There Is Something Within Us

When we read a particular phrase that captures us, there is something within us that responds.

When we see a particular scene in a film, there is something within us that stirs.

When we hear a particular melody, there is something within us that sings.

As we walk through life we search for that something. From the moment we wake we begin to search for it. We search for it when we speak to our children. We search for it as we sit down to work. We search for it in the faces of people we pass in the market.

We believe that this something is called happiness. But happiness is an amorphous creation. It is not really a place, but a non-place. Happiness is not a place one goes. It is a mental creation. It is a reflexive idea. It is a hope on the horizon. It is a shining palace on the mountain which serves as a refuge against the misery that human beings feel.

Happiness is a retaliation against enslavement. An enslavement to the mind.

That something that we feel within us is not happiness. I do not have a name for it. As I continue to live beyond my mind, it may come to me.

But language is always a poor translator of feeling.

For now, I will say that perhaps that something is life itself.

And perhaps the most incredible possibility of all is not that this place exists within us. But that we exist within it.