Secrets of Spiritual Happiness

Secret #34 -- Do What Your Heart Knows is Right

 

    

 

By Sharon Janis

 

Happiness is the reward we get for living to the highest right we know.

-Richard Bach

An important secret of spiritual happiness is to always strive to do what you believe in your heart to be good and right.

Doing what you really believe is good and right automatically brings more spiritual happiness. The more you can live in a way that is consistent with what you believe is right, the more peace you will enjoy.   You won't be walking around, plagued by nagging pains about all the ways that you may have violated your own morals. You won't be weighed down by mountains of guilt, shame, and disappointments.

If you go against what you know is right, you may sometimes create a semblance of temporary outer happiness - such as by gaining some material benefit from pulling one over on someone else, or from thinking that you're better than someone else, or while laughing about having put somebody down.   However, if you know deep inside that you have violated one of the important laws of goodness and decency, then your long-term spiritual happiness will become diminished and depleted, even if your outer happiness has temporarily increased.  

Let's say that you've managed to acquire a whole bunch of money by ripping people off.   You get to buy a big, brand-new house and expensive new cars.   Your whole life has apparently improved, and you appear to be happy, happy, and happy.   But, perhaps, your spiritual happiness is not so good.   And truthfully, if your spiritual happiness is not so good, then that will eventually erode even the outer happiness.   Either you will lose what you had, or you'll become dissatisfied regardless of everything you have.   Eventually, you'll no longer be happy - inwardly, outwardly, relatively or spiritually.   Nothing will be enough to fill the black hole of emptiness that comes from harming somebody else to benefit yourself.   Your soul knows better.

On the other hand, if you go out of your way to be righteous and kind, and in the process end up with outer lacks that cause a certain amount of outer unhappiness, then your righteousness and kindness may still bring you greater spiritual happiness, in spite of the outer challenges.

Even when things appear to be going wrong in our lives, we can maintain a connection with spiritual happiness just by living according to our highest morals and aspirations. As spiritual happiness shines from within our hearts, amazing miracles may also take place in our outer lives, eventually creating more happiness all the way around.   Therefore, if you had to choose between outer happiness and spiritual happiness, my suggestion would be to choose spiritual happiness.

Spiritual happiness comes from acting in accordance with our deepest knowledge and wisdom about what is good, what is true, and what is right.   Somebody who becomes apparently happy by taking advantage of others may think that he or she is happy, but deep in their soul, there is not the kind of happiness that will remain throughout their life, or at the moment of their death. On the other hand, righteous living and spiritual happiness are beloved friends during our lives, and continue to give us great comfort and support when the time comes for us to leave this world.

Obviously, each of us is fallible as we walk through the path of life, so there is no need to berate yourself for falling short of your greatest aspirations and ideals.   Just keep striving to do what you know in your heart is right, and to continue to learn and grow from your mistakes. Listen to the inner guide who tells you when you've done something wrong, as clearly as the dramatic music in a movie would tell you that something bad just happened.   You can also learn to hear that music inside of you - a dramatic feeling, announcing that you've created something you don't want by doing something you know isn't right.  

The more attuned we become to hearing, seeing, thinking, or feeling this nudging nag from our inner selves, the sooner we can change our mode of action to be in greater harmony with what we know is right - and the sooner we get to bask in the golden rays of spiritual happiness.

 

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