Thread: Why is it that we have more bitter feelings than happy feelings?

In general if you observe people who live in the modern world (this is excluding 3rd world countries though some there, too) they are generally what one would consider happy, or at least content. Similarities are harder to notice and point out than differences so when something changes or you experience a moderate sadness it is the equivalent to a fairly large happiness. On a scale from 1 to 10 we are naturally at a 6 or 7 so a 2 or 3 will be more noticeable than a 9.

If you were to talk to someone who is often what one would consider sad and rarely experiences happiness then it would be the opposite. They could remember the good times (a good harvest, a healthy child/newborn) much more easily than the bad times (their everyday life). Differences are more noticeable than similarities; a jagged line stands out more than a smooth line.

Modern life is just not for us (stress, paper controlling your life, blah blah blah). If I could choose, I would want to do it all over again but, 10.000BC style this time. I bet I would be way more happy then now. Not to mention how much more intresting life would be. The night sky alone would be a very magical-godly thing. Nope, I wouldn't mind at all.

I think depending on the period of a persons life, the balance can favor the happier side too.

Lack of exercise, improper nutrition/awful diet, too much drama, taking the world too seriously, etc. are what I see as the biggest reasons for unhappiness in the modern world, or at least for myself. If I exercise often enough, eat well, and just realize that what happens in my life isn't that big of a deal, that I'm taking things way too seriously and need to lighten up (a lot), generally I am a happy person. Now and then I hit melancholy spells where I wind up thinking a lot, but I actually kind of like those. They don't usually last too long and then things are back to normal. I'd say the biggest two things that affect my happiness are without a doubt exercise and not taking the world too seriously.

Why do we have lives filled with turmoil, desperation, and anxiety? Why are
we always pushing ourselves and others? Why do we have only small
dribbles of peace, love, and happiness? Why is it that human beings are
characterized by bickering and turmoil that make animals’ relationships with
their own species seem peaceful in comparison? The answer is so simple --
but it is sometimes difficult for us to really understand because almost every
way we were taught to work toward happiness only reinforces the feelings
and activities that make us unhappy.

This is a central point that must be understood. The ways we were taught to
be happy can’t possibly work. Unless we see this point clearly, we cannot
progress to higher consciousness. Here’s why.

Most of us assume that our desires (backed up by our emotional feelings) are
the true guides to doing the things that will make us happy. But no one has
yet found happiness by using emotion-backed desires as guides. Flashes of
pleasure, yes; happiness, no.

Our wants and desires are so seductive . . . They masquerade as “needs” that
must be satisfied so we can be happy at last. They lead us from one illusion
of happiness to another. Some of us tell ourselves, “if I can just get to be
president of this corporation, I will be happy.” But have you ever seen a
really happy president? His outside drama may feature beautiful yachts,
Cadillacs, Playboy bunnies -- but is he really happy inside? Has his ulcer
gone away yet?

We constantly tell ourselves such things as, “If I could just go back to school
and acquire more knowledge -- perhaps get a Master’s degree -- then I will
be happy.” But are people with Master’s degrees or Ph.D.’s any happier than
the rest of us? It is beautiful to acquire knowledge but it is misleading to
expect it to bring us peace, love, and happiness. We tell ourselves, “If I could
only find the right person to love, then I would be happy.” So we search for
someone who our addictions tell us is the right person -- and we experience
some pleasurable moments. But since we don’t know how to love, the
relationship gradually deteriorates. Then we decide we didn’t have the right
person after all! As we grow into higher consciousness, we discover that it is
more important to be the right person than to find the right person.

We must deeply understand why all of our negative emotions are misleading
guides to effective action in life situations. Our negative emotions are simply
the result of an extensive pattern of scars and wounds that we have
experienced. And these emotional wounds lead us to perceive differences
that make us uptight instead of similarities that enable us to understand and
love. The present programming of our emotions makes us perceive other
people (and the conditions of the world around us) as threats -- potentially
dangerous to our well-being. We then respond with adrenalin, faster
heartbeat, increased blood sugar, and other jungle survival responses that
prepare us for fight or flight. We are trapped in our ways of perceiving the
world around us.

