The Secret Of Happiness Is Bonding
What is the reason for our remaining alive? For what have we come here? Day after day we are being asked about the sense and purpose of our lives. And many of us keep on searching for answers. Will we be able to achieve happiness? That is also a question that forces us every day to find out its answer. What happens if the answer to those queries is quite uncomplicated? What if it is all about ONE thing? Bonding. The secret of happiness is explained perfectly in the stimulating voice of Masami Sato in the excerpt of her book, ONE.
What are we searching for?
There are a host of things that we do in our lives.
However, have we ever wondered why we do what we do? What are we actually looking for?
The world now is full of billions of us coming from different races, countries, religions and beliefs all doing different things. We all look different and act quite differently. We have different interest and attitude from others. We communicate differently often using different languages. We have different desire and feelings.
However, if we were to say there is just ONE thing we are ALL looking for, what would it be?
As I travelled around the world, I often asked people a simple question, "What would you like to achieve in your life? What do you really want?"
At first, it looked as if people were in search of different things, as they gave casual answers like "A nice partner", "Good job", "My own house", "A loving family", "A perfect mate", "More money", "Financial Freedom", "Peace of mind", or "Meaning of life". There were other similar answers as well.
I actually noticed that some of these things are temporal desires and some are more permanent desires. Temporal desire means we want it because we do not have it yet or we don't think we have it yet. On the other hand, permanent desire is not about attaining things we do not have. It is about the 'feeling' we seek so this does not end no matter what we get or achieve at each moment of our life.
If we take off the temporal desires from the list and look only at the permanent desires, it is clear that all we want is to continue experiencing positive feelings like exhilaration, enjoyment, encouragement, motivation, kindness, love, happiness etc. - in another way, we want to remain happy.
Happiness
Contentment is a state of emotion that all of us are yearning to be in. Each of us may define it differently. We may also value it differently. Each of us may be familiar with different levels of intensity of contentment. Still we definitely have something in common when contentment comes to us. And when we realize this secret about contentment, we hold the key to greater contentment, and to make those around us know the same feelings as well.
This life, that we live, is a mystery. All of us like it in our own different ways. We may also dislike it in different ways. We may wonder about it. We may cherish it. Or we may just accept it in an offhand manner. But what is the ultimate purpose of this life? What if the mystery of our existence is at hand? What if its revelation actually brings us happiness and fulfilment when we come face to face with it?
What if the essence of the aim of our lives, and its joys, is as simple as this:
It is all about connection.
Bonding is everything
Everything is about making relationships. Everything is part of something else. Just a look at our own lives would reveal it to us. Then we will understand the real purpose of our lives.
Why do we do something, ANYTHING at all, in life as human beings?
It is simply because we want to connect more and more. We make friends to feel connected. We get married to connect with someone more deeply and more permanently. We create a family to feel even more connected. We go out to meet more people to connect with, not only to get practical benefits from those connections, but also to feel more connected to the world.
We get ourselves good clothes or go to a beauty parlour to bond better with our physical appearance or aesthetical sense. We choose to try out different types of food to bond better with our sense of savour and aroma. We dine out to get on better with people we would be sharing the meal with. We buy mobiles and computers to bond better with the entire world and its people. We read books and newspapers to remain connected to what is happening around and what others are going through. We study things and learn things to bond better with knowledge that others value.
Every thing that we do is to satisfy the need of keeping alive relationships. It is our relationship to our own body that makes it imperative that we eat and sleep. Because of our relationship to our senses, we are asked to do things to satisfy the demands that body makes. If we ignore the demands that body makes, we have to bear the resultant aches and distress. And above our mundane needs, we yearn for another relationship - a relationship to our very existence - a relationship to our purpose. And without that connection, it is vacant. Just like the blankness so many of us feel when we have no relationship even to ourselves. That is just not the way our lives are supposed to be lived.
