Yesterday I attended a great talk from Deepak Chopra, a global authority on spirituality and personal empowerment. The subject of Deepak's event was Self Power: Living a Miraculous Life - what it is and how to have it.
According to Deepak, self power means having the knowledge, skills and attitude needed to cope with our changing world and the circumstances in which we live. It’s about having greater confidence in our own capacities. It is only by having full confidence in our self that we can experience the tremendous power of true self-sufficiency.
One important area he talked about was social well being: our happiness. He told us a story. The Dalai Lama believes that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness. Some time ago he asked a group of scientists if they would like to do a research on what leads to happiness.
The scientists where excited about this new project and decided to do their research. After a lot of work they finally came up with a formula!
H = S + C + V
Happiness equals a set point + the conditions of living + voluntary choices.
The set point is a brain mechanism that is responsible for some 50% of our happiness. It is determined on the first 3 years of our life by the influence of our parents and care takers. It seems that the same way we learn the speaking language, we learn an emotional language. This set point in other words defines who we are.
The conditions of living refer to our material world and are responsible for some 10% of our happiness. This refers to being extremely poor or extremely rich. On both sides you would be worried all the time about money (either because you don’t have it or because you don’t know what to do with it). This creates a lot of stress and won’t allow you to think about other things.
Regarding the voluntary choices, they are responsible for some 40% of our happiness. There are two types.
The first type is about personal pleasure. Actions that you take that will give some gratification right now but after a short period of time it will disappear. Research done in the USA gives the highest scores of gratification to the following choices:
- Shopping
- Entertainment
- Sex
The second type of voluntary choices refers to personal fulfillment. We do something meaningful and express ourselves to make a difference. And according to the research, the action that provides most fulfillment is to make someone else happy. And to make someone happy we can do any of following:
- Give our attention or listen to the person
- Give our appreciation of the person’s strengths and good qualities
- Care for the person and give our love
Well…the scientists were delighted about their findings and they went back to the Dalai Lama to tell him about the results.
The Dalai Lama replied that people understanding and following this equation would get happier but not happy. It would keep them in an Existential Unhappiness, where we continue to worry about the past and about the future, and with this we get the same feelings of guilt and shame and with them unhappiness. This unhappiness creates disruption in the body and with it more worry and more unhappiness.
In order to get rid of this existential unhappiness we need to understand and experience who we really are. We need to understand and experience that we are consciousness. And the way to get there is through meditation.
♥ May there be Peace on your heart ♥
Some quotes from Deepak Chopra:
To acquire true self power you have to feel beneath no one, be immune to criticism and be fearless.
Real power, which is self power, comes when we value uncertainty and surrender to the mystery of our existence.
When we experience the power of the Self, there is an absence of fear; there is no compulsion to control.
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