I keep being reminded of a comment I posted on Pure Desire Feels Good To You, a great post on its own written by a good friend and former co-worker of mine. Though my comment in its original form remains there, I'm reposting it here, with some adjustments…

I think this is such an important thing to note… So many people spend their energy criticising the very nature of their being; that is… when we are hungry, we eat. When we are cold, we seek warmth. When we are tired, we seek sleep, or rest. When we feel lonely, we seek companionship. When we are horny, we seek physical pleasure.

Yet we’ve built up so much resistance about even these basic impulses. Instead of allowing ourselves to feel tired, to feel unfocused, to feel distracted, we cover those feelings up immediately with criticism and rejection. Note that we don't even allow those feelings a right to exist given current circumstances, when we could be exploring why we feel, how we can work with it or change our actions in order to avoid the same situations if they're getting in the way of who we want to be. 

The thing is - emotions, feelings, desires - should never be repressed or denied. They should be unquestionably accepted - they are a representation of the form we take as human animals with minds, perhaps spirits, souls or connections to the divine. (That doesn't mean we don't learn from these things and our reaction to them; but if we are spending all our effort resisting and criticising our current circumstances, we fail to focus on working with our natural impulses, cycles, reactions)

To deny our form and the resulting limitations and effects of being in these forms brings us no closer to happiness or enlightenment, even if we sit 23 1/2 hours a day and refrain from looking at the opposite sex and live a life of total simplicity.

One of the truths I’ve accepted is that the sword of understanding - the sword of Dharma - can be used to cut through our bullshit quite effectively… but it’s equally effective as a weapon against ourselves if we decide to use it in such a way.

That space between a desire, an emotion, a feeling, and an action should be filled with acceptance of what is, followed by skillful choice. Using that time to refute that we even feel such a thing - that’s like playing with very sharp knives.

You should notice that people's blogs and individual entries load much more quickly than before, and if you use the link to 'friends' blogs' to catch up with what your friends are saying, we've given that a pretty good kick in the butt too. 

We've always sought out ways to make sure the Gaia experience is a good one, but over the next few months we'll be working extra hard to improve the performance and usability of the site.

Thanks to each and every one of you!

When I moved to Boulder from Boston, I left behind friends and loved ones in search of a space of my own, a space where I could return to the passions and interests that fuel me, rediscover myself as an individual person, and seek the wisdom that comes from the quietude of being by oneself.

But it didn't quite happen that way. I found very close friendship quickly with just a few people, the kind where hours slip by in easy, enjoyable, comfortable conversation. And I quickly learned to expect that level of interaction, that level of interpersonal stimulation. I fell in love with being around loved ones. 

About the time of my birthday, that changed, and I lost that daily interaction - so I threw myself into work, into play, into interaction with other people nearby... by the following weekend, I'd worn myself out perhaps more completely than any other time in my life. I hadn't stopped in weeks. I hadn't breathed. I hadn't taken time alone with my thoughts, in that shadowed, scary place where self-doubts and gnawing anxieties arise.

Our relationships are best when they are like two flames warming and dancing with each other, but drawing from their own fuel. When I use my friendships to replace my own lack of energy, or inspiration, or spiritual fuel, I drain them.. I diminish their glow. And the same happens when they do it to me.

I've found it hard sometimes to see that point when things cross over, because it isn't always something that you see in relationship. Oftentimes, you see it when you're alone. Perhaps craving attention, wishing someone was around to whom you could talk - about anything - the weather even. When you don't let yourself take that time, you don't even see it.

But in the past few weeks, both by choice and by necessity, I've spent more time breathing, more time remembering being happy and comfortable by myself. It feels good. Spacious.. as if the world is opening up an array of opportunities to me and simply saying - take your time... choose well.

I don't mind hanging out by myself. It brings me back to my center.

But when I do express it... I do it through a million small things. My words (essays, entries, poems, letters.... (the ones you all get to read here, and the ones that are meant for the eyes of a few, or only myself and one other)... I write with more clarity, more understanding, more inspiration. The presence of others, especially the ones I love so dearly... is the core of my creativity. Through my relationships with these wonderful beings arises everything I have to share. Without them, without this love, without this care... I would have nothing to share with you. 

They are my inspiration, and my muse.