Connection is powerful, and yet it's fragile and tender
When the bonds in a relationship lose strength, we go in for a separation, divorce, disagreements, judgement, and bitterness. It never feels good to lose the bonding. Still, it possible to be in love with someone today, and totally disconnected and bitter towards him tomorrow. And this change of feelings can happen just by the flicker of an eyelid. And the eyes might be yours or theirs!
When the relationship is not there.
When the bonds are not there, we perceive problems all over. We start seeing disparities and obstacles. We begin passing judgement on others and reproaching them. We blow up, focus on and strengthen those things that we perceive as problems. When that happens, we might even turn all that negativity inwards and cause ourselves hurt and injury. We cannot feel completely happy when we have severed the bonds with even just one thing.
Bonding: the Secret to Happiness
What if we are looking at the whole idea from the other end? When we do it, we realize this simple reality: we cannot feel miserable when the bonds are strong. It is just not possible!
Try to feel grouchy when we have a good relationship with the people around us and smiling and sharing things completely. Even when we have 'problems' in life, we can still smile together and feel delighted when we are bound together in a good relationship. At the same time, it is hard to be happy if we do not have that edifying relationship.
Relationship: Our Life .
Relationship is the core of everything. That is what life is. Relationship.
Things are just a combination of smaller parts. Things connect together to form a greater whole; the way our bodies are collections of smaller units, cells, organs, molecules and atoms.
Our acts and options also is an expression of the need for a relationship. We are meant to continuously find out ways to relate to each other and to a higher objective.
Bonding and Religion
Some of us choose to be part of different religions to feel more connected. The connection they seek could be to God. It could be to the people with the same belief. When we share the same belief, it creates a stronger sense of bonding within that group of people. More giving happens naturally among people who are feeling connected to each other.
Relationship and Business
Many people start businesses to feel more connected to themselves by being in charge of their own destiny. But often in the business world, we end up feeling more and more isolated especially when we start perceiving other businesses as competitors, staff as tools and customers as a money stream. But the fundamental point of why we got into business was to feel connected. So, why do we need to create any isolation at all? Maybe in the ideal world, all the businesses worked differently, but together.
Connection and Wars
Some of us even raise arguments or wars to feel some sense of 'triumph' or what is a heightened sense of safety and importance. But strangely, this ricochets. The minute we 'win' the fight, we are in fact weakening the relationship. We now require more sureness to defend ourselves from being assaulted by others. We thus end up being more unsure and frightened. We cannot take it lightly as it really happens to almost all of us in one form or another.
It may be the arguments we have with people around us. It may be the negative judgement we make when we feel something or someone is wrong. When we try to be the only one to win, we can never win in the real way-we feel disconnected. We can only truly celebrate the victory with others when we win together. Then we feel connected.
Despite the varied ways in which our needs are expressed, everything we do is to satisfy the yearning we have to feel and have a strong relationship.
The real sense of connection comes only through our heart. We can connect with anybody when we are truly caring for them and feeling connected with them. If we know this, creating the desired state is actually simple, easy and fun. Then we would naturally experience more happiness and joy.
Life is just like a game. We experience things and do things in a game but fundamentally, the aim of any game is to enjoy. It is not about doing things or having things. When the game finally ends, the winners are only the ones who enjoyed the game. Not the ones who had more at the end. The results and outcomes of a game we play don't affect our true life. But if we lost all our friends to play with during a game just because we wanted to be the winner in this round, would it lead us to the real winning game?
It is so easy to understand this in the example of playing a game, but we often become blind in our own everyday game called life. We forget so easily that it is also just a game.
We have no idea when the play started and when it would come to an end, we know that it began some day in the past and it will be finished some day. When the curtain falls on the stage of the play, we can just say, "Wow, it was really good. Let's act in it once again!"
In this game called life, the aim of the game is to 'connect'. We can keep connecting until we all become one. It is the only way to continuously feel connected to our purpose-sense of happiness and joy. We cannot feel disconnected to anything or deny and judge even one thing if we are to achieve the state of total connection.
