Happy?

Happy?

It's complicated.

Doesn't mean I can't find out for you. Let's have a look at the feeling factory. I've got the key, just stay behind and keep your safety belt near. What's that? Oh, just the usual - flashlight if things get dark, some cortisol and sugar if you get somewhere dangerous and want to go old-school on the monsters' ass. Couple of reminders of visualizations there for you too, but to be honest, they're a little like books in that if you get into a situation where you need them, if they're not already tucked away in your noggin then you probably won't have a chance to fully engage them.

Anyways, just stay close. It's my factory and the reporting lines are mostly respected.

Ok then, where's the light - oh there. Shit! Bulb's burned out. Pragma - you busy? You're never THAT busy, I know, cause if you were sector 7 - relationships and homebuilding - would be a lot less choppy than what it is. Listen - can you get a new bulb in there - thanks mate.

Ok. Let's see - where too first? Autonomic? That's a good place to start, get a real time view of what's going on. They're up the stairs here, follow me.

Phew, little out of breath - Hi Otto. Otto's world here is all about self-regulation, he monitors without getting involved too much. See that guage over there - vitals. It spiked as I came up the stairs there, settling back down now. That vat over there is fight or flight - always kept at a simmer, you never know. Not a lot happening here right now. Otto, can you let us in the lift there - thanks partner.

Ok, we're going downtown, mate. This is where the bad boys hang out. Id runs in and out of here like it's a public library; trying to get him secured better but its all about time isn't it.

Here, best idea is to look through the viewing window. WHOA big fella. Now here is a good example. Dread and fear. The big grey blob - that's dread; the blanket - well, it looks like a blanket anyways - that's fear. Real bedfellows those two.

What's that? Well, we're getting to your answer, but answers without context are like swallowed sneeze - tight, constrained, and pretty unfufilling. You really NEED the environment before you can paint the picture. We're almost done.

Look down - see all the gasses - well -that's the easiest way to picture them. Plexi floors give a pretty good show yah? The gasses are the good guys, delight, grace, freedom, and mixed together into a pastel powder blue - happiness. They're constantly mixed at a fundamental level, then they settle into the predominant shade. Hmmm? Yes, those are two way pipes between Otto, the Badboys, and the flooring. Happiness piped in calms and diffuses, Otto and the Badboys get aggressive, they can feed into the gasses and create a real shitstorm.

So. To answer your question. Yes, I'm happy. I'm also enraged and ecstatic. Manic and depressed. Grace filled and contracted. All depends on the timing mate.

Heraculitis.

Shift

Greg Goode has given about as fine an explanation of enlightenment as I have ever come across. Which I will now promptly screw up, through paraphrasing. In essence, enlightenment is establishing the non-difference between enlightenment and non-enlightenment.

Now this might seem like semantic chuff, but it actually encapsulates the whole enchilada from a non-dual perspective. To whit:

Wanting to be enlightened presupposes that you are not. Two states. You are unenlightened, and somebody else is enlightened. You want to move from your state to their state. Thing is, there is only one state.

This can be realized through the realization of truth through pointers:

-You are not your body (you exist in sleep without bodily perceptions per se)
-You are not your mind (you exist in dreamless sleep without mind perceptions)
- All non (non-dual) experiences revolve around self and an other:

This can manifest in happiness (feeling of non separation) and unhappiness (feeling of separation). In either case, there is a subtle duality, which will inevitably lead to suffering. (Happiness based on duality is set-up to fail by its very nature; unhappiness based on duality is, well, suffering and unhappiness).

In duality:

When you are depressed, you want to feel a different way (duality).
When you are angry, you are propelled to feel another way (duality)
When you are happy, you have moved from one feeling to another (duality)

So it can all be boiled down to this: realize what you are not. when it is seen, then realized, that there is no separation, all relative happiness and unhappiness dissolves. you are left as that which is. Awareness, the big fabric without thread count or edge, out of which everything arises from and fades back into.

Which is why Yogananda's prayer of a multi-jetted flame (one flame, split into hundreds of little flames through a stove burner) was such an affecting metaphor.

Which is why the picture I have of space reversed is such an affecting metaphor. (No space between individuals. Negative space, like in drawing. Draw what is not, and the picture appears. See the space between individuals as non-space, and you have a connectedness that we all poke up through. My picture, however weak, is like an eternally large piece of dental-dam, with shapes appearing in and then returning to it).

So. That is enlightenment. Initially you are motivated to find out what is 'wrong' - which points to a world of duality, which needs to be integrated. Non-dual realization identifies this seeming duality, and integrates them. Thing is, after integration, a survey indicates that they were never separated in the first place. Thus, it is seen that there is no difference between enlightenment and non-enlightenment. When this seeing becomes a realization, one is rooted in the absolute, and free. Which was the case all along, right?