It is our resistance that turns a situation into  
a problem, that turns our innate peace into suffering. And it is the withdra -
wal of this resistance that reveals the underlying peace. For the ego there is  
suffering; for awareness there is peace. Awareness does not negotiate experience. Its nature is simply to welcome  
whatever arises, allow whatever exists and let go of whatever vanishes. And just as space is never harmed or destroyed by anything that takes  
place within it, so we, awareness, are never hurt or overwhelmed by any -
thing that takes place in experience. We, awareness, are open to all experi -
ence, allowing all experience without resistance, defenceless and yet  
indestructible. This openness without resistance to all experience is not something we,  
as a person, need practise , because it is our nature , just as the empty space  
of a room does not need to practise allowing whatever appears within it. Openness without resistance is what we are, not what we do. Resistance to what is appears in the form of a single thought: ‘I don’t want  
what is present; I want what is not present’. All suffering is caused by that  
thought alone. As soon as that thought rises up in between our self and our  
experience of the world, our innate happiness is veiled and suffering ensues. In the absence of any resistance to experience, the peace and happiness  
that is our very nature simply shines by itself. This openness without resis -
tance to all experience is not a state of the mind. It is the natural condition  
of the mind in the absence of seeking and resisting. Happiness is the nature  
of the mind; suffering is a state of the mind. It is only the extent to which we open ourself unreservedly and uncon -
ditionally to any experience that governs our happiness. Our true nature of  
peace and joy is always present within our own being; it is our own being. 127you are the happiness you seek
It is our own resistance to experience, in the form of thinking and feeling,  
that closes us off from the ever-present background of our innate joy, just as  
clouds obscure the blue sky. What is it that causes this opening of the cloud cover? What is it that gives  
us access to this ever-present background of happiness? Simply our openness  
without resistance to the current situation. Every moment of happiness is a window in our experience onto the ever-
present background of our essential being, whose nature is happiness itself. The only reason it is not fully felt by everyone all the time is the single  
thought that dictates that circumstances should be other than they are right  
now, that they should conform to our preconceived idea of them. We have allowed a single thought to steal our happiness. It is that thought  
alone that stands between each of us and the innate peace and joy that lives  
in our hearts, or rather that is the very heart of us. We are free at every mo -
ment to choose happiness in spite of circumstances, not because of them. The nature of our being is peace and joy itself. All that is necessary in  
order to access our self and, as a result, its innate peace and joy, is to come  
back to our own being again and again, and to stand as that in the face of all  
experience. When we become accustomed to knowing and feeling ourself as the pres -
ence of awareness, problems cease. Or rather, our resistance  to problems ceases  
and, as a result, the so-called problem itself is no longer experienced as such. It is experienced as simply a situation to be faced with openness and equa -
nimity, thereby giving it the best possible chance of a harmonious resolution  
for all parties involved. Situations that were once met with resistance or emotional reactivity are  
now welcomed as an opportunity to understand the extent to which we have  
invested our happiness in objective experience. Instead of frustrating our  
search for happiness in the world, such situations cooperate with the revel -
ation of the peace and happiness that is the very nature of our being. *     *     *  
 
There are some situations that I find so hurtful that I cannot stay open to them  
or to the person involved. Should I just accept such situations? 128take refuge in the now
It is important to recognise whether our response to such a situation arises  
on behalf of truth, love and justice or on behalf of a hurt self. If the latter,  
then it is legitimate to take whatever action may be appropriate to bring in -
telligence and love to bear on the situation. However, every time we react  
emotionally to a person or situation, we betray the fact that our happiness is  
invested in them. In doing so, we are, without at first realising it,  
strengthening the power that objective experience has over us, thereby alien -
ating ourself from our innate peace and joy. Even if our reaction were to bring about the desired result in the short  
term, we would have strengthened the underlying feeling from which it  
came, and ultimately the separate self or ego on whose behalf that feeling  
arose, thus perpetuating the tendency to react in the same way to a similar  
situation in future. Unaware that our suffering is entirely our own activity, we will project its  
cause onto the person or situation. It is for this reason that, in spite of our ef -
forts, we find ourself facing the same problematic situations over and over  
again in life. It is not the situation itself that is problematic; it is our response  
to it that is as such. Ultimately there are no problems; there are just situations. However, until this is clear, apparently problematic situations will con -
tinue to occur in our life, provoking and testing us until we have understood  
their message, namely, that we should withdraw from people and circum -
stances the expectation or demand that they be a source of happiness. When this has been understood, we cease using the world for the sake of  
our happiness and start using our happiness for the sake of the world. And  
just as the world previously appeared to us in the form of circumstances that  
mirrored our inner state of resistance, so now the world will realign itself  
with our new attitude of openness. In fact, the world has not changed. The filter of seeking and resisting  
through which we previously perceived the world and negotiated our re -
sponse to it has simply become more transparent, and as a result, the world  
appears in a new light. becoming established in and as our true nature  
 
Ever since I first became aware of awareness in the background of my experience,  
I seem to travel back and forth between it and my thoughts and feelings in the  
129you are the happiness you seek
foreground. This gives me moments of respite from the suffering that I used  
to experience almost continually, but I long for lasting peace. Imagine a woman who lives in a small apartment on a noisy street in the city  
and commutes to and from work every day on public transport. After a busy  
and exhausting week, she drives a couple of hours into the countryside, where  
she has a small cottage, and enjoys a peaceful, relaxing weekend. On Sunday  
night she returns to the city and the cycle is repeated, week in, week out,  
back and forth from her stressful life in her apartment to the peace and quiet  
of her cottage. One day she has simply had enough: she requests permission from her  
employer to work from home, sells her apartment and moves into her cot -
tage. Her life ceases to oscillate from the stress and anxiety of life in the city  
to the peace and quiet of life in the country. She continues to work, and is  
as productive as ever, but without leaving the peace of her home. In the same way, we seem for a while to travel back and forth between  
the turbulence of our thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions in the  
foreground of experience, and the inherently peaceful and unconditionally  
fulfilled presence of awareness in the background. However, in time, our true nature of awareness will cease being some -
thing that we seem to visit from time to time and will be understood and  
felt simply to be what we are. T o be knowingly the presence of awareness  
will become our natural condition, and no effort will be required either to  
return there or to maintain it. It will become our new identity. We move in. We live there, as that. The only reason why resting in and as our being may initially require some  
effort is due to the previously unnoticed habit of almost continuously and 
exclusively losing our self in, and identifying our self with, objective experi -
ence. It is only the initial attempt we make to counteract that habit that  
seems to require an effort. T o illustrate this, take the example of a closed fist. The natural condition  
of the hand is open and relaxed. However, a hand which has been clenched  
for some time will become accustomed to this new position which, if main -
tained, will seem to become its new norm. In order to return the hand to its  
natural position of openness and relaxation, an effort will initially be required. 130take refuge in the now
     Once the hand has been open for some time, no effort will be required  
to maintain it; it has simply returned to its natural position. In fact, the effort  
to open the hand was not really a new effort. It was simply the relaxation of  
a previous  effort which had become so habitual that it was no longer noticed  
as such. The return to our true nature of peace and happiness proceeds in a similar  
way. What may at first seem to be an effort to disentangle our self from the  
content of experience is, in fact, the relaxation of a previous effort of which  
we were unaware. It only seems to be an effort because we had become so  
habituated to an almost constant state of more or less subtle seeking and  
resisting. In time, as we become accustomed to resting in or as being, less and less  
effort will be required, because the habit of losing our self in, or identifying  
our self with, the objective content of experience will have become weakened  
by practice, just as a rocket requires less energy to navigate space once it has  
escaped the gravitational pull of the earth. At some point, resting as being is felt and understood to be our natural  
condition. As we abide more and more in our self, our deep-seated tendencies  
gradually come to the surface and are dissolved. The almost constant state  
of dissatisfaction that seemed to have accompanied us most of our life simply  
leaves us, without our necessarily even noticing. At this point, no further practice is required. The practice of returning  
again and again to our essential being turns into the love of simply being. And in that love of simply being, the peace and joy which is our nature  
shines forth. 131 chapter seventeen
Attending to Painful Emotions
In the depths of winter, I finally learned  
that within me there lay an invincible summer. albert camus  
 
