Do you want to be happy or not?
It really is that simple
Listen to this article:
In 2003, FBI agents raided the offices of the medical software company founded by author and spiritual teacher Michael Singer. The company had grown from one employee – Singer – to hundreds over the course of a few years after Singer wrote a revolutionary software program for medical practices. His work brought the keeping of medical records and billing into the electronic era and a copy of the original program is now housed in the Smithsonian.
None of that mattered on this day, however. Federal agents were swarming the company's Florida campus looking for financial documents that would later lead to the arrest of Singer and several of his top executives on racketeering charges after a manager, already under investigation by the company for embezzlement, told the government that the conspiracy went all the way to the CEO's office.
Singer maintained his innocence in the wake of the investigation and pending trial that would consume his life for the next seven years. One thing he did not lose in all that time, however, was his peace. Singer, you see, had been living in the flow of surrender for many years before this FBI raid.
He had been on a path to becoming a university economics professor when, during a conversation with a friend in 1970, he says that he noticed this voice inside of his head that wouldn't stop commenting and complaining about everything. Singer made it his life's work to make that voice shut up. He adopted severe meditation practices and tried his best to drop out of the life he had been living. Nothing worked, until he chanced upon something he called "the surrender experiment."
"What would happen," he wondered, "if we respected the flow of life and used our free will to participate in what's unfolding, instead of fighting it?" Instead of dropping out of life, he decided to leap "into life" and live in a place where he was no longer controlled by his own personal fears and desires.
What happened after that, he writes in his book called The Surrender Experiment is an amazing life that resulted in the founding of a sprawling spiritual community near Gainesville, Florida, called the Temple of the Universe, a construction company called Built with Love and a massive medical software company that was eventually bought by WebMD. All because, he says, every time the voice inside his head complained, or panicked, or disliked something – he made a choice: Instead of heeding the voice, he accepted whatever life put in front of him – whether that voice judged it as good or bad in the moment.
He went with the flow of life and on that fateful day in 2003, he ended up in some turbulent waters. There was a very real possibility that he would be sentenced to a long jail term, despite his team of expert attorneys. In that moment, he had a choice – he could heed the voice of worry, the voice of fear, the voice that resisted what was happening in his life – or he could surrender.
I don't know about you, but if I were wrongly accused of a crime and faced the very real possibility of spending the rest of my life in jail – that voice would have me running around in anxious circles every moment of the day.
What did Singer do? He spent his time writing a book. Under indictment and threatened with incarceration, he sat down and wrote The Untethered Soul – a book about that voice inside of each of us that complains, that narrates our daily activities, that judges and blames and distracts us from the amazing life that the universe is trying to put before us.
"The highest spiritual path," Singer writes, "is life itself. If you know how to live daily life, it all becomes a liberating experience. But first you have to approach life properly, or it can be very confusing."
To end the confusion, he tells us, we must realize we only really have one choice to make in this life: Do you want to be happy? That word can get overused and mean so many things – but what Singer is talking about is not just the fleeting happiness of the ego that convinces us something outside of ourselves will satisfy us. When Singer talks about being happy, he's referring to that divine peace within that passes all understanding.
We find that enduring happiness, Singer says, by constantly choosing the path of surrender, going with the flow of life as it's happening before us instead of trying to force our egoic will on the moment or judge it as good or bad.
If, however, we discover that we are fighting with life, choosing to live into our fearful ego, A Course in Miracles, in Chapter 31, assures us that in those moments, we can choose again.
"What you behold as sickness and as pain," A Course says, "as weakness and as suffering and loss, is but temptation to perceive yourself defenseless and in hell. Yield not to this, and you will see all pain, in every form, wherever it occurs, but disappear as mists before the sun."
We think we have many choices, but we only have one. We must constantly be choosing to surrender to that one choice – to accept the moment in front of us and seek to leave it better than we found it through Love. Ego doesn't like this and reacts fearfully. But the universe is not trying to hurt us, it's trying to teach us that we can make the right choice over and over again, if we are choosing from love.
How do you know that you've made the right choice? A Course gives us a clue when it says: "I must have decided wrongly because I am not at peace." When you can allow life's trials and turmoil to pass through you and you remain at peace, then you'll know you've made the right choice.