Life is as simple as that. There is just ONE secret.
And the secret is to establish a relationship.
To grow into ONE
To relish.
What are we searching for?
There are a host of things that we do in our lives.
However, have we ever wondered why we do what we do? What are we actually looking for?
The world now is full of billions of us coming from different races, countries, religions and beliefs all doing different things. We all look different and act quite differently. We have different interest and attitude from others. We communicate differently often using different languages. We have different desire and feelings.
However, if we were to say there is just ONE thing we are ALL looking for, what would it be?
As I travelled around the world, I often asked people a simple question, "What would you like to achieve in your life? What do you really want?"
At first, it looked as if people were in search of different things, as they gave casual answers like "A nice partner", "Good job", "My own house", "A loving family", "A perfect mate", "More money", "Financial Freedom", "Peace of mind", or "Meaning of life". There were other similar answers as well.
I actually noticed that some of these things are temporal desires and some are more permanent desires. Temporal desire means we want it because we do not have it yet or we don't think we have it yet. On the other hand, permanent desire is not about attaining things we do not have. It is about the 'feeling' we seek so this does not end no matter what we get or achieve at each moment of our life.
If we take off the temporal desires from the list and look only at the permanent desires, it is clear that all we want is to continue experiencing positive feelings like exhilaration, enjoyment, encouragement, motivation, kindness, love, happiness etc. - in another way, we want to remain happy.
Happiness
Contentment is a state of emotion that all of us are yearning to be in. Each of us may define it differently. We may also value it differently. Each of us may be familiar with different levels of intensity of contentment. Still we definitely have something in common when contentment comes to us. And when we realize this secret about contentment, we hold the key to greater contentment, and to make those around us know the same feelings as well.
This life, that we live, is a mystery. All of us like it in our own different ways. We may also dislike it in different ways. We may wonder about it. We may cherish it. Or we may just accept it in an offhand manner. But what is the ultimate purpose of this life? What if the mystery of our existence is at hand? What if its revelation actually brings us happiness and fulfilment when we come face to face with it?
What if the essence of the aim of our lives, and its joys, is as simple as this:
It is all about connection.
Bonding is everything
Everything is about making relationships. Everything is part of something else. Just a look at our own lives would reveal it to us. Then we will understand the real purpose of our lives.
Why do we do something, ANYTHING at all, in life as human beings?
It is simply because we want to connect more and more. We make friends to feel connected. We get married to connect with someone more deeply and more permanently. We create a family to feel even more connected. We go out to meet more people to connect with, not only to get practical benefits from those connections, but also to feel more connected to the world.
We get ourselves good clothes or go to a beauty parlour to bond better with our physical appearance or aesthetical sense. We choose to try out different types of food to bond better with our sense of savour and aroma. We dine out to get on better with people we would be sharing the meal with. We buy mobiles and computers to bond better with the entire world and its people. We read books and newspapers to remain connected to what is happening around and what others are going through. We study things and learn things to bond better with knowledge that others value.
Every thing that we do is to satisfy the need of keeping alive relationships. It is our relationship to our own body that makes it imperative that we eat and sleep. Because of our relationship to our senses, we are asked to do things to satisfy the demands that body makes. If we ignore the demands that body makes, we have to bear the resultant aches and distress. And above our mundane needs, we yearn for another relationship - a relationship to our very existence - a relationship to our purpose. And without that connection, it is vacant. Just like the blankness so many of us feel when we have no relationship even to ourselves. That is just not the way our lives are supposed to be lived.
Connection is powerful, and yet it's fragile and tender
When the bonds in a relationship lose strength, we go in for a separation, divorce, disagreements, judgement, and bitterness. It never feels good to lose the bonding. Still, it possible to be in love with someone today, and totally disconnected and bitter towards him tomorrow. And this change of feelings can happen just by the flicker of an eyelid. And the eyes might be yours or theirs!