three ways to attend to painful emotions  
 
From the non-dual perspective, what is the best way to deal with really intense,  
painful emotions? The impulse to avoid the dissatisfaction of our current experience can be fol -
lowed in one of three directions: one, outwards towards an object, substance,  
activity or relationship in an attempt to escape the discomfort of it; two,  
inwards to the self on whose behalf the sense of lack arises; or three, towards  
the feeling of lack or dissatisfaction itself. The first approach could be called the way of avoidance and is the default  
approach for most people. The second could be called the way of self-enquiry  
or investigation, and the third, the way of openness. In the way of avoidance, the intense, painful emotion is considered un -
bearable and we distract ourself from it with objects, substances, activities  
and relationships. In this case the sense of lack, and the separate self or ego  
on whose behalf it arises, will remain intact, albeit temporarily masked by  
the distraction. However, as soon as the object, substance, activity or rela -
tionship has passed or changed, the underlying sense of lack will resurface. In an attempt to avoid it, we may again turn away from it towards the  
distraction of our choice, only this time a slightly stronger dose will be  
required. In this way a perpetual cycle of lack, avoidance, temporary fulfilment  
and inevitable failure will lead eventually to despair and, often, addiction. T o illustrate the difference between the second and third approaches –  
the way of enquiry or investigation and the way of openness – imagine  you are the happiness you seek
a professional boxing match. When the two boxers are at a distance of about  
one metre from one another, they are dangerous and in danger. In the in -
terval between rounds, each goes to his respective corner, where he is safe. However, during the fight itself it is not possible for either boxer to retire to  
his corner. So what does a boxer do if he wants respite from the intensity of  
the fight? He comes close to his opponent and wraps his arms around him  
in a ‘clinch’, thereby neutralising him. He finds safety in closeness. The path of self-enquiry is the equivalent of the break that the boxers  
take between rounds. That is, in self-enquiry we increase  the apparent dis -
tance between our self and our suffering. We disengage from the struggle  
with our emotions, trace our way back through the layers of our experience,  
and come to rest in and as the presence of awareness. In reality, awareness is so utterly, intimately one with all experience that  
it cannot separate itself from any experience and stand at a distance from it,  
any more than a screen can be separated from an image. At the same time,  
awareness is utterly free and independent from the content of experience. So the analogy of the boxers retiring to their respective corners is simply  
meant to illustrate this disentanglement from the content of experience and  
the return to the peace of our true nature. In other words, in the way of enquiry or investigation, we turn away from  
the feeling and investigate the suffering self: Who is this ‘I’ on whose behalf  
my suffering arises? The way of self-enquiry is, as such, an inward-facing  
path, in which we turn away from the unpleasant emotion and question the  
‘I’ at its heart, thereby tracing our way back to our essential, irreducible  
being, the presence of awareness. It is often initiated, at least in the early  
stages, by a process of negation or discrimination, in which we discard every  
aspect of our experience that is not essential to us: ‘I am not this, not this,  
not this’. In the Western tradition it is known as the Via Negativa. In the way of openness, we turn towards  the unpleasant emotion and em -
brace it. This is like the clinch during the boxing match. We decrease  the 
distance between our self and our suffering. We turn towards  it. We embrace  
the danger, neutralising it in our welcoming presence. In fact, we need not turn towards any afflictive emotion; it would be  
enough to cease turning away from it. The presence of awareness that we  
essentially are is already turned towards, or open without resistance to,  
134attending to painful emotions
all experience. This openness is what we are, not what we do. It does not  
need to be practised. However, all psychological suffering arises because we have temporarily  
forgotten or overlooked that we are this resistanceless presence of awareness  
and, as a result, have mistaken our self for a separate self or ego. Therefore,  
it is legitimate to suggest to this apparently separate self or ego that it turn  
towards the suffering that it would normally seek to avoid. Some courage may initially be needed as we face the discomfort of the  
sense of lack from which we have been in flight for much of our lives. How -
ever, by facing the sense of lack in this way we will be withholding from it  
the one thing that it requires for its survival, namely, our resistance to it. By welcoming what was previously unacceptable to us we are, without  
necessarily realising it at first, taking our stand as the presence of awareness,  
and it is only a matter of time before the peace and joy that is its very nature  
will begin to emerge and percolate into the foreground of experience. In the way of openness, we go deeply into the emotion itself and find at  
its very core the peace we previously sought by avoiding it. It is a path in  
which we turn towards  the content of experience. It is the way of surrender,  
of embrace, the way of ‘yes’, the Via Positiva. T o summarise the distinction between these two approaches, when we  
say, ‘I feel lonely’, there are two elements to the experience: I, myself, and  
the feeling of loneliness. In the way of self-enquiry or investigation, we explore  
the ‘I’ and ignore the loneliness; in the way of openness, we embrace the  
loneliness and ignore the ‘I’. It is legitimate to explore either of these approaches. Both pathways,  
if followed all the way, lead to the same conclusion, namely, the dissolution  
of the sense of separation and the suffering that inevitably attends it, and the  
return to the peace and happiness that is our natural condition. investigating the ‘i’  
 
I understand this approach in theory, but can you give an example of what the  
way of investigation looks like in practice? Imagine someone were to say to you, ‘Isn’t it a beautiful day today?’ Would  
you be upset by it? 135you are the happiness you seek
No. You hear the words, you register their meaning and they vanish without leaving  
any trace in you, and without your wanting either to hold on to them be -
cause they are so pleasant or to get rid of them because they are so unpleasant. But imagine that someone were to say something that you find hurtful. In this  
case, the words don’t just pass through you without leaving a trace. Something  
in you resists the words and, as a result, you feel upset. Who is it that is upset? I am upset. T ell us about the ‘I’ that is upset. My image or idea of myself. Usually I would feel like, ‘They shouldn’t have  
done that’. Can an image or an idea be upset? No. So who or what is it that is upset? You refer to whatever that is as ‘I’. ‘ I am 
upset by what he said.’ ‘ I am hurt by her behaviour.’ Who or what is this  
upset ‘I’? This is how to look for the ‘I’. When you hear the words ‘Isn’t it a  
beautiful day today?’ there is no holding on to or resisting the words. No ‘I’  
rises up to say, ‘I like it’ or ‘I don’t like it’. The words just float unimpeded  
through awareness and leave no trace on it. What is it that rises up and says,  
‘I am upset’? Is the awareness that heard the supposedly hurtful words upset? No. Awareness is like an open, empty, knowing, space-like presence; it cannot be  
hurt, stained, tarnished, moved, changed or destroyed by words, or indeed  
by anything else, any more than empty space can be hurt or destroyed by  
whatever takes place within it. Imagine throwing a ball through empty space. The ball just flows through  
the space until it meets with some resistance: someone raises a hand or it  
136attending to painful emotions
hits the wall. In the absence of any such resistance, the ball just flows through  
the space. Likewise, without the rising of the ‘I’ that says, ‘I like it, I want it’  
or ‘I dislike it, I don’t want it’, the words will flow through you without af -
fecting you in any way. Now, when you hear the supposedly hurtful words, something rises up  
and resists the words and says, ‘I don’t like it’. The counterpart of the thought  
‘I don’t like it’ is felt in the body as an emotion of hurt or suffering. What is  
this ‘I’ that rises up and resists the words? On whose behalf does the resis -
tance arise? It is obviously not the ‘I’ of awareness. The ‘I’ that I think I am. Go to that ‘I’. T ry to find it. What exactly is it? Where is it? What is it  
made of? Your hurt feeling is arising on its behalf, so you must know it. In fact, most of your life revolves around it. What do you find when you  
go towards it? I guess it’s a story. Don’t guess. It is only necessary to guess about something you don’t know. But you know yourself more intimately than you know any other thing. Your  
whole life revolves around ‘I’. Be specific. What is that? It’s a story, yes, but  
can a story be upset? No. On whose behalf is the story being told? Who is the protagonist of the story? Well, me. You point to your body when you say ‘me’, but is your body upset by these words? It feels upset. I get tightness in my stomach and chest. Is there anything to the tightness in your stomach or chest other than a mild  
sensation? 137you are the happiness you seek
No. Can a sensation be upset? No. The tightness in your chest and stomach is the result  of being upset; it is  
the echo of the upset in your body, but it is not the upset itself, nor is it  
the upset self. Your cheek or nose or shoulder doesn’t get upset when you  
hear the words. So look again for the ‘I’ that is hurt or upset. What do you  
find? I don’t find a thing. I just find…I guess just what I identify as me, that somehow  
I’ve been wronged. Okay, but who or what is that ‘I’ that has been wronged? It is not your body,  
a thought or an image that has been wronged, nor is it awareness itself. So it’s some sense of myself. What is that? I don’t know what it is. It would be as well to find out. Unless and until you find a self other than  
the self of awareness, don’t presume there is one, and, above all, don’t  
spend the rest of your life thinking, feeling, acting and relating on its  
behalf. When I look for myself, I find thoughts, feelings and sensations, but I don’t find  
an actual self or entity. Yes, and what is going to happen to your upset, your suffering, when you  
discover that the separate self on whose behalf it has arisen is not there? I assume it would just go away. 138attending to painful emotions
Yes, the upset or the suffering dissipates because there is no separate, inde -
pendently existing entity or self present either to be upset or not to be upset. When it is seen clearly that there is no personal self, the issue of getting upset  
just doesn’t arise. Now, what is it that gives you the undeniable sense of being your self? Where does your basic sense of identity come from? Just from awareness. Yes! T ell us about that. (Long silence)  
 
