Secrets of Spiritual Happiness

Secret #9 -- Learning to Smile

 

    

 

By Sharon Janis

 

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Start every day off with a smile and get it over with.

- W. C. Fields

 

Beginning sometime mid-childhood, I developed a habit of walking around with a fairly serious face, even when I was feeling quite fine.   I was only marginally aware of this habit until my twenties, while living in an ashram, or Indian monastery.   My guru noticed my tendency, and hinted about it several times.   Once, she mentioned in a letter that it was difficult to see such a serious face all the time.   You'd think I would have gotten it from that.  

In fact, I did send back a very light and humorous letter to demonstrate my not-so-serious side.   My guru's reply to that letter noted that she'd enjoyed its lightness, and suggested that maybe the serious face was "a façade that you like to wear, God knows for what reason."  

At the time, I hadn't contemplated this tendency enough to have any real explanation or reason for my often-serious face, although my guru's words did inspire me to take a much closer look at the inner mechanisms involved.   Until then, I wasn't even particularly aware of the fact that I looked quite as serious as I did.  

First, I considered that, in fact, I was fairly serious and determined to make progress on my spiritual evolution while living in this holy, powerful, and fairly intense environment.   Yet, I was also having the time of my life, with an abundance of spiritual and creative riches.   I was living a life even beyond my dreams come true.   I loved the spiritual practices of our monastic life, such as chanting, service, scriptural study, and contemplation, and especially enjoyed having such rich and inspiring outlets for my creative spirit, while creating hundreds of videos about the teachings and events of our spiritual path.   I was usually able to fluff petty problems off with my reasonably good sense of humor - which, apparently, only a select few got to see, since I appeared to be "so serious all the time!"  

With contemplation, I realized that the serious face truly was a façade that I liked to wear, for various reasons that God knew, and that I also wanted to uncover.   If I could discover my deeper reasons for choosing to look serious, then I could decide whether I was making the best choice.  

The main reason basically boiled down to not wanting people to notice me or to feel jealous of me, especially when I was feeling blessed and happy.   I had observed, from a young age, that certain people respond to a happy face by feeling jealous.   They might wonder what you'd received that they hadn't, and perhaps would even consider ways to take your blessings away from you.   Some people might like to see what your happy face would look like with a frown instead.   It's one of those deep, dark corners of human nature - to see someone who has what we might want, and, instead of creating the same for ourselves, to try and take it away from the other person.  

In this way, I was contemplating my guru's suggestion that the serious face must be a façade that I liked to wear, for some reason.   Nevertheless, I continued to keep my facial muscles more or less in their comfortable, familiar, and not so expressive positions.  

Eventually, my guru took the situation to a whole new level, and gave me an instruction that, "you should smile all the time." Several friends also knew about this instruction, and would flash big reminder smiles when we passed in the hallway.  

At first, it wasn't too hard for me to smile, since things were actually going pretty well in my life at the time. I was already smiling inside; therefore adding an outer smile was easily doable, although my face was aching a bit from the unfamiliar position.

Then came part two of the lesson. All of a sudden, certain situations came about that challenged my happiness.   These were fairly minor incidents, but the kinds of things that can be particularly irritating and disturbing.   These challenges caused me to feel somewhat upset and most definitely not like smiling.

But "smile all the time" was a command from my beloved guru, whose guidance I greatly trusted.   I knew that somehow this effort was going to be good for me, even though I wouldn't have chosen to do it on my own.   Talk about a struggle of the will - to smile when I wasn't even feeling happy!   Yet, what a great way it was to learn to find happiness even during upsetting times.  

The only way I could honestly fulfill this command was to actually make myself feel happy enough to smile.   If I had tried to smile while upset or angry, that smile would have been more of an insincere grimace (and we've all seen those!), which would not have been honoring the spirit of this directive.   And don't think it escaped me to consider that "smile all the time" would also apply to the inner smile!

I had no choice but to find happiness inside myself.   Of course, this shouldn't have been so hard, because I still had much to be happy about, in spite of those few irritations that had popped up.   Nevertheless, no matter how many great blessings we have, human nature seems to have an engrained tendency to focus a disproportionate amount of our attention on relatively small troubles that may have come along with our wondrous blessings - complaining and getting stuck again and again on the thorns that come along with our beautiful and fragrant roses of life.  

Here I was, having been given a command that called me to let go of this tendency to look at troubles more than blessings.   I had to choose happiness and deflect unhappiness from my mind.   Then, I would be able to offer a sincere smile.   Certainly, I did have reasons to be upset, yet my commission was to not let that upset take over my mind.   I couldn't, because I had to smile - all the time !

In fact, two decades later, when I was asked to write this book on spiritual happiness after having just gone through a particularly challenging seven years, it didn't take long for me to see the hand of my universal guide behind it.   This project felt very much like a continuation and expansion of the lesson to "smile all the time."   I could almost hear my guru saying, "Okay, now you've been through seven years of illness, poverty, and betrayal by those for whom you have cared and helped the most - now, write an honest and powerful book about happiness!"  

Working on this project also brought great blessings, including a new appreciation for the troubling times I'd experienced.   With a closer look, those seven years of trial and tribulation were filled with amazing grace and great reasons to be truly, spiritually happy.   With contemplative hindsight, I could see that the challenges I had been through would also bring me to write about a deeper level of happiness than just how to "get what you want."   After all, what is the use of writing about some temporary happiness that comes and goes depending on uncontrollable outer situations?   What we need, and what the world needs, is to find independent happiness, expanded happiness, elevated happiness, and spiritual happiness.

With about six months to write this book, the first two were spent grumbling a bit in my conversations with God.   "So, what, now I'm supposed to be happy all the time?"   I mean, you'd think I'd be happy that God would want me to be happy, but it's also amazing to see what little doubts and resistances can be hidden when it really comes down to making those big leaps of consciousness, such as the shift into realizing and accepting our own spiritual happiness.

I've chosen to share this experience with you so that you can also recognize any similar resistances that may come up as you move forward on your own journey of spiritual happiness.

Once again, I had to rise up to the occasion and make myself clear and spiritually happy enough to follow this command, and to share something worthwhile in this book.   It was a similar inner experience to receiving the command to "smile all the time."  

Even while going through various layers of inner resistance about becoming a "happiness author," my deep soul smile became bigger and brighter by the moment.   What a blessing it has been to focus my mind, heart, and soul on the topic of happiness, and specifically, spiritual happiness.   What a gift.   I could almost hear God saying, "I want you to be happy," and it was one of the sweetest things I've ever heard inside of myself.   I hope that this gift also becomes your gift, as you recognize, contemplate, and strengthen your own spiritual happiness.  

Happiness is your birthright, and you can uncover that happiness through intention and practice.   Intend to be happy, and practice being happy. Imagine that God has spoken inside of you, saying, "I want you to be happy."   Feel the freedom that comes from trusting that God wants you to be happy.   Give it a go - smile all the time, or at least smile for a while.

Neuroscientists have discovered that using our facial muscles to smile actually feeds back into our brains to spark greater sensations of happiness.   So smile, smile, smile.   Smile gently, and smile broadly.   Smile inside, and smile outside.   Let's fill the world with smiling faces, in spite of all the thorns that we could be upset or worried about.   Even while acknowledging and striving to fix the problems in our lives and in the world, we can still hold on to our deep sense of spiritual happiness and make a conscious effort to share that happiness with the world.

 

 

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