Happiness vs Peace, Joy, and Love

Happiness vs Peace, Joy, and Love


This is a very old, and very constant theme in spirituality, expressly, the spirituality of Liberation practices. It’s a pointer to the “reward” of “enlightenment” that is the “consolation prize” when we drop goal-oriented (“Monkey Mind” or “Egoic” or Left Hemisphere based) consciousness.

I could list probably a hundred quotes from some of the big ones like Buddha, Christ, Eckhart Tolle, many Zen Masters, etc. But instead, I will go into why and how this works now that we understand the brain a bit better than they did thousands of years ago.

If you have read my material then you know that the brain is a very competitive place. Many different brain mechanics are vying for our primary “attention” through where we place our awareness. Ok, this part I’ve covered. I’ve covered the next part as well but I will continue.

How do these mechanics get center stage? Well, the process is described as “inhibiting.” Essentially one of the brain mechanics has become central to our consciousness by inhibiting all the others.

Now, there are two ways that the brain “prompts” us for our attention. And the first is the one most of us know, it rewards us with an “approach response” chemical dump.

Dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins are the chemicals responsible for that “good feeling” the brain gives out as a reward for our attention and behavior.

And the second is it generates an “avoidance response.” And cortisol and adrenaline are usually associated with “stressful” or “avoidance responses.”

There is some cutting-edge material out there about how this all works in specific, (dopamine apparently plays a part in BOTH responses, but how exactly at this point they don’t know) but in general it is enough to understand that the brain mechanics reward us for “inhibiting” their competitors by focusing on their goals and functions to the exclusion of the others.

So, what does this have to do with the topic?

Happiness is the reward of the “mind” or more specifically the “Left Cerebral Cortex” of the brain. And, it is based in time.

The Left Hemisphere is locked in the past and future (the Right controls our present moment experiences) and so if it can get us to focus on the past or future it rewards us with “happiness” and punishes us with “discontent.” Not sadness. That is something different and it is attached to "Attachment…" (see what I did there?)

So, how does this all work from the experiential side?

Well, the Left Hemisphere has to make us believe that all of its plans, plots, and schemes are important and more directly, that listening to its constant schemes of grasping and pushing, will be a REWARDING experience. But, since it is locked in “time-based consciousness” it has to make the reward cycle last for a short while. Because if it didn’t you might never be discontent enough to go back into its never-ending “wanting” cycles. I call this in my books luring us back into “search mode” and in fact cover this topic to a large degree in an essay called “Joy Inhibitor” (published in the book “Accept What Is”)

Adyashanti goes over this “trick” of the mind in his amazing satsang “The Gift of Wanting” where he points out that to motivate us the act of “wanting” is actually unpleasant. In fact, the grasping aspect of “wanting” (a behavior anchored in the Left Hemisphere’s creation of discontent with what is as part of its pushing and pulling endless cycles) is so uncomfortable that merely STOPPING wanting is a tremendous reward in and of itself (through the relief of ending the pushing and pulling cycle)!

Of all the four experiences I’m highlighting in the title of this essay, “happiness” does seem to generate the biggest experiential “high” because of this additional “relief” Adyashanti is pointing to which we experience when we momentarily drop “wanting.” The difference between the relief generated by the cessation of the discomfort of “grasping and pushing” coupled with the chemical rewards generated by the Left Hemisphere as a reward for accomplishing its goals grabs our attention more than simple peace, joy, and love. It is more dramatic and is the core of why, in the end, Liberation Practice is honestly just a breaking of the addiction this cycle generates (and why, as with most addictions, people only seek Liberation Practices when the addiction fails to work any longer…)

This is literal addiction to the highs and lows that accompany what Alan Watts jokingly calls “getting relief from no longer hitting oneself on the head with a hammer…” And the sad truth is, like all addictive cycles, the chase of the “happiness high” is the core of the Buddha’s “Dukkha.” Because it NEVER lasts and produces only another round of its pain/pleasure cycle.

And so happiness is by design conditional and short-lived. It is meant to be the endless “carrot on a stick” that the mind (Left Hemisphere) uses to push and pull us toward its functions (and if it can it “wins” the battle of our awareness and “inhibits” the other potential brain functions…)

Peace, Joy, and Love however are the domain of a different half of the brain (The Right Hemisphere – upper and lower.)

Peace comes when we feel the tremendous relief of exiting the pushing and pulling cycles of the mind.

Joy comes when we leave our “little me” left hemisphere egoic consciousness and connect with all that is, which is, after all, us.

And Love comes when we open our hearts without any reservation to everything we experience.

And ALL of those experiences happen NOW. Outside of “time.” And because of that are NOT on a “reward cycle” and, so, are available anytime we move our awareness to the brain functions that generate them. Expressly the Right Cerebral Cortex and the Right Limbic System (Dr. Taylor’s “Characters 4 and 3” respectively.)

Peace, Joy, and Love are ALWAYS available and there are no “hoops” we need to jump through to “earn” the reward. This is why spiritual masters refer to them as our “birthright.” It is a gift from the Goddess that is available anytime we are willing or skillful enough to join our awareness with that consciousness.

Peace, Joy, and Love ARE liberation. They ARE enlightenment. They ARE “the peace that passeth all understanding.”

To “sin” is to look away from these truths. To “miss the mark.”

They are your true nature.

And, unlike the “happiness addiction/con game” they need no perpetual cycle of enticement.

They are their own reward.