I like your response! T ry to say something true about your self, awareness,  
even if it requires some concession to the limits of language. It…it just is. I just am. And I am aware. Yes, you, awareness, are present and aware. Anything else? (Long silence)  
 
Can you be disturbed? No, I am always in peace. Do you lack anything? No, the question itself seems ridiculous! Yes! And what is the common name for the absence of lack? Happiness! Exactly, happiness is your nature. You do not need to go anywhere or do  
anything to find it. It is always available within yourself, as your self. 139you are the happiness you seek
Your investigation into the nature of your self has taken you from the hap -
piness you seek to the happiness you are. That is self-enquiry in practice. embracing our suffering  
 
Can you say more about the way of openness in our actual experience, and how  
it differs from self-enquiry? Just as it is only possible for the eye to see something that is at a distance from  
itself, so it is only possible to know and, therefore, name something as an object  
of experience when we stand apart from it as a separate subject of experience. Awareness cannot stand apart from any experience and know it from  
a distance. It is so utterly, intimately one with experience that it cannot label  
it, let alone consider it good or bad, right or wrong, pleasant or unpleasant. It is knowledge through intimacy, as opposed to knowledge through con -
ception and abstraction. It is the apparently separate self or ego that detaches itself from experience  
and views it from a distance. It is only from this apparent distance that we  
are able to feel and label our experience as fear, anxiety, shame, sorrow, and  
so on, and thus deem it unpleasant. All our suffering exists in the illusory  
space between the subject and the object of experience, just as the danger  
exists in the space between the two boxers when they are one metre apart. In the way of self-enquiry, we  increase  that distance, in the sense that we  
explore the ‘I’ and disregard the emotion. In the way of openness, we do  
the opposite: we collapse the apparent distance between our self and the af -
flictive emotion, such as fear, anxiety, shame, guilt or sorrow. We turn to -
wards the experience from which we would normally turn away. We  
welcome that which we would normally reject. We find sanctuary by em -
bracing our suffering. This attitude is illustrated in the Grimm Brothers’ fairy story The Frog  
Prince , in which a frog offers to retrieve a princess’s golden ball from the lake  
in which she has lost it, in return for her friendship. After she agrees to the  
deal, the frog retrieves the ball, but the princess forgets her side of the bargain. However, later that evening, while the princess is having dinner with her  
father, the king, the frog returns to the royal palace to remind her. Reluc -
tantly she invites him inside and allows him to eat from her plate. Later that  
140attending to painful emotions
night, upon his further insistence, the princess allows the frog to sleep on  
her pillow, and finally she embraces it. The next morning the princess wakes to find a handsome prince in bed  
next to her! When the princess embraced that which was most distasteful to  
her, it turned into that for which she longed above all else. In the way of openness, we understand and feel our self as the open, empty,  
resistanceless presence of awareness, and we turn towards any afflictive emo -
tion from which we would normally turn away. We allow the frog into the  
palace, albeit somewhat reluctantly! This may evoke some initial resistance in us, and therefore some courage  
may be required not to escape from it into thinking, activities, objects and  
so on. When this first wave of resistance subsides in our allowing presence,  
we invite the experience closer. We do not simply tolerate or allow it;  
we positively welcome it. The frog is eating from our plate! Again, we may pause, allowing the habitual and familiar tendency to turn  
away from uncomfortable feelings, first to be exposed and then neutralised  
in our welcoming. Our resistance is diminishing, and with it the afflictive  
quality of the emotion. The frog is sleeping on our pillow! Finally, we bring the feeling so close that we can no longer separate ourself  
from it and label it fear, anxiety, shame, guilt, sorrow, and so on, let alone con -
sider it unpleasant. The subject and the object – the feeler and the felt, the  
knower and the known – have merged. In the absence of a separate feeler or  
knower – the apparently separate subject of experience from whose perspective  
the feeling is labelled and resisted – there is just the raw experience itself, pure  
feeling. It is neither good nor bad, right nor wrong, pleasant nor unpleasant. We know when we have reached this stage when we can genuinely say to  
the feeling, ‘You are welcome inside me forever’. At that point, our suffering,  
that is, our resistance to experience, has come to an end, not because we have  
successfully found a way to avoid it but because we have had the courage to  
fully turn towards and embrace it. We have taken the experience so deeply  
into our self that it has dissolved in our openness. We have, as they say in the tradition of Kashmir Shaivism, devoured  
our emotion. We have kissed the frog! In this way we find, at the very heart  
of our most painful feelings, the happiness we previously sought by turning  
away from them. The frog has turned into a handsome prince. 141you are the happiness you seek
*     *     *  
 
Most of the time my suffering is simply too intense to face and I find myself doing  
anything I can to avoid it. I’m currently dealing with the end of a relationship and  
the fact that my ex-partner is already in a new relationship only four days after we  
split up. I’m just stuck in that suffering. Can you give me one thing to do? Close your eyes and, referring only to your direct, immediate experience, that is,  
without referring to thought or memory, tell us about your current experience. Well, I’m just sitting here. Without reference to thought or memory, how do you know you are sitting  
here? If your eyes are closed, all there is to the experience of sitting is the  
current sensation. T ell us about that sensation without adding any interpre -
tation from your past. It’s a sensation of my body sitting on a chair. With your eyes closed and without reference to thought or memory, how  
do you know that the current sensation is a sensation ‘of a body’, let alone  
‘sitting on a chair’? ‘Body’, ‘sitting’ and ‘chair’ are concepts, based on mem -
ory, that are overlaid onto the raw, unnameable sensation itself. They are the  
subtitles on the movie, not the movie itself. In fact, even to label it a sensation  
is too much. There is just a vibration of a certain intensity appearing in the  
field of experience. T ell us about that vibration. It’s…(long pause)…I can’t say anything about it. Do you like it or dislike it? It is neither pleasant nor unpleasant. It just is what it is. Now take the image of your ex-boyfriend with his new partner, but don’t  
refer to any thoughts about the image. Just experience the raw image without  
commentary. T ell us about it. 142attending to painful emotions
It’s…(long pause)…again, I can’t say anything about it. Do you like it or dislike it? Again, it just is what it is. Anything I feel or say about it would be added to the  
raw experience . Perfect! Is there any suffering present in your current experience? No! What is the common name for this absence of suffering? Peace or happiness. Where did you go to find this peace and happiness? I didn’t go anywhere. Exactly! You didn’t escape from your current experience. No, actually, I stayed with my current experience! That is the great secret! People normally believe that their suffering takes  
place now and that relief from suffering is to be found in the future or past. However, our suffering begins the moment we try to escape from our current  
experience into an imagined future or a remembered past. If you want relief  
from your suffering – that is, if you want peace and happiness – simply stay  
with your current experience. There is a practice in the Theravada Buddhist text the Satipatthana  
Sutta in which students are asked to focus on a ‘bloated, livid and festering’  
corpse. *  The student is asked to sit with the experience for as long as it  
takes for their repulsion to be neutralised in their disinterested contem -
plation. 143* As translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu ( 2008 ).you are the happiness you seek
Visualising my ex making love with his partner is much worse than imagining  
a rotting corpse! Well, you are a mature student! However, a mature student is not necessarily  
one who has been on the path for a long time, but rather one who has the  
courage, the love and the clarity to go for the truth of their experience irre -
spective of the cost to their personal life. But I forget that it’s here when I’m so stuck in my feelings. Keep reminding yourself until it becomes natural to simply live in the now. Most people live in the past or future and only visit the now briefly on the  
fulfilment of a desire, in the pause between thoughts or in the peace of  
deep sleep. Make the now your home and only visit the past or the future  
when required to do so for practical, celebratory or investigative purposes. Everything you have ever truly longed for lives there. But I can’t stop my thoughts about my past relationship. It is only possible to entertain one thought at a time. The whole weight of your  
suffering is contained in a single thought. Cease investing that thought with the  
power to make you miserable. At any moment of suffering, just ask yourself the  
question, ‘Without reference to thought or memory, where is my suffering?’ All  
suffering is contained in the imaginary space between what I have and what I  
want. Make what you have what you want and there will be no room for suffering. There’s a part of me that feels that I need to be doing a little suffering. That is your freedom! But why do you feel you need to suffer? I think it’s partly because I’ve created this story: I’m a woman whose relationship  
has ended. All my friends and family are in this with me, like, ‘Oh, you poor  
thing, this is really terrible.’  
 