I do it through my actions, a glance. A kiss. A look. My hand on someone's shoulder. Giving - time, lots of time, and lots of energy too. And occasionally gifts; I love giving them. It's a shame in our culture that so many use gifts as a system of barter - to earn favor from another, to set up a system of expectation or debt; I don't want those dynamics in my relationships.

But when my heart is full and I love, I'm not even sure i'd call it 'expressing love'... I feel like it just shines out without my effort or thought at all, and trying to shape it or force it only occludes that light. My challenge is just letting it come forth, without restricting it due to doubt, fear, impatience, unknowing. My challenge is just to be the channel through which this care flows freely.

I can see through the front you put up. I know you've been worried someone would figure you out eventually. Sorry, but you were right. I know what you fear.

You tell yourself that you present well; that you're presenting a mask, or only a part of you, and wherever you go, there's that little worry -- maybe not so little - maybe it consumes you -- that somebody, somewhere, would find out your charade and call you out. 

I'm calling you out. But not in the way you're expecting.

These things you share with people; this mask you wear; this presentation of yours; these things youv'e done or thoughts you've had; they're all true, aren't they? This isn't stuff you're making up. This is the stuff you choose to share with the rest of us. Your best side.

And when people offer you respect, when they want to be like you, when they compliment you, you feel like they're only seeing this surface part, a little piece, the front you put up. So instead of accepting the kindness and the accolades offered to you, you say 'I put on a good show.' and deep inside the fear grows a little that you'll disappoint when they find you out.

Here's the deal. That person who earns respect, who is a role model, who inspires people, who is complimented on her work... that's you. Not only that, but by your own admission, it's a fraction of who you are as a complete person. Just a tiny part of you achieves greatness and the people around you recognize it.

Real masks and real facades don't do anything other than hide the truth. They can't achieve greatness. But these things about you, your 'presentation', isn't a fake. It's you. Right down to the core. And you know it isn't even all of you. You know that you're even more than the person who does these things. You're not less. You're not someone else. You ARE the recipient of this applause.

That's the logic of it. Your fear is that you're lying and somebody's going to find out that you're not up to the task. But the truth is that you're just sharing a real part of yourself, the parts that 'present well' - that doesn't make them any less impressive, and it doesn't change the fact that you earned the praise you receive.

And there's another bit to it, that I hit all the time; maybe you do too - work situations are especially potent at bringing up these fears. But here's a little secret: if you don't feel a little under-equipped for the work you do, you're not being challenged. You're not learning. You're not being asked to grow. 

But you didn't come here for the short answer, did you? (And if you did, well, I'm too wordy for that!). And the long answer is much more complex and intricate.

Long answer: Depends on what your definition of 'happiness' is.

Well, that didn't make things any clearer, did it?

For most people, happiness isn't something that's experienced as a primary emotion such as it is a commingled experience of feelings ranging from contentment, satisfaction, bliss and joy; and it is also the absence of negative emotions -- jealousy, anger, sadness, disappointment, confusion. But who can really define happiness in a clear, concise manner, without using these terms above? Who can encapsulate its meaning into something profoundly simple yet broad enough to describe the entire range of human happiness?

I've heard a lot of people confused by their practice when - after diligently attending to the practices of their chosen path - life doesn't get easier or happier. Parts of their experience they'd taken for granted start to fall away. Rules and concepts they believed stable and reliable no longer apply, and the right choice begins to waver, blurring from a clear line into a gradient of many options.

Most spiritual practices aren't designed for prolonging any particular state of mind such as 'happiness' or 'joy', or eradicating emotions like anger or jealousy. Meditation, for example, increases awareness of mental processes, allowing a person to see how feelings, thoughts, emotions appear, fill the mind, and fade back into the background. Physical practices such as yoga teach awareness of the way energy and feeling work in the physical body, offering a visceral understanding of the way each part connects to and works with the others. In fact, all the practices I've experienced - though certainly not even a significant fraction of the those by which enlightenment can be obtained - deal with awakening to a space of awareness, of opening to and seeing what's going on around you and inside you right now. They all deal with awareness.

