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AHAM – An Idea Whose Time Has Come
By A. Ramana
AHAM (pronounce both “a’s” like the sound of “a” in father or star), the Association of Happiness for All Mankind, is an idea whose time has come! It is time that we are all living NOW from our own direct oneness with the Source, the Supreme Being of all beings, the Supreme Self of all selves, and living from this consciousness as basis of our daily lives. This means living in our own true nature or reality, with no more sense of fear, bondage, lack, limitation, dis-ease or upset as our problematic distraction, or strategy that we are having to continually avoid or eliminate from our life. Perpetually steady, unshakable Happiness-NOW for all mankind – yes, everyone! – is an idea whose time has come. I am not saying that everyone has already realized this for themselves; I am saying that it is available for everyone, or anyone who is himself ready for it to be so, just as it is for me.
Let me state emphatically, right here, that the strength, capacity, dominion and control of a context is very powerful, and it is real! It is true that it may not seem very real to you if you are stuck in the position, or the false notion (yet long-held belief), that you are your body, that the “self” you think you are is your body-mind-apparatus with all its conditioning by or from past experience. Thus you are operating out of a system of reality which says that the bodies of the people that you see are in fact their very being or true existence, and that their physical forms are more real than their being, or consciousness, or the love that they feel. When you are identified with your body as being your “self,” then you are out of context with the Truth, and can’t feel your own nature and the nature of others as being one and the same – which is Consciousness, which is Existence Itself, and which is Love and Joy, or always, already Real Happiness. Rather, you are living from the world’s principle of duality – that is always based on separateness and separativeness, which is conflict, or upset and fear, and the desire for freedom and happiness – as the state of your ordinary daily life. This is the real meaning of “living in sin.” Living from this false basis generates competition and personal ambition in people, with the desire for more, and better, and different experiences and attainments from life in order to be happy, which is often at the loss or expense of others – not for the mutual benefit of one and all, or the mutual prosperity, happiness and well being of everyone involved.
If you have met me or been introduced to me, you may think that you know me. But, if you think and feel and believe that you are your body, and that I am my body, then you don’t know me, nor do you (in that case) even know yourself. I know me, and I know you, for I know the Self which is the Real Self of us both – the underlying reality of you and me. And, my feeling of love for you is to me a lot more real than is your body; and your love is to me an experience that is far more real and meaningful than my perception of your body or my image of your face. For me, the context “Happiness-NOW for all mankind,” and the end of suffering in all people’s lives, is very real. It is more real than all the excuses and arguments to the contrary – with all the confusion, conflict and the doubt that goes with “not believing.”
In fact, this context is more real for me than all the facts regarding the impossibility of steady and lasting happiness, or the apparent persistence of worldly stress, misery and conflict in people’s lives. The context created now of “Happiness-NOW for everyone” has a greater power than all the outer facts. Why? Because it is always, already the underlying truth of Reality, or the very nature of the Self that we truly are, and is only awaiting our awakening to or realization of it. Therefore, it has great power! It, being the Truth, has the power to generate a conscious process in consciousness that will bring it about by giving rise to a set of forces which are aligned with the end result. This conscious process will eventually actually create the circumstances within our own (yours and my) immediate environment, and also eventually throughout the world for those who wish it for themselves.
As Shakespeare said, “The world is a stage, and everyone merely players.” You and I are the producers, playwrights, directors and actors (“players”) of our own life dramas. We set the stage and the backdrop of events as we “write” and “participate” in our own “drama of life.”
The consciously chosen context of “Happiness-NOW for All Mankind” is not dependent on outer conditions and circumstances for its existence, but rather on ourselves to create it as a context in our own consciousness. By it now being a context in consciousness, and by consciousness being the only Reality, it is even now generating process, which is working on the outer conditions and circumstances and aligning them to conform to the context, and thus eventually confirm the context. It is a process which is growing daily in the lives of more and more people who are coming into association with AHAM.
If you wish, you too can align yourself right now with this context, and allow its working principle, power and purpose to be your own. You may contribute to the process whatever reveals itself to you to be done, to both experience it for yourself, and to live and work as an example or aid for this process to awaken in the lives of others. But understand, I am not trying to convince you. I have nothing to convince you of. The experience of responsibility already exists within yourself.
All you have to do is experience yourself – the Self – as Pure Awareness, as the space of your experience, and you will automatically and necessarily experience responsibility for everything and everyone within your space; that is, within your consciousness. The end of suffering or unhappiness, and “The Association of Happiness for All Mankind Project” is a natural consequence of the experience of individual and personal responsibility. It is from your own experience that conflict, fear and unhappiness now exist in your space, in your world. As a practical response or expression of that, you may ask, “What can I do about all the pain, poverty, suffering and unhappiness in the world? What can I do to stop it, or to contribute to ending it?” With regard to what outer actions you can take, I cannot answer that for you. It is really up to you. Instead, AHAM shows you how to create a context in which you get to answer that question for yourself, so that the answer is your own, your own “program” or process, your own Awakened Purpose.