Yes, the suffering is in the story, not the situation itself. Who is telling you  
that story? 144attending to painful emotions
I am telling it to myself! Yes, simply stop telling yourself that story. It’s kind of added to by the people around me. I think it’s society as well that does  
that. Don’t blame others for your suffering. No person or situation imposes suffer -
ing on you. Your suffering is your own activity. All suffering is resistance,  
and all resistance is contained in the thought ‘I don’t like what is present;  
I want what is not present’. Have the courage and the clarity to see that. It feels quite hard. There’s a justified part of me that wants to say, ‘Well, no, what  
he did was wrong and unkind’. I hear what you’re saying, but there’s that going  
on as well. Even when I just talk to people, they’re like, ‘Oh my God, that must  
be really awful’. Choose carefully whom you speak to. Seek truth, not consolation. It is truth  
alone that will liberate you. Have the courage and the clarity to face your  
experience without turning away from it. The heavy burden of suffering that  
you have been carrying around with you, not just this last week but all your  
life, is contained in a single thought. Can you taste the peace and freedom  
that is available to you if you don’t refer to that single thought? Yes. You are like someone in prison with the door wide open. Just walk through it. I think I’m just a professional sufferer. Retire! Yes, I look forward to retiring. Don’t look forward to it! Hand in your notice and leave! You are already free. 145chapter eighteen
The Unity of Being
The Kingdom of God is within you and it is outside of you. jesus  
 
If we were to distil the contents of this book thus far into a single phrase,  
it might read, ‘The awareness of being is happiness’. This understanding sum -
marises the first universal truth that is the source of all the great religious,  
spiritual and philosophical traditions and which, when clearly seen, brings  
the search for happiness to an end. However, we may object on two grounds: one, that we arrived at this  
understanding by making a distinction between awareness and the content  
of experience, thereby maintaining an inherent dualism; and two, that this  
understanding takes care of the individual but neglects society and the en -
vironment at large. As we have seen, most of us are so exclusively identified with our  
thoughts, feelings and sensations that we have allowed ourselves to be defined  
by them. Our being seems to be coloured by experience. Therefore, in order  
to recognise our essential nature, it is first necessary to divest our being of  
the qualities and limitations it seems to have acquired from experience. This involves turning within, sinking into being to the exclusion of ob -
jective experience. In this process, being is initially revealed as the neutral  
ground that underlies all experience, and then this neutrality gives way to  
peace and, in time, joy. As Yvan Amar, a Dutch teacher of non-duality once  
said, ‘Peace is happiness at rest; happiness is peace in motion’. However, this is not a static process. In the words of Rumi, beautifully  
rendered by Coleman Barks, the investi gation into the essential nature of  
our self is to ‘Flow down and down in always widening rings of being’. *   
* Jelaluddin Rumi, ‘A Community of the Spirit’, Selected Poems , translated by Coleman Barks (Penguin  
Classics, 2004 ).you are the happiness you seek
     As we sink more and more deeply into being, or, stated from the per -
spective of being, as being is progressively divested of the qualities it seems  
to have acquired from experience, it grows ‘wider’; it loses its limitations. Our being is not our being. There is no ‘our’, no ‘me’ to whom being belongs. There is just utterly intimate yet impersonal, infinite being. Gradually, or occasionally suddenly, the mists of belief that have shrouded  
our being evaporate. Being loses its apparent limitations and is understood  
to extend beyond the individual. It is shared, universal, whole. Being shines in each of us as the am-ness of our self and in the world  
as the is-ness of all things. This utterly intimate and yet impersonal, infi -
nite being that was first recognised within us as the experience of peace  
and happiness is now revealed as the being from which everyone and every -
thing derives its apparently independent existence. This is the second as -
pect of the non-dual understanding: we share our being with everyone  
and everything. losing the sense of separation  
 
When I was seven years old, apparently I said to my mother that I thought  
everything was God’s dream. I cannot help but notice that now, more than  
fifty years later, I have not evolved very much, although I express myself in  
rather more sophisticated terms! Later on, in my teenage years, I developed a great admiration for the  
Romantic poets, with their reverence for the all-pervasive spirit which per -
meated the natural world and, at the same time, lay in the depths of their  
own heart. In particular, I noticed how their use of words had the ability to  
induce in myself the same experience from which their poetry originated. My love of the beauty and power of language perhaps comes from this  
period. Around that time, I also developed a love of being in nature. Walking in  
the landscape, I would often notice that my mind would spontaneously  
quieten and, at the same time, I would lose the sense of being enclosed within  
the body. The landscape felt as intimate as my body, and my body became  
as open and expansive as the landscape. I felt that I was melting into a presence that was familiar and yet, at the  
same time, much larger than anything I knew of myself. A presence ‘whose  
148the unity of being
dwelling is the light of setting suns, and the round ocean, and the living air,  
and the blue sky, and in the mind of man’. *   
     Many years later, after meeting Francis, I was astonished to find that  
this expansion of the body into the surrounding space, and the correspond -
ing permeation of the body with that space, had been formalised into a  
spiritual practice in the Tantric tradition of Kashmir Shaivism several  
hundred years earlier, as a means by which the feeling of separation may be  
dissolved. Suffice it to say that, formalised or not, the softening of the boundary between  
our self and all objects and others is a natural and inevitable consequence of  
the recognition of our true nature. The more deeply we investigate the nature of our essential self, the  
less limitation we find. We find limited thoughts, feelings and sensations,  
but that which is aware of them, and within which they arise, does not  
share their limits, just as the space of a room does not share the limited  
qualities of the objects that exist within it or the walls that seem to con -
tain it. This liberation of our self from the confines within which it is normally  
contained may be experienced as a feeling of release or expansion, and may  
be accompanied by a great relaxation of the tension in the body and the agi -
tation in the mind. The feeling of expansion and the corresponding loss of the sense of sep -
aration may take place gradually, almost imperceptibly, over a period of time. Or it may take place suddenly and spontaneously. We may be walking along a street or path and suddenly the sense of being  
solid, dense and located dissolves. We experience the world as a stream of  
perceptions and the body as a flow of sensations appearing in the openness  
of awareness. We are not a body walking through the world; the body and  
the world are flowing through us. We continue to experience the world through the medium of the  
body, but the body has lost its separating power. The universe becomes  
our body. 149* William Wordsworth, Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey  (1798 ).you are the happiness you seek
a single, shared reality  
 