But no one (or no situation) need be felt as an emotional threat or danger
when we see things with the clearer perception of higher consciousness.
Think of the most threatening situation you have felt in the last day or two.
Are you about to lose your job? Is the person for whom you feel the most
love paying more attention to someone else than to you? Do you have unpaid
bills that you cannot take care of? Do you have a pain that could be cancer?
Now, these problems either have solutions -- or they don’t. Either you can do
something about them here and now -- or you can’t. If you can do something
here and now about them, then do it -- even if it’s just a first step. It saps
your energy to be worried or anxious about a problem. Do what you can do
-- but don’t be addicted to the results or you will create more worry for
yourself. If you can’t do anything about a problem here and now, then why
make yourself uncomfortable and drain your energy by worrying about it? It
is part of the here and nowness of your life. That’s what is -- here and now.
Worry, anxiety, or other unpleasant emotions are absolutely unnecessary --
and simply lower your insight and the effectiveness of your actions.
You must absolutely convince yourself of the lack of utility of these draining
emotions. You must see your unnecessary worrying as depriving you of the
flowing effectiveness and joyousness that you should have in your life. As
long as you think that these negative emotions have any function whatsoever,
you will retard your growth into higher consciousness. If you do not hassle
yourself emotionally when the outside world does not conform with your
inside programming (your desires, expectations, demands, or models of how
the world should treat you) you will have so much energy that you probably
will sleep fifty per cent less. You will be joyous and loving, and really
appreciate each moment of your life -- no matter what’s happening in the
world of people and situations outside you.

Where and how did we get this emotional programming? Almost all of it was
acquired in the first few years of life. For example, when we were very
young, we had the experience of mother forcefully taking a perfume bottle
from our tiny fingers and at the same time sending out bad vibrations based
on her desire not to have her perfume bottle broken. We cried. Through
being painfully pushed around, dominated, told what to do, and controlled
when we were babies, we developed our emotionally intense security,
sensation, and power programs. Many of our emotion-backed programs
came from repeated moral directives or statements about how things “should”
be. We developed a “self” consciousness with robot-like emotional
responses to protect the “survival” of this separate self.
So we become emotionally programmed to feel that we must have power to
control and manipulate people in order to be happy. We eventually become
very finely attuned to the actions or vibrations of any person or situation that
even remotely threatens our power addictions -- our ability to manipulate and
control people and things around us.

As we reach physical maturity and our biocomputer (or brain) is able to
function more perceptively, we have all the power we need. But our
biocomputer (backed up by the full repertory of our emotions) is still
programmed to compensate for the power deficiency we experienced when
we were infants and young children. We now need to learn to flow with the
people and things around us. But our power addiction keeps us from loving
people because we perceive them as objects that may threaten our power,
prestige, or pecking order. If we want to love and be loved, we can’t be
addicted to power -- or to anything else.

As conscious beings the only thing we need to find happiness in life is to
perceive clearly who we are (we are pure consciousness and not the social
roles we are acting out), and exactly what are the real conditions, here and
now, of our lives. How basically simple is our problem! But to achieve this
clear perception of ourselves and the world around us takes constant inner
work. And this means developing the habit of emotionally accepting
whatever is here and now in our lives. For only an emotionally calm
biocomputer can see clearly and wisely, and come up with effective ways to
interact with people and situations.

Our power addiction is only one example of the happiness-destroying
programming that we put into our biocomputers when we were too young to
perceive the realities of the world in which we lived. Although we now have
the basic capacity for clear perception, the operating instructions we gave our
biocomputer anchor us to the lower levels. And so we’re unconsciously
trapped.

