Self-realisation is knowing our true place in the world.
When obtained, problems are no longer problems and life is ever peaceful.
When without, problems are insurmountable and life is ever turbulent.
We begin with a simple presupposition. All we want is to be happy.
It is a reasonable assumption, one backed by western thought since ancient times. As early as 340 BC, Aristotle writes in the Nicomachean Ethics that the one aim of an individual is to achieve what he called Eudaimonia, which translated into English is Happiness.
But philosophy is for philosophers. What we are talking about cannot be conveyed on paper.
Words are too clumsy of an instrument of conveying the complexity of this term. Happiness isn’t a word. It is a feeling, a state of mind. One which we seek to be in as much as possible as intensely as possible. We all know very well what happiness feels like, and we will not get there by analysing the meaning of the word.
Instead we may find where happiness resides by seeing where it is not. We are not happy when we are anxious or depressed. We get anxious and depressed when we come across problems in life.
Only when we are not anxious or depressed, when nothing is bothering us, can we allow ourselves to come to states of happiness. That is not to say we will by default be in a state of happiness (necessarily), but it is only when those things are out of the way that we may manifest joy in our lives. We know that these states of anxiety and depression arise from having problems. Therefore, the first step of getting happier is to be without problems.
If we were rational beings, devoid of emotion, we would come to find we do not have any problems. Computers certainly don’t have problems. They are either working on something or waiting to work on something. Nowhere is there a computer anxious about the outcome of what its working on!
There are two fundamental differences between us and a computer:
Computers do not experience emotions, humans do.
Computers get accurate input, humans do not.
It is by these two distinctions that we may understand the point.
We are gifted with the ability to alter our environment. We are only guided to do so by our emotions. Without emotions, we would not want to do anything! When hungry, it is the emotional effect of the hunger that makes us find food. That’s why, we can’t suppress or get rid of our emotions, they help us to know what we are doing!
On a related note, when we are emotionally charged, we tend to assign our conscious attention onto different things. For example, if we are about to have dinner with people and we are hungry, we focus more on the food than we do on the discussion. So, the information we get from our environment is in itself filtered down based on how we feel at the moment.
So, without emotion, we would not want to do anything. Even if we could, we would not filter the right information to act upon. Knowing why we cannot get rid of emotions and what the impact of emotions are, we can finally talk about a solution.
That solution is self-realisation. The term has been used too often for different things in psychology, spirituality and philosophy, but it defines this thing we are talking about quite well.
Simply put, self-realisation as described here, is knowing one’s place in the universe. To fully comprehend your current place, and by extension, the totality of reality. This realisation is variously called Satori in Zen, Moksha in Hinduism, Ziran in Daoism.
Whatever we may call it, when we are in that state, we can see that the problems which we held onto are really nothing serious in the bigger picture. This is because we have learned that the fundamental expression of reality allows for your being. This changes the values we place on things, and by proxy, our emotional reactions to them. Because of this, though we are not rational machines, we may live without problems or worry.
On the flip side, if we were to carry on in this current way of things, we would be beset by problems that do not come with solutions. Furthermore, we will find as a result of our anxieties, more and more related problems start to appear.
It is in this way that we may begin to approach happiness. First, we become self-realised and sublimate our problems. That by itself is more than half the work. Once we get ourselves out of the way, we may delve into discussions on the source and interactions of the self and the world.
It is not all or nothing. As we become more aware, we find ourselves less burdened. Those moments of peace and happiness begin to become more frequent and lasting. The journey takes as long as it takes.
Be content.
– Dai
Freely Contained 