Einstein once remarked, ‘Common sense is a series of prejudices that most people  
acquire by the age of eighteen’. Most of us have been conditioned to trust the  
evidence of common sense: a combination of perception and thought that frag -
ments the unity of being into a multiplicity and diversity of discrete objects and  
selves, each with its own apparently separate and individual existence. However, everyone has first-hand, direct knowledge of the underlying real -
ity of the universe through the experiences of love and beauty. In the experience  
of love, we recognise our shared reality with all people and animals. In the ex -
perience of beauty, we recognise our shared reality with all objects and nature. Imagine the space of my study, in Oxford, where I am now writing, and  
compare it with the space in which you are currently sitting as you read this  
book. They seem to be two separate and unique spaces, each with its own  
particular size, shape, location, and so on. Now imagine that each of us were to remove all the objects from our  
room and even to dismantle the walls within which the space seems to be  
contained. What remains of the difference between our two rooms? Are they  
still separate? Have they united? Were they ever really separate to begin with? Were there really even two spaces to begin with? Now do the same experiment with yourself. Imagine removing from  
yourself all the temporary, changing elements of your experience: thoughts,  
images, memories, feelings, sensations, perceptions, activities, relationships,  
and so on. What remains of yourself? Just formless, aware being. Now do the same experiment in your imagination with someone you love. Remove, in your imagination, everything that is not essential to them. What  
remains? Formless, aware being. Are your being and their being still separate? Have you united? Were you ever really two separate beings to begin with? Your shared being has simply been revealed, now that it is no longer ob -
scured by the respective elements of your experience. That revelation of your  
shared being is the experience of love. We can do the same thought experiment with someone we dislike or resent,  
either someone we know in person or someone we know of through the  
media. What we dislike is some aspect of their conditioned character, not  
their essential being or self. 150the unity of being
     Whether we like somebody or not is determined by the relationship  
between one character and another, between one set of conditioning and  
another, that is, the content of each of their thoughts, feelings, activities and  
relationships. The experience of love has nothing to do with whether we  
like or dislike a person’s character. It is the recognition of our shared being. Divested of the conditioning that defines our character and dictates the way  
we think, feel, act and relate, we are all the same indivisible being. The same is true of the vast majority of people whom we will never meet. The contents of my room in Oxford and your room at home will never in -
teract, but nevertheless the space in which they appear is the same space. Likewise, although two characters may never meet, they still share their  
being. When we are moved by an image of a child in distress on the other  
side of the world, we are, without necessarily realising it, feeling their being  
as our own. This also explains why we sometimes meet a person for the first time but  
feel we are reuniting with an old friend. We do not really meet them; we rec -
ognise them. There is something familiar about them and we feel at ease in  
their company. In this case, it is not necessary to know anything about them  
as a person to feel that, at the deepest level, we share our being. In the experience of love, our shared being filters through the otherness of  
the apparent other. The name and form of the other ceases to conceal our  
shared being and becomes transparent to it. However, many long-term rela -
tionships end in conflict because the interaction of our personalities pro -
gressively obscures our shared being. We fall in love with someone’s essence;  
we have to live with their personality. When we first meet, we feel our shared essence. That is the experience of  
love. It is only later that we encounter each other’s personality, that is, the  
layers of conditioning which subsequently veil our shared being. The word  
‘personality’ comes from the Latin word persona , meaning ‘mask’, implying  
a disguise that covers our real face. Our personalities prevent us from ‘seeing  
the original face’ of our companion, that is, from feeling our shared being. If we look at whatever conflicts may exist in our own life, and when we  
look around us at those that exist between individuals, communities and na -
tions, it is tragic to realise that, at the deepest level, everybody already loves  
one another. That is, we all share our being. 151you are the happiness you seek
     Love is the recognition of our shared being. After all, when we love some -
one, do we not feel to a greater or lesser extent that everything that divides  
or separates us dissolves? In love, the other is not other. This is true of our  
relationship with animals as well as people. In fact, we do not  share  being, as if being were an attribute of individual  
people. Ultimately, there are no individuals, no separate selves. There is just  
infinite, indivisible and utterly intimate being, which shines in each of us as  
the sense of ‘being myself’ or ‘I am’, before it is qualified by experience. Love is not a relationship between two people; it is the collapse  of rela -
tionship. It is the dissolution of everything that defines a person as a separate,  
independently existing entity, and the revelation of the being that we share  
with all others. It is the dawn of unity. As Rumi said, ‘Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere; they’re in each other  
all along’. *    
 
the self of all selves  
 
Love is unconditional. It does not depend on the attitudes, opinions, actions  
or behaviour of a person. It is simply the recognition that at the deepest level  
we share our being. We are not required to like everybody, but we are called to love everybody. We are called to recognise that their being is our being, that we share our 
being, and to act and relate with them in a manner that is consistent with  
this understanding. Whether or not we  like someone depends upon the ex -
tent to which our conditioning and theirs are in harmony, but there is no  
room for preferences in love. Next time a loved one fails to treat us in the way that we would like to be  
treated, or says something unkind or disrespectful, we may become aware of  
the impulse to react emotionally and to retaliate on behalf of a hurt self. If we  
look for that hurt self, we never find it. We may find thoughts, feelings and  
actions that arise on behalf of a hurt self, but we never find the hurt self itself. When we trace our way back through the layers of thought and feeling  
in search of our self, we find only the inherently peaceful and unconditionally  
152* Jelaluddin Rumi, ‘The Minute I Heard My First Love Story’ ( 1246 ), The Essential Rumi , translated  
by Coleman Barks (HarperOne, 2004 ).the unity of being
fulfilled presence of awareness. The self finds or recognises itself, the self of  
all selves, the being of all beings. The impulse to react or retaliate on behalf of a hurt self dissolves in this  
understanding. We may thank the other in our heart, if not to their face, for  
exposing in us the residues of the ego, and welcome the opportunity to  
deepen our conviction that we share our being with everyone, irrespective  
of what they say or do. Whenever we think of, speak to or interact with another person, we should  
first feel in our heart that we share our being with them, and then allow our  
thoughts, words and actions to be informed by this felt understanding. This single understanding would transform relationships between indi -
viduals, families, communities and nations. Imagine what our society would  
look like if not only people in general, but the politicians and leaders of our  
institutions in particular, understood and acted in accordance with this  
simple, universal principle. As Jacob Boehme said, ‘If men would as fervently  
seek after love and righteousness as they do after opinions, there would be  
no strife on earth’. *   
 
This does not imply that we lose the ability to recognise behaviour in ourself  
or others that does not come from the felt understanding of our shared  
being, or to respond appropriately in the face of such behaviour. On the  
contrary, we become better able to discern those attitudes and actions in our -
self and in others that are not informed by the knowledge of our shared  
being, and we respond accordingly. Shantananda Saraswati used to tell the story of an Indian teacher who  
was walking in the jungle with his disciples, discoursing with them on the  
subject of our shared being. At one point a tiger sprang out of the bushes  
and came bounding towards them; quick as a flash, the teacher leapt for  
safety at the top of the nearest tree. When the danger had passed, his disciples confronted him, ‘How come you  
were the first up the nearest tree, when only a few moments earlier you were  
telling us about the being we share with all people and all animals?’ The teacher  
replied, ‘I know that I share my being with the tiger, but the tiger doesn’t yet  
know that he shares his being with me, and so I acted appropriately’. 153* Jacob Boehme, Of Regeneration : vii: 169 (1622 ).you are the happiness you seek
     A response to a situation that is no longer mediated by the sense of  
separation will not give rise to conflict and hostility. This will give the  
situation the best possible chance of a fair and harmonious resolution for  
all parties. In time, as the residues of the sense of separation are washed out of the  
mind and heart, there is an increase of empathy in our relationships and of  
compassion in our behaviour. We then become an instrument of love in  
whatever particular field or circumstance we find ourself. my happiness does not depend on you  
 
This understanding has profound implications for every aspect of our lives,  
perhaps none more so than intimate relationships. If we seek such a friend -
ship with the purpose of finding happiness or love, we are placing an im -
possible demand upon our future partner. Such a relationship originates from need masquerading as love. If an inti -
mate relationship is initiated for the purpose of putting an end to the sense  
of lack or the feeling of loneliness, the sense of lack that initiated the rela -
tionship will remain present in seed form underneath the initial euphoria  
and will later make itself known in the form of conflict. T o invest another person with the power to make us happy is to set them  
up for failure and ourself for disappointment. Sooner or later, usually after a  
honeymoon period that may last from a few weeks to a few years, our partner’s  
behaviour will no longer conform to our expectations. Being unaware that the  
ensuing suffering is entirely our own activity, we will blame the other for it. If only one person carries this projection, there is a possibility that the  
absence of reaction in their companion will defuse the situation and provide  
an opportunity for them to grow in understanding. However, one of the  
most common ways for an ego or apparently separate self to perpetuate itself  
is through conflict, so it is unlikely that such an approach will be successful,  
unless it is coupled with therapeutic intervention. If both parties carry this  
projection, the scene is set for inevitable conflict. This is not a reason for not seeking intimate relationship. It is a reason  
for not seeking happiness  in intimate relationship. Our desire for intimate re -
lationship, or indeed any other object or circumstance, should come from 
happiness rather than as a means of acquiring it. The object, activity or  
154the unity of being
relationship then becomes the medium through which peace and joy is com -
municated, shared and celebrated. This is not a path of renunciation. It is a path of understanding and en -
joyment. Nor do I mean to imply that it may not sometimes be legitimate  
to address unloving or unjust behaviour in a partner, as well as in ourself, if  
a relationship is to evolve in line with love and understanding. Those who are already in a long-term relationship would do their rela -
tionship a great service by understanding that their companion can never  
fulfil their demand that they produce happiness or love for them and, as a  
result, withdrawing that expectation. One of the kindest things we can say to our partner is, ‘I love you, but  
my happiness is not dependent upon you’. It will relieve our friend of the  
impossible burden of producing love and happiness for us and will give the  
relationship the best possible chance of being truly loving and intimate. freedom from the search  
 