Here and now is the reality in our lives -- and it is only from the conditions of
the present that our future can be generated. But our present addictions,
demands, and expectations (the programming of our biocomputer) dominate
our consciousness and force us to spend most of the time we are awake (and
most of the time we are dreaming) in protesting and pouting about the here
and now situation in our lives. This lowers our perceptiveness and keeps us
from finding effective solutions to our problems.

The Twelve Pathways To the Higher Consciousness Planes of Unconditional Love and Oneness

Freeing Myself

1. I am freeing myself from security, sensation, and power addictions that
make me try to forcefully control situations in my life, and thus destroy my
serenity and keep me from loving myself and others.

2. I am discovering how my consciousness-dominating addictions create my
illusory version of the changing world of people and situations around me.

3. I welcome the opportunity (even if painful) that my minute-to-minute
experience offers me to become aware of the addictions I must reprogram to
be liberated from my robot-like emotional patterns.

Being Here Now

4. I always remember that I have everything I need to enjoy my here and
now -- unless I am letting my consciousness be dominated by demands and
expectations based on the dead past or the imagined future.

5. I take full responsibility here and now for everything I experience, for it is
my own programming that creates my actions and also influences the
reactions of people around me.

6. I accept myself completely here and now and consciously experience
everything I feel, think, say, and do (including my emotion-backed addictions)
as a necessary part of my growth into higher consciousness.

Interacting with Others

7. I open myself genuinely to all people by being willing to fully
communicate my deepest feelings, since hiding in any degree keeps me stuck
in my illusion of separateness from other people.

8. I feel with loving compassion the problems of others without getting
caught up emotionally in their predicaments that are offering them messages
they need for their growth.

9. I act freely when I am tuned in, centered, and loving, but if possible I
avoid acting when I am emotionally upset and depriving myself of the
wisdom that flows from love and expanded consciousness.

Discovering my Conscious-Awareness

10. I am continually calming the restless scanning of my rational mind in
order to perceive the finer energies that enable me to unitively merge with
everything around me.

11. I am constantly aware of which of the Seven Centers of Consciousness I
am using, and I feel my energy, perceptiveness, love, and inner peace growing
as I open all of the Centers of Consciousness.

12. I am perceiving everyone, including myself, as an awakening being who
is here to claim his or her birthright to the higher consciousness planes of
unconditional love and oneness.

The Twelve Pathways were formulated in 1972, and since that time they have
changed the lives of countless numbers of people. The Twelve Pathways are
a modern, practical condensation of thousands of years of accumulated
wisdom. They give you a minute-to-minute guide for operating your
consciousness while you interact with the world around you. They will
enable you to live a continuously happy, conscious, loving, joyous, fulfilled
life. If you’ve had enough of the up-and-down roller-coastering between
pleasure and pain, and are really ready to enjoy and get the most out of your
life all of the time, then you are ready to use and apply the Twelve Pathways
to make a dramatic change in your life.

The Twelve Pathways to Higher Consciousness can show you how to
accelerate your spiritual development and enable you to begin a new life of
Living Love. These Pathways can show you the way to find the beauty and
happiness that is hidden within you. You were erroneously taught that
happiness lies in getting people and things outside of you lined up exactly to
suit your desires. But our desires multiply so much faster than our capacity to
satisfy them! In the Living Love System, an addiction is any desire that
makes you upset or unhappy if it is not satisfied. Life is warning you to get
rid of an addiction every time you are emotionally uncomfortable in any way.
Even if an addiction brings you pleasure, that pleasure is usually short-lived.
For you will then begin to perceive threats to that pleasure, and you will
worry about changes in your life that will deprive you of the pleasure. And
you compare today’s pleasure with yesterday’s pleasure -- and often find
today’s pleasure is not quite as satisfying. All of this keeps you out of the
here and now. You make a giant step toward higher consciousness when you
become fully aware of the price in happiness you must pay for each addiction.
You can enjoy the same actions and experiences completely when you
uplevel the addiction to the status of a preference.