I can say that the first thing for you to do is clear your own space, your own consciousness, of all unhappiness by moving into the Heart of your own being, and abiding as the Self, which is the Location of true Happiness. Only when you are happy, by abiding in your true Self, can you be a living example for others to know that they too can be always happy. Then, whatever else comes up for you to do to eliminate suffering or unhappiness for those in the apparent world around you, do it if it is appropriate, or if it feels like something you can do. But right now, with regard to creating a context “the end of suffering and unhappiness in the world,” you can now take four simple steps.
Four steps for ending suffering and unhappiness in the world
1. The first step is to now awaken to your own responsibility. That is, you can take individual or personal responsibility for the suffering and unhappiness that you conceive and perceive in the world around you, with the insight and understanding that all you perceive in the world is actually a projection of your own mind, your own consciousness. Then you can do whatever you can, or wish to, that feels natural and right for you in eliminating pain and suffering or unhappiness in yourself, and in the lives of those in the world around you where these are appearing.
2. The second step is to understand that this is your whole project. If you commit yourself to the project, it becomes your project, or you are the source of it. Thus everyone working around the world to end pain, suffering and unhappiness will actually be working for you. In this project you do not do your “part.” There is no “part” for you to do. This is a project in which you are the whole project.
You are a whole in alignment with other wholes who are themselves the whole project. This is total responsibility, where there is spontaneous cooperation of all as wholes coming from a context or common purpose, rather than the agreement of parts banded together in support of a position or a point of view. You don’t need anyone’s agreement to create a context. You don’t need anything from anyone.
Even so, AHAM is a center of operation with which you can align yourself if you choose. The Association of Happiness for All Mankind (AHAM) is a nonprofit spiritual education organization in which all of our activities are directed entirely to this one end. “Our Name Is Our Purpose”
All the money that AHAM generates from its various programs, courses and seminars above its actual cost of operation goes toward the elimination of suffering and unhappiness in the world, and maintaining the context or sustaining the ongoing purpose of freedom and well being, of peace and happiness for all people everywhere.
3. The third step is the creation of a context: to cause the end of misery and suffering or the sense of unhappiness, and the experience of lasting happiness for all people, to be an idea whose time has come. And from what do you create a context? From nothing, or only from consciousness.
Within your own consciousness, your true Self, and nothing more, you create a clear space for “The end of misery, suffering and unhappiness and the abidance in steady perpetual Happiness for everyone.” Also in that space goes all the content and all process for this context. Within that space process is generated which then reorganizes and realigns the process and content. In that context, everything happening in every moment is really contributing to the end of misery and conflict, or unhappiness. Every position that used to contribute to the “gook,” now becomes a position that manifests itself in agreement with the context, and contributes to the end of suffering and unhappiness.
When you have created a context, it is your idea whose time has come. It is at that point in this project when you actually experience the context: “Happiness, lived now, for myself and for all mankind,” and you will experience a transformation in the quality of your own life. You will experience a quality of joy and a sense of victory, or self-mastery, that you have never experienced before! This is a quality of mastery, not force. Force we already have enough of. Mastery does not need force. When the river is flowing south, what do you have to do to make your boat float south? Nothing. When everything is going right, what do you have to do to get something to go right? Nothing. Just do whatever you are doing.
From this context, “Happiness-NOW – with the release of all misery, suffering, conflict or upset – for all people,” there will come many opportunities, some perhaps very soon, to do something to make real the end of unhappiness, even for other people in the world. Something or someone will cross your path, or some idea will come to you. Instead of interacting with it out of the old position of doubt, frustration, conflict or confusion, you will be able to relate with the opportunity and interact with it out of this new context. You will then naturally do just what is appropriate to end unhappiness, both in yourself and the situation, and in the immediate environment, or the world around you.
4. The fourth step is the principle of transformation. I cannot predict exactly what will happen objectively, or outwardly to ultimately end all conflict and unhappiness in your world, or ultimately in the larger world or population. To do so, even, would be placing a limitation on what can occur. Anyway, it must start or ultimately occur for you subjectively, with your own transformation, or Self-Realization, and I cannot say how or when that will be finalized in your case or in your awareness. It is now so, but when it will be “now so for you” I can’t say.
With hundreds of transformed beings working in alignment with a common purpose, just who can prophesy or predict what the results will be? The good done by hundreds who are banded together in a movement – each doing his or her part – can be fairly predicted. But not the alignment of wholes, who, in their transformed state, are being totally responsible for a common purpose, out of the individual sense of responsibility, out of being whole, out of being willing to create new contexts within themselves – within themselves as individuals, within themselves in True Relationship and commitment to the context, within themselves as society, within themselves as humankind. No, we have no idea what hundreds or thousands of aligned, consciously awakened people can do. And to attempt to, in any way, is only a limitation. So, I expect miracles!
We will know, when it is done, that it is done!
CREATING A CONSCIOUS MIRACLE . . .
The purpose of AHAM is the Conscious Transformation of all anger into Compassion, all upset into Humor, all confusion into Peace and Order, all hatred into Love, all disease and illness into Ease and Health, all lack into Abundance, and all unhappiness into Happiness... a Conscious Miracle. An idea whose time has come!
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Experience Self-Inquiry as shared by Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi.
Arunachala
Sacred Mountain of South India. |