The understanding that peace and happiness cannot be given or taken away  
by external circumstances is one of the greatest discoveries a person can  
make, and it is often accompanied by a feeling of liberation and profound  
relaxation. We no longer need to constantly negotiate experience, resisting  
what is present and seeking what is not present, for the purpose of finding  
happiness. This does not imply that we withdraw from life in any way. On the  
contrary, we simply cease expecting events and people to make us happy. We withdraw the impossible demand on our friends that they be a source  
of love, and from circumstances that they be a source of happiness. When  
we are able to experience people and circumstances as they are, without  
the layer of expectation and need through which our previous interactions  
with them were filtered, the universe will respond in a way that confirms  
its approval. Nor does this understanding imply that we lead a life of passive resigna -
tion or cease responding to situations and taking appropriate action when  
necessary. We do not allow ourself, or those in our care, to be abused, nor  
are we silent in the face of injustice. One who is established in their true na -
ture and living in harmony with the unfolding of the universe does not  
155you are the happiness you seek
refrain from action, but their actions are not initiated by the anxieties, fears  
and desires that characterise the separate self or ego. Rather, their actions are informed by qualities that emanate directly from  
the deepest part of our being, qualities that are shared by all people but in  
so many cases are temporarily obscured by layers of conditioning. When lib -
erated from the demands of the person, our innate enthusiasm, kindness,  
clarity, compassion and sense of justice become the means by which eternal  
truths are expressed in response to temporary circumstances. One in whom this understanding is alive may or may not make a con -
scious attempt to intervene in any particular situation. However, their pres -
ence and their response will, to a greater or lesser extent, restore balance and  
harmony, even if the effect of their intervention is not immediately apparent  
due to other elements in the situation beyond their control. If our response comes from harmony with a situation rather than op -
position to it, we align ourself with the totality and our action cannot help  
but be beneficial. Such action will always contribute to the unfolding of love  
and understanding in humanity. It is for this reason that Ramana Maharshi  
said, ‘Realisation of the Self is the greatest help that can be rendered to  
humanity’. *  
  
156* T alks with Ramana Maharshi: On Realizing Abiding Peace and Happiness , 2nd ed. (Inner Directions  
Foundation, 2010 ).chapter nineteen
The All-Pervasive Spirit
I have created perception in you only  
in order to be the object of My perception. ibn ‘arabi  
 
our shared being  
 
As we explore the nature of our being, it begins to lose the limited qualities  
that it derives from experience. It relinquishes the turbulence of thoughts,  
the afflictive quality of emotions and the solidity of sensations, and is revealed  
as peace and happiness. As it loses its constraints, it becomes ‘wider’, more open, less bounded. We begin to feel that we share our being with all other people and animals. There is an increase in sensitivity, empathy and compassion. Its nature of  
love reveals itself. But why should we stop there? Why draw a boundary around all sentient  
beings? After all, everything that is exists. As such, existence is the common  
factor in everything , be that thing a person, a planet, a mountain, a body,  
a thought, an atom, and so on. The word ‘existence’ comes from two Latin words, ex, meaning ‘out of’  
or ‘from’, and sistere , meaning ‘to stand’, implying that something that exists  
stands out . Stands out from what? From being. Being is the shared background out of which everything emerges, in which it  
exists and into which it vanishes. Being is, as such, that from which everyone and  
everything borrows its apparently independent existence, just as all the characters  
and objects in a movie borrow its reality, relatively speaking, from the screen. However, just as no character or object on the screen actually stands out  
from the screen with its own independent existence, but only seems to, like -
wise no person or thing actually stands out from the background of infinite  
being with a status of its own. you are the happiness you seek
     We are not  parts  of infinite being, nor do we emerge  from it as separate  
and independently existing entities. When we see a crowd of ten thousand  
people in a movie, the people do not divide the screen into separate parts,  
nor do they emerge out of the screen. The screen remains a single, homo -
geneous, undivided whole. The indivisible unity of the screen appears  as 
a multiplicity and diversity of people. Likewise, in reality, no person or thing emerges out of infinite being with  
its own discrete and independent existence, nor does the appearance of any  
person or thing divide infinite being into separate, individual parts. There  
are no separate parts. Ultimately, there are no independently existing individual people or  
objects. There is no room for the finite in the infinite. The unity of being  
assumes the form of multiplicity and diversity without ever becoming any -
thing other than itself. For one who understands this, the world is evidence of the infinite nature  
of reality. It shines with its own reality. For one who does not understand this,  
the same world seems to be evidence of the discrete and independent experience  
of people and things. It is an apparent confirmation of a paradigm of separation. The world appears in accordance with the point of view we bring to it. the revelation of beauty  
 
Our shared reality is not confined to people and animals. When we stand in  
awe in front of nature, become absorbed in a piece of music, are moved by  
the sight of an object or enjoy a delicious meal, the distinction between our  
self and the object dissolves. We experience the reality we share with that  
object. That is the experience of beauty! The experience of beauty is an intervention of reality into our normal  
mode of perception, namely, the subject–object relationship. It is the cleans -
ing of Blake’s ‘doors of perception’. * It is the apprehension of the poet Samuel  
Coleridge’s ‘One Life within us and abroad’. † The essential nature of our self  
and the reality of the object lose the dividing line that seems to define each  
158* ‘If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite’, William  
Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell  (c. 1790 ). †  Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Eolian Harp  (1828). the all-pervasive spirit
as a separate and discrete entity in its own right. And what was that dividing  
line made of? Thought! In the experience of beauty, the name and form of the object cease to  
conceal our shared being and instead become transparent to it. They shine  
with it. When we experience beauty we are ‘tasting’ the reality that we share  
with the object. Or rather, infinite being, divested of its limitations, is tasting  
itself. It is aware of itself. That experience is timeless – it takes place in eternity  
– for in the absence of thought there is no sense of time. The experience of beauty is in relation to objects and nature as the experi -
ence of love is to people and animals. It is the dissolution of the subject –object  
relationship through which our experience of reality is normally mediated,  
and the simultaneous revelation of our shared being. It is never the object  
itself that is beautiful. The so-called beautiful object possesses a particular  
quality that effects the collapse of the subject –object  relationship, revealing  
its prior unity with the perceiver. In the experience of beauty, our shared being  
filters through the objectness of the apparent object, just as in the experience  
of love, our shared being shines through the otherness of the apparent other. The word ‘revelation’ comes from the Latin revelare , meaning ‘to lay bare’. As such, the experience of love or beauty is not a new or extraordinary experience  
that happens from time to time; it is the revealing  or the laying bare of the nature  
of reality. It is the recognition that there is a single, infinite and indivisible whole  
or reality whose nature is spirit, awareness or being, from which all people,  
animals and things derive their apparently separate and independent existence. It is the revelation of the prior unity shared by everyone and everything. If the understanding that we share our being is the source of the healing of  
conflicts between individuals, families, communities and nations, then the  
understanding that we share our being with all things must be the source of the  
restoration of the relationship between ourselves and nature or the environment. This is the vision of the world that poets and artists try to restore. Art is to  
perception what philosophy is to thought. Poets gives us a window onto this  
world, artists a vision of this world. The English painter J. M. W . T urner was  
said to have been returning home from a day’s painting on Hampstead Heath  
in North London when one of the local residents stopped him and asked to  
see the paint ing. The man surveyed the picture for some time and then  
remarked,  ‘I’ve lived here for forty years and have walked on Hampstead  
159you are the happiness you seek
Heath almost every day, but I have never seen a view like that’. T o which  
T urner replied, ‘No, but don’t you wish you could?’ The world is not what  
we see; it is the way we see. We have become so accustomed to perceiving reality through the filter  
of our minds – the only way it is possible for us to experience anything –  
that we believe and feel that the fragmentation and separation that we ex -
perience in the world is a real quality of the world. Such is the intimate and  
participatory nature of the mind in the world that the world appears to con -
form with our belief about it. We do not think of the world because it exists;  
it seems to exist, as a multiplicity and diversity of discrete and independently  
existing objects and selves, because that is how we think of it. William Blake imagines a conversation in which he tries to explain to  
his materialist friends the idea that there are no discrete, independently  
existing objects or selves, but rather a single, eternal, infinite and indivisible  
reality: ‘“What”, it will be questioned, “When the sun rises, do you not see  
a round disk of fire somewhat like a guinea?” Oh no, no, I see an innumer -
able company of the heavenly host crying, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord  
God Almighty”.’*  
 
