THE SUFI WAY OF SELF-UNFOLDMENT
(Excerpts Only)

By: Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri

Chapter 2
On Happiness

Let us now dwell upon what is conducive to peace, and what is not: in other words, what brings about happiness?

What is happiness? What is my happiness or yours? What is your happiness now, what will it be tomorrow? And when do you say 'Oh, I'm so happy now!'? Suddenly the postman comes with a letter bearing good news and you are so happy! What does it mean? If you reflect upon it, you will see that happiness occurs when whatever is desired, expected or wanted has been achieved. I desired money, the postman delivered the letter of success, and I am happy! It will probably take a few minutes before I find another thing that I want, because we are in dynamic flux and mind is self-perpetuating. The more we have our desires satisfied, the more we are happy. Is that not right? And we always want to be happy.

Again, happiness is synonymous with peace; it is matching what 'I' (the body – mind – intellect) desire with what the world can provide for me to satisfy or equalize the desire. When the match has happened, I say 'I am lucky' or' God is merciful!' But when the neutralization has not happened, I may have doubts, agitations, discontent and unhappiness.

So how can we bring about a situation where we are most happy or least unhappy? Is it easier to be happy if we have more expectations and desires or less? The answer is obvious: less. But we are driven by our present-day culture or civilization to consume and want more.

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Detachment and desires

We have just found that our chances of being happy are greater if we have fewer desires. Our chances of so-called happiness are obviously greater if these desires are fulfilled. The more power we have, the more likely we are to achieve these desires, that is why we all love money. Money is naked power. Like pure, naked electricity, we can make it run a fan, a heater, a cooler, everything that brings about comfort and neutrality. It is a raw source of power with great potentialities. In every action, the subtler we become the more we veer towards purity, because essentially we are pure, for life as such is pure. Similarly we seek happiness only because happiness is our essential nature.

We are all veering willy-nilly towards the Source of creation. All it takes is for us to recognize the real cause behind our actions and thoughts. With that recognition comes real progress and awakening. If not, our way is circular and barren, constantly repeating the same pattern over and over again. But once we see what we are doing, then there is a de-clutching process that takes place. We may still do a lot of the same things, but they will not have the same influences or effects on us. There is a neutralization. We become more observant, not artificially detached.

But beware: there is no detachment as such, you are one part of the totality. Detachment is not true except in your mental attitude regarding your actions. You go up a mountain for meditation and then you hanker to know what is going on down below, and you send cables. You cannot be detached. I knew an Englishman who, after many years in the mountains of India, was left with only one attachment, chocolates. He used to walk for many hours down to a post office every Wednesday to collect his parcel of Swiss chocolate sent by friends. He was a renunciate and owned only a loin-cloth. He had given up everything but chocolate. Yet on Wednesday mornings he was like a madman.

What we are saying is that detachment is a mental attitude. It has nothing to do with what you do, or how you dress; it is your relationship with it. Ask yourself whether you are using material wealth or if material wealth is using you. Are you enslaved by it or are you using it as a slave in order to have time for what matters, self-knowledge? It is this you have to live with. You have come naked into the world, and you return naked back to the earth.

Happiness is basically an arithmetical coefficient: when you say you are happy, it means that you had a desire and that desire has been fulfilled, so the coefficient is one. You are satisfied, you are one, you are united. Now you are happy.

The more desires we have, the more difficult it will be to satisfy ourselves. If we have a hundred desires, these hundred will have to be satisfied in order for the coefficient to become one. If fifty desires are fulfilled, I am half happy. If ten desires are fulfilled, then I am only one tenth satisfied, and I compromise and rationalize. That is why the fewer desires we have, the greater is the likelihood of our being happy. Whatever desires we have – be they to do with the body, mind or intellect – they are of our own doing. Each one is naturally different, because what comes out of each of us is slightly different from every other prism. But yet, as we said, we are basically the same. The fewer desires we have, the easier it is to satisfy them. What if we have no desires?

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