outside world, because you have everything you need inside yourself.

If a person desires happiness, then all things in the material world are actually of secondary importance over the long term. At best, they are only the means to an end. At worst, they can become permanent distractions and detours from the goal of happiness. Food is only a means for physical survival, to live, but physical survival itself may not be the primary end of an individual’s existence. In other words, to live is not the same as living the meaning of your life. I personally believe that to live is only a means to a deeper end, an end which actually may require one to give up their life in certain heroic situations. The meaning of life is an end that every person has the ability, and perhaps the responsibility, to seek and discover for themselves (again, another paper). But many people choose to abandon this quest, or cease to believe in happiness, and decide merely to live in order to survive, which is similar to an “animal mode” of existence. This results in the tendency to regard food, money, or pleasure as the goal of existence.

People believe happiness is acquired somewhere in the outside world, whereas I believe it can only be discovered and cultivated in the inner world. Each of us lives in two different worlds: the world outside of us, and the world inside of us. For most people, the world outside is the larger, more important one. It is the world we act in and act upon: we listen to, evaluate, consider, try to change, improve, adapt to, and live in the world. I believe most people rarely behave in these ways to themselves. Few people listen to, evaluate, consider, try to change, improve, adapt to, and live in themselves. But I believe that the work of happiness that needs to be done is not in the outside world, but in the inside world.

I believe the first and longest step in the path is the turning of the eye from the world outside to the world inside your heart. This turning is preceded by realizing that the spiritual goal of happiness is the letting go of desires for material things, which comes with the understanding that material things are not necessary for, and are in fact often detrimental to, happiness. I say detrimental, because most people often invest the majority of their energies into the material world, leaving very little or no energy to invest in the spiritual parts of themselves – which is the true source of happiness. In my opinion, this turning process does not need to be a difficult process. All it requires is honesty to yourself, and the desire and courage to understand yourself. Take any particular desire for a material thing that you may have, whether it is a desire for a piece of clothing, a car, a house, a person, or even food, and let yourself feel your desire. Then examine the desire – why do you want that thing? If you go deep enough, I believe you will almost always find an answer that is not material.

For example, take a piece of clothing that you want. On the surface, you want it because you think it looks good, or it will look good on you. Why do you want to look good? Perhaps because you want other people to think you look good and to compliment you, “You look good,” or “You have nice taste.” And why would you want other people to compliment you? Perhaps because you want approval or respect (or you may want to avoid disapproval or ridicule), or just to be treated better as a person. These will make you feel good about yourself. And why would you want to feel good about yourself? Because you want to be happy. I believe that the deeper you go into any of your desires, the more you will find that most desires lead to the primary desire for happiness; they lead away from the material thing itself, and back towards your self. You will find that you don’t desire the material thing itself, but you desire to fill a spiritual emptiness inside yourself. Look at any man or woman’s desire for a material object, and you will find that the desire is not ultimately for the object itself, but a desire for a particular state of being within themselves.

I believe that much of the chaos that exists in the world today is a result of this tendency to project spiritual desires onto a material world. We want to be happy inside ourselves, but we end up wanting the bigger house, the nicer car, and more money – which are the same things that so many other people want as well. In our search for happiness in the outside world, we accidentally or purposefully create excess harm, problems, destruction, and unhappiness, because desires that are projected onto the material world will inevitably conflict with other people’s projected desires. And this is because we neglect to cultivate happiness inside ourselves, and instead expect happiness to be delivered from the material world. The chaos of the world simply reflects the chaos inside our hearts. And a large part of the chaos is due to the fact that inside most of our hearts, we still believe our desires can be satisfied in the material world, even though deep inside our hearts it is actually only happiness that we yearn for, a happiness which is by nature spiritual, and can only be found within ourselves.