objects born, not made  
 
In 1975, I was fifteen years old and had an experience which was to change  
the course of my life.
You-are-the-Happiness-You-Seek-Rupert-Spira.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        It is our resistance that turns a situation into  
a problem, that turns our innate peace into suffering. And it is the withdra -
wal of this resistance that reveals the underlying peace. For the ego there is  
suffering; for awareness there is peace. Awareness does not negotiate experience. Its nature is simply to welcome  
whatever arises, allow whatever exists and let go of whatever vanishes. And just as space is never harmed or destroyed by anything that takes  
place within it, so we, awareness, are never hurt or overwhelmed by any -
thing that takes place in experience. We, awareness, are open to all experi -
ence, allowing all experience without resistance, defenceless and yet  
indestructible. This openness without resistance to all experience is not something we,  
as a person, need practise, because it is our nature, just as the empty space  
of a room does not need to practise allowing whatever appears within it. Openness without resistance is what we are, not what we do. Resistance to what is appears in the form of a single thought: ‘I don’t want  
what is present; I want what is not present’. All suffering is caused by that  
thought alone. As soon as that thought rises up in between our self and our  
experience of the world, our innate happiness is veiled and suffering ensues. In the absence of any resistance to experience, the peace and happiness  
that is our very nature simply shines by itself. This openness without resis -
tance to all experience is not a state of the mind. It is the natural condition  
of the mind in the absence of seeking and resisting. Happiness is the nature  
of the mind; suffering is a state of the mind. It is only the extent to which we open ourself unreservedly and uncon -
ditionally to any experience that governs our happiness. Our true nature of  
peace and joy is always present within our own being; it is our own being. 127you are the happiness you seek
It is our own resistance to experience, in the form of thinking and feeling,  
that closes us off from the ever-present background of our innate joy, just as  
clouds obscure the blue sky. What is it that causes this opening of the cloud cover. What is it that gives  
us access to this ever-present background of happiness. Simply our openness  
without resistance to the current situation. Every moment of happiness is a window in our experience onto the ever-
present background of our essential being, whose nature is happiness itself. The only reason it is not fully felt by everyone all the time is the single  
thought that dictates that circumstances should be other than they are right  
now, that they should conform to our preconceived idea of them. We have allowed a single thought to steal our happiness. It is that thought  
alone that stands between each of us and the innate peace and joy that lives  
in our hearts, or rather that is the very heart of us. We are free at every mo -
ment to choose happiness in spite of circumstances, not because of them. The nature of our being is peace and joy itself. All that is necessary in  
order to access our self and, as a result, its innate peace and joy, is to come  
back to our own being again and again, and to stand as that in the face of all  
experience. When we become accustomed to knowing and feeling ourself as the pres -
ence of awareness, problems cease. Or rather, our resistance  to problems ceases  
and, as a result, the so-called problem itself is no longer experienced as such. It is experienced as simply a situation to be faced with openness and equa -
nimity, thereby giving it the best possible chance of a harmonious resolution  
for all parties involved. Situations that were once met with resistance or emotional reactivity are  
now welcomed as an opportunity to understand the extent to which we have  
invested our happiness in objective experience. Instead of frustrating our  
search for happiness in the world, such situations cooperate with the revel -
ation of the peace and happiness that is the very nature of our being. *     *     *  
 
There are some situations that I find so hurtful that I cannot stay open to them  
or to the person involved. Should I just accept such situations. 128take refuge in the now
It is important to recognise whether our response to such a situation arises  
on behalf of truth, love and justice or on behalf of a hurt self. If the latter,  
then it is legitimate to take whatever action may be appropriate to bring in -
telligence and love to bear on the situation. However, every time we react  
emotionally to a person or situation, we betray the fact that our happiness is  
invested in them. In doing so, we are, without at first realising it,  
strengthening the power that objective experience has over us, thereby alien -
ating ourself from our innate peace and joy. Even if our reaction were to bring about the desired result in the short  
term, we would have strengthened the underlying feeling from which it  
came, and ultimately the separate self or ego on whose behalf that feeling  
arose, thus perpetuating the tendency to react in the same way to a similar  
situation in future. Unaware that our suffering is entirely our own activity, we will project its  
cause onto the person or situation. It is for this reason that, in spite of our ef -
forts, we find ourself facing the same problematic situations over and over  
again in life. It is not the situation itself that is problematic; it is our response  
to it that is as such. Ultimately there are no problems; there are just situations. However, until this is clear, apparently problematic situations will con -
tinue to occur in our life, provoking and testing us until we have understood  
their message, namely, that we should withdraw from people and circum -
stances the expectation or demand that they be a source of happiness. When this has been understood, we cease using the world for the sake of  
our happiness and start using our happiness for the sake of the world. And  
just as the world previously appeared to us in the form of circumstances that  
mirrored our inner state of resistance, so now the world will realign itself  
with our new attitude of openness. In fact, the world has not changed. The filter of seeking and resisting  
through which we previously perceived the world and negotiated our re -
sponse to it has simply become more transparent, and as a result, the world  
appears in a new light. becoming established in and as our true nature  
 
Ever since I first became aware of awareness in the background of my experience,  
I seem to travel back and forth between it and my thoughts and feelings in the  
129you are the happiness you seek
foreground. This gives me moments of respite from the suffering that I used  
to experience almost continually, but I long for lasting peace. Imagine a woman who lives in a small apartment on a noisy street in the city  
and commutes to and from work every day on public transport. After a busy  
and exhausting week, she drives a couple of hours into the countryside, where  
she has a small cottage, and enjoys a peaceful, relaxing weekend. On Sunday  
night she returns to the city and the cycle is repeated, week in, week out,  
back and forth from her stressful life in her apartment to the peace and quiet  
of her cottage. One day she has simply had enough: she requests permission from her  
employer to work from home, sells her apartment and moves into her cot -
tage. Her life ceases to oscillate from the stress and anxiety of life in the city  
to the peace and quiet of life in the country. She continues to work, and is  
as productive as ever, but without leaving the peace of her home. In the same way, we seem for a while to travel back and forth between  
the turbulence of our thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions in the  
foreground of experience, and the inherently peaceful and unconditionally  
fulfilled presence of awareness in the background. However, in time, our true nature of awareness will cease being some -
thing that we seem to visit from time to time and will be understood and  
felt simply to be what we are. T o be knowingly the presence of awareness  
will become our natural condition, and no effort will be required either to  
return there or to maintain it. It will become our new identity. We move in. We live there, as that. The only reason why resting in and as our being may initially require some  
effort is due to the previously unnoticed habit of almost continuously and 
exclusively losing our self in, and identifying our self with, objective experi -
ence. It is only the initial attempt we make to counteract that habit that  
seems to require an effort. T o illustrate this, take the example of a closed fist. The natural condition  
of the hand is open and relaxed. However, a hand which has been clenched  
for some time will become accustomed to this new position which, if main -
tained, will seem to become its new norm. In order to return the hand to its  
natural position of openness and relaxation, an effort will initially be required. 130take refuge in the now
     Once the hand has been open for some time, no effort will be required  
to maintain it; it has simply returned to its natural position. In fact, the effort  
to open the hand was not really a new effort. It was simply the relaxation of  
a previous  effort which had become so habitual that it was no longer noticed  
as such. The return to our true nature of peace and happiness proceeds in a similar  
way. What may at first seem to be an effort to disentangle our self from the  
content of experience is, in fact, the relaxation of a previous effort of which  
we were unaware. It only seems to be an effort because we had become so  
habituated to an almost constant state of more or less subtle seeking and  
resisting. In time, as we become accustomed to resting in or as being, less and less  
effort will be required, because the habit of losing our self in, or identifying  
our self with, the objective content of experience will have become weakened  
by practice, just as a rocket requires less energy to navigate space once it has  
escaped the gravitational pull of the earth. At some point, resting as being is felt and understood to be our natural  
condition. As we abide more and more in our self, our deep-seated tendencies  
gradually come to the surface and are dissolved. The almost constant state  
of dissatisfaction that seemed to have accompanied us most of our life simply  
leaves us, without our necessarily even noticing. At this point, no further practice is required. The practice of returning  
again and again to our essential being turns into the love of simply being. And in that love of simply being, the peace and joy which is our nature  
shines forth. 131 chapter seventeen
Attending to Painful Emotions
In the depths of winter, I finally learned  
that within me there lay an invincible summer. albert camus  
 