As you become increasingly aware of how your consciousness operates, you
will be able to distinguish between your biocomputer and the programming
that your biocomputer uses. For example, a million-dollar IBM computer
may work perfectly, but if you put garbage-type programming in it, you will
get garbage-type results from this splendid machine. Computer specialists
use the word “GIGO” to refer to this problem -- “Garbage in - Garbage out.”
If you are not continuously loving everyone around you and continuously
enjoying the here-and-now situations in your life, it means that your
magnificent biocomputer has been operating from “garbage-type”
programming. When you see yourself consciously and clearly, you realize
that you are perfect -- your only problem is to change some of the
programming from which you are operating.

Your ego also plays a crucial part in the operation of your biocomputer.
Based on past pleasure and pain programming, your ego selects which of the
thousands of programs will be used to generate your feelings and experience
of what is happening. Your ego is like a master controller that directs which
emotional feelings will be triggered (joy, pleasure, anger, grief, fear,
disappointment, irritation, etc.) Your ego also chooses exactly what will be
projected onto the screen of your consciousness. You are aware only of what
your ego permits you to be aware of. When your ego is busy reacting to the
people and things around you from the lower three Centers of Consciousness,
your primary awareness will be focused on what you desire and what you fear
-- thereby creating in you the feeling of an urgent priority. Most of these
lower consciousness programs represent the urgent priorities you had at the
age of two years old. Until you reprogram and change these inappropriate
childhood programs, you will continually turn off the energy of the world
around you that you need in order to live in a beautiful world of higher
consciousness.

There are five stages in learning to use these Pathways. Each stage enables
you to be progressively more aware of how these Pathways produce beautiful
and sometimes “miraculous” changes in your life.

1. In the first stage, you are unaware of the Pathways. You are
unconsciously playing out the drama of your life. You are going through
your daily patterns of desiring and rejecting people and things in a
mechanical and unconscious way.

2. In the second stage, when something happens or when someone says
something that you don’t like, you upset yourself even though you are
aware of the Twelve Pathways. You are beginning to see how they can
make your life work when you use them at the programming level where
they will facilitate your interpretation of the here and now. However, you
are still susceptible to your old programming which makes you
automatically angry if someone criticizes you or automatically afraid if
someone triggers your security addictions. The great thing about this
second stage is that you are becoming aware of the lower consciousness
programming that your tend to automatically run off, and you realize that
there is a programming that you can use to create continuous enjoyment
and happiness in your life.

3. In the third stage of learning to use the Pathways, you find that as soon
as you are aware of any uncomfortable feelings, such as fear, anger,
jealousy, grief, etc., you can pinpoint which of the Pathways you are
violating. By thus engaging your rational mind and interpreting your
experience by using a Pathway, you find that you progressively cut down
on the period of unconsciousness in which you are a slave to your older,
lower consciousness programming. In the third stage it may take several
hours for you to dispel the negative emotions you are experiencing, But
you now begin to find that the amount of time that you are upset is being
gradually reduced so that you experience negative emotions only for a
period of minutes, or even seconds. You can still trigger negative
emotional feelings, but you are getting free from them faster and faster.

4. In the fourth stage, you find that if someone does something you do not
like, you may start to get angry, but at that same instant one or two
Pathways flash into your consciousness. These give you an insight which
does not allow the anger response to develop. You experience an
increasing freedom. Your ability to love, accept, and interact flowingly
with other people increases enormously.

5. At the fifth stage, you have eliminated all of the lower consciousness
programming which triggered your negative emotional responses. You
simply respond to whatever is happening here and now by using one of the
Pathways (either consciously or unconsciously) in interpreting what is
happening. You may be aware that you used to get angry or jealous in
this type of situation, but the feeling of anger or jealousy is no longer
triggered. You realize that you are the master of your mind, for you have
determined the programming with which you want your mind to operate.
This is one of the most fulfilling things that you can do.