After seven long years, the federal government finally dismissed all the charges against Michael Singer. In the end, only the embezzler and his accomplice went to jail. Singer writes that he has no resentment, no psychic scars from the events that roiled his life during those years. Instead, he says that time of trial was when he was challenged the most to keep letting go, to keep silencing the voice of panic, anxiety, and fear, and stay in a state of peaceful surrender.
Sounds great, but how do we mere mortals do this? Singer's answer is simple, but of course, tricky: You choose to keep you heart open. We close our hearts very quickly – something upsets us or causes us anxiety or discomfort – we close. We shut down and refuse to engage.
What would happen, Singer asks, if we just stayed open? Even when life is uncomfortable? Even when life brings you federal charges and threatens to put your body in jail? Even if your life might end?
A Course tells us: "Trials are but lessons that you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one, and thus escape all the pain that what you chose before has brought to you. In every difficulty, all distress, and each perplexity Christ calls to you and gently says, 'My sibling, choose again.'"
Singer tells us we can train our heart to stay open by starting with the easy stuff, like the weather. Whenever it's raining when you'd rather it be sunny, or vice versa, don't grumble – instead be grateful that you're here to experience whatever the day brings, no matter what complaint that voice inside wants to lodge.
I've done that exercise before but the most challenging one is when Singer tells us to stay open when someone is in front of us driving 15 miles-per-hour below the speed limit and we can't get past them. I've done this exercise – I've remained open, turned up the radio and sang along with some favorite tunes and told the voice inside to zip it. Inevitably, that person in front of me will either turn or move over. It only happens, though, when I stay open and let go of my grievances with them. It's like magic.
The stronger you become at being happy in bad weather or crappy traffic, the more you will be willing to stay open when life brings more serious challenges your way. Instead of dreading challenging situations, welcome them as an opportunity to perfect your practice and consciously choose to surrender to Love.
"People tend to burden themselves with so many choices," Singer writes. "But, in the end, you can throw it all away and just make one basic, underlying decision: Do you want to be happy, or do you not want to be happy? It's really that simple. Once you make that choice, your path through life becomes totally clear."
Once you make the choice to be happy – to live in that state of peace that passes all understanding no matter what life throws at you – then you will be following the law of Love and everything you do becomes a gift to the universe, every word you say will create more love in the world and every thought you think will increase the peace both within and without.
This is not a call to withdraw from the world, but to be fully involved in it and with it. We cannot bring the peace and love we wish to see out here until we create in here. It is our responsibility – our function and purpose – in this world to keep choosing peace, to keep choosing happiness, and creating that peace and happiness within our own heart and mind so we can then create it out here. It really is that simple.
What about you? Do you want to be happy? Can you live your own “surrender experiment” and keep choosing for that happiness that brings you peace no matter what the circumstances of life?
Music for the Journey:
“Ev'rybody's Gonna Be Happy” - The Kinks
Upcoming Speaking Gigs:
June 23, 2024: The Unitarian Church in Charleston, SC. (Livestream and recording available)
Sermon title: “Pink Paradise: How Barbie Can Renew Our Hope for the Future”
July 7, 2024: Clayton Memorial Unitarian Universalist Church - Newberry, SC (in-person only)
Past Guest Speaking Gigs:
This is the sermon I delivered at the Jubilee! Community in Asheville, NC, on May 12, 2024. The sermon was “Renewing through Lullabies” (Stick around at the end to hear my original song, “Native Word,” performed with The World Beat Band.)
Looking for a guest speaker at your spiritual community? Contact me!
About the Motley Mystic:
The Motley Mystic is an online community for people who have realized that the truth speaks with many voices. There is no one religion, philosophy, institution, or dogma that captures the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth. No one needs to swear allegiance to one line of thought or belief to discern Truth, because Love is the only thing that’s real. That’s what we explore at the Motley Mystic - all the tools and strategies we need to remove our barriers to Love and live fully as our true Divine Self.
Candace Chellew is the founder of Motley Mystic as well as Jubilee! Circle, an interfaith spiritual community in Columbia, S.C. She is also the author of Bulletproof Faith: A Spiritual Survival Guide for Gay and Lesbian Christians published in 2008 by Jossey-Bass and the founder and senior editor emeritus of Whosoever: An Online Magazine for LGBTQ People of Faith. She is also a musician and avid animal lover.
Thanks for reading Motley Mystic! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Wonderful message in this! Thank you!