three ways to attend to painful emotions  
 
From the non-dual perspective, what is the best way to deal with really intense,  
painful emotions. The impulse to avoid the dissatisfaction of our current experience can be fol -
lowed in one of three directions: one, outwards towards an object, substance,  
activity or relationship in an attempt to escape the discomfort of it; two,  
inwards to the self on whose behalf the sense of lack arises; or three, towards  
the feeling of lack or dissatisfaction itself. The first approach could be called the way of avoidance and is the default  
approach for most people. The second could be called the way of self-enquiry  
or investigation, and the third, the way of openness. In the way of avoidance, the intense, painful emotion is considered un -
bearable and we distract ourself from it with objects, substances, activities  
and relationships. In this case the sense of lack, and the separate self or ego  
on whose behalf it arises, will remain intact, albeit temporarily masked by  
the distraction. However, as soon as the object, substance, activity or rela -
tionship has passed or changed, the underlying sense of lack will resurface. In an attempt to avoid it, we may again turn away from it towards the  
distraction of our choice, only this time a slightly stronger dose will be  
required. In this way a perpetual cycle of lack, avoidance, temporary fulfilment  
and inevitable failure will lead eventually to despair and, often, addiction. T o illustrate the difference between the second and third approaches –  
the way of enquiry or investigation and the way of openness – imagine  you are the happiness you seek
a professional boxing match. When the two boxers are at a distance of about  
one metre from one another, they are dangerous and in danger. In the in -
terval between rounds, each goes to his respective corner, where he is safe. However, during the fight itself it is not possible for either boxer to retire to  
his corner. So what does a boxer do if he wants respite from the intensity of  
the fight. He comes close to his opponent and wraps his arms around him  
in a ‘clinch’, thereby neutralising him. He finds safety in closeness. The path of self-enquiry is the equivalent of the break that the boxers  
take between rounds. That is, in self-enquiry we increase  the apparent dis -
tance between our self and our suffering. We disengage from the struggle  
with our emotions, trace our way back through the layers of our experience,  
and come to rest in and as the presence of awareness. In reality, awareness is so utterly, intimately one with all experience that  
it cannot separate itself from any experience and stand at a distance from it,  
any more than a screen can be separated from an image. At the same time,  
awareness is utterly free and independent from the content of experience. So the analogy of the boxers retiring to their respective corners is simply  
meant to illustrate this disentanglement from the content of experience and  
the return to the peace of our true nature. In other words, in the way of enquiry or investigation, we turn away from  
the feeling and investigate the suffering self: Who is this ‘I’ on whose behalf  
my suffering arises. The way of self-enquiry is, as such, an inward-facing  
path, in which we turn away from the unpleasant emotion and question the  
‘I’ at its heart, thereby tracing our way back to our essential, irreducible  
being, the presence of awareness. It is often initiated, at least in the early  
stages, by a process of negation or discrimination, in which we discard every  
aspect of our experience that is not essential to us: ‘I am not this, not this,  
not this’. In the Western tradition it is known as the Via Negativa. In the way of openness, we turn towards  the unpleasant emotion and em -
brace it. This is like the clinch during the boxing match. We decrease  the 
distance between our self and our suffering. We turn towards  it. We embrace  
the danger, neutralising it in our welcoming presence. In fact, we need not turn towards any afflictive emotion; it would be  
enough to cease turning away from it. The presence of awareness that we  
essentially are is already turned towards, or open without resistance to,  
134attending to painful emotions
all experience. This openness is what we are, not what we do. It does not  
need to be practised. However, all psychological suffering arises because we have temporarily  
forgotten or overlooked that we are this resistanceless presence of awareness  
and, as a result, have mistaken our self for a separate self or ego. Therefore,  
it is legitimate to suggest to this apparently separate self or ego that it turn  
towards the suffering that it would normally seek to avoid. Some courage may initially be needed as we face the discomfort of the  
sense of lack from which we have been in flight for much of our lives. How -
ever, by facing the sense of lack in this way we will be withholding from it  
the one thing that it requires for its survival, namely, our resistance to it. By welcoming what was previously unacceptable to us we are, without  
necessarily realising it at first, taking our stand as the presence of awareness,  
and it is only a matter of time before the peace and joy that is its very nature  
will begin to emerge and percolate into the foreground of experience. In the way of openness, we go deeply into the emotion itself and find at  
its very core the peace we previously sought by avoiding it. It is a path in  
which we turn towards  the content of experience. It is the way of surrender,  
of embrace, the way of ‘yes’, the Via Positiva. T o summarise the distinction between these two approaches, when we  
say, ‘I feel lonely’, there are two elements to the experience: I, myself, and  
the feeling of loneliness. In the way of self-enquiry or investigation, we explore  
the ‘I’ and ignore the loneliness; in the way of openness, we embrace the  
loneliness and ignore the ‘I’. It is legitimate to explore either of these approaches. Both pathways,  
if followed all the way, lead to the same conclusion, namely, the dissolution  
of the sense of separation and the suffering that inevitably attends it, and the  
return to the peace and happiness that is our natural condition. investigating the ‘i’  
 
I understand this approach in theory, but can you give an example of what the  
way of investigation looks like in practice. Imagine someone were to say to you, ‘Isn’t it a beautiful day today. ’ Would  
you be upset by it. 135you are the happiness you seek
No. You hear the words, you register their meaning and they vanish without leaving  
any trace in you, and without your wanting either to hold on to them be -
cause they are so pleasant or to get rid of them because they are so unpleasant. But imagine that someone were to say something that you find hurtful. In this  
case, the words don’t just pass through you without leaving a trace. Something  
in you resists the words and, as a result, you feel upset. Who is it that is upset. I am upset. T ell us about the ‘I’ that is upset. My image or idea of myself. Usually I would feel like, ‘They shouldn’t have  
done that’. Can an image or an idea be upset. No. So who or what is it that is upset. You refer to whatever that is as ‘I’. ‘ I am 
upset by what he said. ’ ‘ I am hurt by her behaviour. ’ Who or what is this  
upset ‘I’. This is how to look for the ‘I’. When you hear the words ‘Isn’t it a  
beautiful day today. ’ there is no holding on to or resisting the words. No ‘I’  
rises up to say, ‘I like it’ or ‘I don’t like it’. The words just float unimpeded  
through awareness and leave no trace on it. What is it that rises up and says,  
‘I am upset’. Is the awareness that heard the supposedly hurtful words upset.
Our true nature of peace and joy is always present within us, and we can access it by letting go of our resistance to the present moment and embracing it.
What is the key to happiness, according to the text?
The way of self-enquiry involves turning away from the emotion, while the way of openness involves embracing and accepting the emotion without judgment.
What is the difference between the way of openness and the way of self-enquiry?
Our resistance to the present moment and our expectation that things should be different from what they are, which is a form of thought.
What is the source of suffering, according to the text?
Recognizing that we share our being with everyone and everything, and responding in a way that is informed by this understanding.
What is the key to resolving conflicts between individuals, according to the text?
To realize that we are not separate entities, but are instead an integral part of the infinite and indivisible whole, and to live in harmony with this understanding.
What is the ultimate goal of spiritual practice, according to the text?