As soon as you begin to use the Twelve Pathways in your everyday life
situations, you will find that your life takes on a beautiful new dimension.
Things that were previously nagging problems now become vital experiences
that you confidently use in the important job of reprogramming your
biocomputer. You are beginning to realize that everything that happens to you
is really perfect, for you experience either happiness -- because it fits the
patterns of the programming of your biocomputer -- or you experience the
beginning of a negative emotion which is giving you a welcomed opportunity
to work on reprogramming your biocomputer so that you will not have this
problem in the future.

The twelve pathways sounds too idealistic. Wouldn't one feel out of place if their life is only taken up by happiness? There is no sadness or negative emotions to contradict the happiness to bring out the importance and value of happiness. If it is used to trigger a calm feeling regardless of the situations we face, that would be a different story. But if you're really hurt, and you're backstabbed by the same person you forgive over and over again because the twelve pathways states that we can trigger the type of emotion we want for every event that happened to us. That don't make sense, does it? At the least we should know how to protect ourselves instead of blindly loving and accepting everyone.

Originally Posted by Carrot

The twelve pathways sounds too idealistic. Wouldn't one feel out of place if their life is only taken up by happiness? There is no sadness or negative emotions to contradict the happiness to bring out the importance and value of happiness. If it is used to trigger a calm feeling regardless of the situations we face, that would be a different story. But if you're really hurt, and you're backstabbed by the same person you forgive over and over again because the twelve pathways states that we can trigger the type of emotion we want for every event that happened to us. That don't make sense, does it? At the least we should know how to protect ourselves instead of blindly loving and accepting everyone.

Nothing stops you from protecting yourself when you love and accept other people. I don't blame or hate the sky when it rains, I simply grab an umbrella.

Also this idea that we need pain in order to enjoy happiness is an illusory, addiction-based mindset. It is true that repeating something pleasurable over and over again depreciates its return, but in this situation you are chasing a good feeling, primarily out of avoidance of living in pain. When you have dealt with the conditioning that causes pain, you no longer need to seek out pleasure because the present moment is no longer painful, or boring as we like to call it.

Pain still exists but free of expectations it cannot wound as deeply as it could otherwise. It's also not sustained because you have learned to stop scolding yourself (or others) over and over again after the fact. If you've learned your lesson, you can move on.

If you believe what Buddhists believe, we have already been thrust into suffering. We are so far away from equalization that the amount of peace and happiness we can tap into, compared to our typical state, is extraordinary. Thinking you need to experience good and bad, from the state of your mind right now, is like a worm caught in shit and thinking it needs to experience soft and chunky shit. The truth is it can crawl out completely.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

Nothing stops you from protecting yourself when you love and accept other people. I don't blame or hate the sky when it rains, I simply grab an umbrella.

Also this idea that we need pain in order to enjoy happiness is an illusory, addiction-based mindset. It is true that repeating something pleasurable over and over again depreciates its return, but in this situation you are chasing a good feeling, primarily out of avoidance of living in pain. When you have dealt with the conditioning that causes pain, you no longer need to seek out pleasure because the present moment is no longer painful, or boring as we like to call it.

Pain still exists but free of expectations it cannot wound as deeply as it could otherwise. It's also not sustained because you have learned to stop scolding yourself (or others) over and over again after the fact. If you've learned your lesson, you can move on.

If you believe what Buddhists believe, we have already been thrust into suffering. We are so far away from equalization that the amount of peace and happiness we can tap into, compared to our typical state, is extraordinary. Thinking you need to experience good and bad, from the state of your mind right now, is like a worm caught in shit and thinking it needs to experience soft and chunky shit. The truth is it can crawl out completely.

So have you achieved that or you're stuck like the worm?

I don't follow the 12 pathways but if I were to transpose my practices to that model I'd be around stage 3.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

I don't follow the 12 pathways but if I were to transpose my practices to that model I'd be around stage 3.