When the relationship is not there.
When the bonds are not there, we perceive problems all over. We start seeing disparities and obstacles. We begin passing judgement on others and reproaching them. We blow up, focus on and strengthen those things that we perceive as problems. When that happens, we might even turn all that negativity inwards and cause ourselves hurt and injury. We cannot feel completely happy when we have severed the bonds with even just one thing.
Bonding: the Secret to Happiness
What if we are looking at the whole idea from the other end? When we do it, we realize this simple reality: we cannot feel miserable when the bonds are strong. It is just not possible!
Try to feel grouchy when we have a good relationship with the people around us and smiling and sharing things completely. Even when we have 'problems' in life, we can still smile together and feel delighted when we are bound together in a good relationship. At the same time, it is hard to be happy if we do not have that edifying relationship.
Relationship: Our Life .
Relationship is the core of everything. That is what life is. Relationship.
Things are just a combination of smaller parts. Things connect together to form a greater whole; the way our bodies are collections of smaller units, cells, organs, molecules and atoms.
Our acts and options also is an expression of the need for a relationship. We are meant to continuously find out ways to relate to each other and to a higher objective.
Bonding and Religion
Some of us choose to be part of different religions to feel more connected. The connection they seek could be to God. It could be to the people with the same belief. When we share the same belief, it creates a stronger sense of bonding within that group of people. More giving happens naturally among people who are feeling connected to each other.
Relationship and Business
Many people start businesses to feel more connected to themselves by being in charge of their own destiny. But often in the business world, we end up feeling more and more isolated especially when we start perceiving other businesses as competitors, staff as tools and customers as a money stream. But the fundamental point of why we got into business was to feel connected. So, why do we need to create any isolation at all? Maybe in the ideal world, all the businesses worked differently, but together.
Connection and Wars
Some of us even raise arguments or wars to feel some sense of 'triumph' or what is a heightened sense of safety and importance. But strangely, this ricochets. The minute we 'win' the fight, we are in fact weakening the relationship. We now require more sureness to defend ourselves from being assaulted by others. We thus end up being more unsure and frightened. We cannot take it lightly as it really happens to almost all of us in one form or another.
It may be the arguments we have with people around us. It may be the negative judgement we make when we feel something or someone is wrong. When we try to be the only one to win, we can never win in the real way-we feel disconnected. We can only truly celebrate the victory with others when we win together. Then we feel connected.
Despite the varied ways in which our needs are expressed, everything we do is to satisfy the yearning we have to feel and have a strong relationship.
The real sense of connection comes only through our heart. We can connect with anybody when we are truly caring for them and feeling connected with them. If we know this, creating the desired state is actually simple, easy and fun. Then we would naturally experience more happiness and joy.
Life is just like a game. We experience things and do things in a game but fundamentally, the aim of any game is to enjoy. It is not about doing things or having things. When the game finally ends, the winners are only the ones who enjoyed the game. Not the ones who had more at the end. The results and outcomes of a game we play don't affect our true life. But if we lost all our friends to play with during a game just because we wanted to be the winner in this round, would it lead us to the real winning game?
It is so easy to understand this in the example of playing a game, but we often become blind in our own everyday game called life. We forget so easily that it is also just a game.
We have no idea when the play started and when it would come to an end, we know that it began some day in the past and it will be finished some day. When the curtain falls on the stage of the play, we can just say, "Wow, it was really good. Let's act in it once again!"
In this game called life, the aim of the game is to 'connect'. We can keep connecting until we all become one. It is the only way to continuously feel connected to our purpose-sense of happiness and joy. We cannot feel disconnected to anything or deny and judge even one thing if we are to achieve the state of total connection.
Life is as simple as that. There is just ONE secret.
And the secret is to establish a relationship.
To grow into ONE
To relish.
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