But looking at anything really close up exposes imperfections, flaws, blemishes, differences. Nothing is perfect and uniform, no matter how close or far away you look... (though I like to say that makes everything perfect!). And that's how the life you're used to can fall apart, right in front of you, as your spiritual practice deepens. 

If you were taught that the end of your practice is happiness, you'd probably feel cheated, disappointed, unproductive, disillusioned. Add that to confusion and you might think you just fell off the wagon. But you're actually just riding through the rough parts of the trail. 

It comes down to that awareness. Your life hasn't gotten worse, but you're more aware of what's going on and more aware of your responses to it - the peaks and valleys you used to miss, or ignore, or smooth over by virtue of not paying attention, or resisting, or denying now spread out unavoidably in front of you. And you likely see yourself making these decisions that part of you understands aren't your best choices, but that another part of you feels are your only choice. And when you feel sad, you feel totally aware of your sadness. When you feel angry, you feel totally aware of your anger. But if you've learned that enlightenment is total, unending bliss, you might also feel as if you shouldn't be angry, or shouldn't be sad, or should just let things pass without attachment.

Detachment by itself does not awaken a person, and the common perception of detachment goes like this "Don't feel too strongly for or against anything. Let it be, let it flow. I shouldn't want things or resist things.", etc., etc. But we're human. We're expressed in a form that feels love, lust, desire, anger, sadness, joy, pain... and to detach fully requires that we resist the very form we're given; it requires pushing away a part of what we are. And while that's not impossible, I wonder if we place too much attachment on the idea of detachment itself; I hear so many people say 'I shouldn't be angry.' or 'I shouldn't be upset' when the fact is, expressing that only redoubles and continues the emotions that trouble them so. 

Spiritual practice is going to make you tremendously angry, tremblingly sad, deliriously happy. In fact, for a while everything will feel vastly intensified, if you let it; if you don't resist it.  

And then, sooner or later, will come a glorious experience. You'll drive home one day and hear yourself say 'I'm mean because I broke up with so-and-so", and you'll hear another part of yourself say "I don't need to feel that way." and your ego will slink back. Maybe it will come out a little later and taunt you for something else, and you'll strike back with "That's not important to me."

And you're liberated from being intimately identified with that voice that strikes you down - the "I'm a really bad person. Haha!" smug voice that gets some satisfaction out of self-hatred. Soon you realize that you're also a step behind the waves of emotion that used to completely shake the foundations of your being. You still feel as strongly, but the emotions no longer define you, and so you hold onto them with much less anxiety and energy. 

And in that space, all the emotions of being human - love, anger, sadness, and others - still rise and fall, but behind it all is a peace, an open space where you are you, the atman, the holy part, the unbreakable you. And this, truly, is a form of happiness that can coexist with all other emotions you're capable of feeling. 

(It shouldn't be a surprise that this is a point of awakening or enlightenment in some traditions - in some forms of Buddhism it represents a part of the first level of enlightenment...)

Yesterday, I ran through a parking lot with my arms outstretched, gleefully giddy, and felt so totally free. That moment, that feeling, such intimate and ephemeral perfection, and I was free to let the joy go naturally instead of fight to keep it alive.

Does spiritual practice make you happier? No, it brings you awareness, intimacy with now and here, freedom from the bondage of your past decisions and arbitrary rules. It brings you tremendous turmoil and then unstoppable peace. It brings you to your center, to the place of your calm, where you find a happiness that exists in the presence of all things, even sadness, anger, disappointment.

Does spiritual practice make you happier? Yes. It just takes you all over the map on the way.

the distance between us

cannot be measured 

in miles

or hours.

we can't explain this

with words like near or

far away.

No measures.

this ache just fills the space

between you whom I hold

right here -

and you.

And we adore, resist, 

embrace, abhor,

this ache

but it means we live.

i want, like the wind -

to see myself running

through these words of yours;

playful in your phrases,

or a storm, or twist of 

light warming freckled skin.

So i invent myself 

in the shadows, listen 

with ears that rebuild 

your art in my image.

i press myself in 

between your lines

artlessly, with love

i want to be the hum

of a note or two;

i want to be a vowel,

even a word on a single line.

So I invent myself 

a world where we are at play,

our words draw a map.

my imagination places me

in places your heart created

but maybe not all is shadow

that's me running through

your words, here and there,

a boy playing in your soul.