Why do we live? What are we here for? Day after day we asked these questions of the purpose and meaning of our lives. And most of us constantly look for the answer. How can we achieve happiness? This is yet another question urging us to look for its answer every day. What if the answer to those questions is simple? What if it is all simply about ONE thing? Connection. The secret of happiness is explained thoroughly in the clear and refreshing voice of Masami Sato in this excerpt of her book, ONE.
What are we trying to find out?
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.
Nevertheless, if there was ONE thing that ALL of us are searching for, what could that be?
While I travelled all over the world, I did ask people one simple question, “What would you like to achieve in your life? What do you really want?”
In the beginning it appeared that different people were looking for different things. People said different things like “A house of my own”, “A good job”, “A perfect partner”, “A soul mate”, “A little more money”, “An affectionate family”, “Freedom”, “Peace of mind”, “A purpose to life” etc. There were many answers of this type.
I noticed that while some of these were temporal, and more related to day-to-day needs, others were of a more spiritual nature. We yearn for temporal desires because we do not as yet have it, or don’t feel that we have it yet. As different from this, spiritual desire is not about getting things we do not have. It is about a ‘feeling’ we look for, which does not end no matter what we manage to achieve at every moment of our life.
If we removed all the temporal desires from out list and only looked at the permanent desires, it is so obvious that we simply want to continue feeling positive feelings like excitement, enjoyment, inspiration, motivation, generosity, love, joy etc.-in another way, we want to stay being happy.
Delightfulness
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 truth of our life’s purpose, and of its happiness, is as simple as this:
It is all about bonding.
Connection is everything
Everything depends on bonding. All things are part of some other things. A look at our own lives would say it all. Then we will begin to see the real purpose of life.
Why do we do anything, ANYTHING at all, in life as humans?
It is mainly because we want to bond more and more. We make fiends to feel bonded. We get married for bonding with another person in a firm and lasting manner. We raise a family to feel even more bonded. We go out and meet people to bond well with them, not only for getting advantages out of that bonding, but also to feel more bound to the world.
We buy good clothes or go to a hairdressing saloon for a better relationship with our aesthetical sense and to our own physical appearance. We eat all types of food to feel more connected to the sense of taste and flavour. We eat out to feel the relationship to the people we dine with. We get mobile phones and computers to weave relationships with others and the world. We read magazines and newspapers to remain in touch with whatever is going on and what others are doing and experiencing. We educate ourselves to keep in touch with what others know and value.
All that we do is done to satisfy the need for that bonding. If we have no bonds with our own body, we do not even need to sleep or eat. Our bonds to all our senses tell us to do certain things to satisfy the demands that the body makes. If we disregard these pleas of our body, we feel pain and discomfort. And over and above our basic needs, we search for a bonding of a loftier type – the bonding to our existence – the bonding to our purpose. And without those bonds, it is just bare. Just like the barrenness many of us feel within when we have no bonds even to ourselves. It is just not the right way we are supposed to live our lives.
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 bonds are not there
When the relationship is not there, we start seeing problems. We start seeing differences and hindrances. We start sitting upon judgement of others and disapproving them. We exaggerate, concentrate upon, and give energy to such things that we see as problems. Under such a scenario, these problems might turn inwards and inflict pain and disapproval on ourselves. We cannot be fully happy when we have no associations with anything.
Bonding: the Secret to Happiness
What about if we looked at the whole concept in reverse? When we do that we discover this simple truth: we cannot feel unhappy when we are feeling totally connected. It’s impossible!
Try to feel unhappy when we’re feeling connected to the people around us and laughing and sharing wholeheartedly together. Even when we have so-called ‘problems’ in life, we can still laugh together and feel happy and positive when we are feeling connected. At the same time, it is very difficult to enjoy anything if we’re not feeling connected.
Connection: Our Life
Relationship is the core of everything. That is what life is. Relationship.
Everything is a unified whole of smaller units. Everything combines together to form a bigger unit; the way our bodies are a fusion of smaller entities like atoms, molecules, cells and organs.
Our actions and choices also express the need for connection. We are designed to constantly seek ways to connect to each other and to a greater purpose.
Connection and Religion
Some of us have opted to become a part of different religious systems to feel better related to each other. The relationship that we yearn to build could be to God. It could be to those who share the same belief system. When there is the sharing of a similar conviction, there is a stronger relationship within that group. More bestowing on each other takes place among people who feel related to each other.
Connection 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 give rise to polemics or battles to enjoy a sense of ’success’ or maybe a greater feeling of assurance and self-worth. But this only boomerangs. The moment we are ’successful’ in the battle, we are really severing the bonds with others. We are now in need of more confidence to safeguard ourselves from being assailed by others. The result is that we become more vulnerable and frightened. We cannot treat this as a joke because it actually happens to each one of us in diverse ways.
It could be the disagreements we have with the people around us. It may be the wrong assessment we make when we feel that something or someone is not right. When we make an attempt to be the only one to succeed, we can never succeed in the real way – we feel not connected. We can really enjoy the success when we succeed along with others. Then we will feel the strength of the relationship.
No matter how differently we express our needs, everything we do is to fulfil the mere desire we have to feel and be connected.
The full sense of a bonding is realized only through our heart. We can bond with anybody when we are truly concerned about them and feeling that bond with them. If we are conscious of this, giving life to that required state of mind is really easy, uncomplicated and a pleasure. Then we would actually feel more delight and joy.
Life is a sport. We feel things and do things in a grand game but in reality the aim of any game is the pleasure we get out of it. It is not about doing something or having something. When the sports finally end, the winners are only the ones who have derived pleasure from the game. Not the ones who had more at the final tally. The upshots and end results of the sports in which we participate do not affect our actual life. But if we lost all our friends to participate in a game just because we wanted to win in that round, would it lead us to a lasting victory?
It is easy to comprehend this when compared to acting in a play, but we often fail to understand it while enacting the play of life. We do not remember that life is also a play.
We have no idea when this game began and when it would be over, all that we know is that it commenced in the past and that it will be over one day. When finally the umpire blows the whistle to stop the game, we can simply say, “Wow, it was a lot of fun. Let us play once again!”
In this play called life, the aim of the play is to ‘bond.’ We can keep bonding until we all merge to become one. It is the one way to perpetually feel bonded to our rationale – the feeling of joy and pleasure. We cannot afford to have the bonds to anything weakened or reject and decide even one thing if we are to reach the state of complete bonding.
Life is as uncomplicated as that. There is just ONE secret.
And the secret is to establish a relationship.
To turn into ONE
To enjoy.
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