I see.

I don't like following something with rules. I'd probably agree to that in some sense but I just don't like rules telling me I have to do these steps to achieve happiness.

But you realize that the entire philosophy is about removing rules, right? The program exists to assist you in deprogramming all that early conditioning that inhibits you.

I don't like rules either, that's why I like Buddhism and Left-Hand Traditions.

But a program telling you things that you should or shouldn't do is quite the irony, isn't it? Instead of giving you options or suggestions, it's telling you you need to do these to achieve happiness, it has already been proven.

I don't like rules, so I would rather be without religion. I find it hard to follow any studies that had already been proven, I need to experience it for myself first.

Which is exactly what the Buddha taught you ought to do

"Do not believe anything just because it is rumored by many. Do not believe anything just because it has been passed down for generations. Do not believe anything just because it is contained within revered documents or repeated by respected teachers or elders. Only believe what proves beneficial in your own life."

But you can't prove anything beneficial in your own life if you don't try it first. If someone tells me in order to keep my balance on a bicycle I need to be in forward motion, I'm not going to snap back at them, "But that's a rule!" And allow myself to continually fall over. If I want to ride the bike, I'm going to take suggestions from people who seem to be good at it.

But the problem here is I haven't try the things that were in contrast to what was mentioned in the twelve pathways. I haven't tried yearning for power, controlling people and distrust people around me.

Then feel free to. Sometimes a child must place their hand on a hot stove to know why they shouldn't.

I'm glad you didn't say I should try dying to know I shouldn't.

It's not about death, it's about suffering. There are no rules, some things simply cause suffering. After a little experience, we start to figure out what that is. Some things, such as injury, are clear to everyone. Some things, such as the human struggle, are more difficult to figure out. The 12 pathways provide a guide out. You may feel free to continue wandering in circles, or you may choose to follow the sign posts. There's a chance you'll find your own way out without the signposts, but it's much quicker and easier to realize you're not the first one to deal with this sort of suffering and others have already figured out how to alleviate it.

I just want to know what's the mindset that's causing us to have more negative feelings than positive ones. If it's about attaining happiness, I believe we have more than enough threads about it.

Primarily because we seek happiness rather than enjoy it now. We notice lack. In this mindset, you cannot ever be happy no matter what the circumstances for more than a few brief moments. You suffer because you feel like you don't have what you need to be happy. The moment you get what you want, you either want more or you fear losing it, so even the feeling of relief cannot last long.

In short we suffer because we think "I am not enough"

What if I'm not suffering because of the fear of lost but because of something important that is not there?

I believe it is possible for anyone with any mindset to enjoy happiness that will last for more than mere moments. The key is to build relationships that you can have faith in. That way you wouldn't fear that the person will leave you, like how you wouldn't fear your mother will abandon you. I feel that a mind void of thoughts will result in the longest happy effect. You wouldn't look at what has gone or bother about what has to come, you just appreciate what the moment has to offer.

Originally Posted by Carrot

What if I'm not suffering because of the fear of lost but because of something important that is not there?

I believe it is possible for anyone with any mindset to enjoy happiness that will last for more than mere moments. The key is to build relationships that you can have faith in. That way you wouldn't fear that the person will leave you, like how you wouldn't fear your mother will abandon you. I feel that a mind void of thoughts will result in the longest happy effect. You wouldn't look at what has gone or bother about what has to come, you just appreciate what the moment has to offer.

So once you achieve this dream relationship... then you can be happy?

You're still projecting your happiness into the future, with-holding yourself from enjoying life now.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

So once you achieve this dream relationship... then you can be happy?

You're still projecting your happiness into the future, with-holding yourself from enjoying life now.

No. I already have it for both kinship and friendship. I was referring to other people.

So you're happy, but you made a thread about how people are generally not very happy?

Not exactly happy, not exactly not happy. It was better than before though. It was a question I had in mind previously and it was triggered again by people I have seen.