Gateway to Dharma
What is the relationship between True Wisdom and True Happiness?
The term 'humanity' denotes 'the act of human kindness and compassion towards the suffering of others'. Humanity is thus a most appropriate word to describe the purpose of being human. We are, in essence, not mundane human beings experimenting with conceptual experiences, but are, by nature, beings of unawakened potential undergoing human experiences, as part of our continuous advancement in the evolution of our Dharma Path. Socrates observed that: "the ultimate truth of reality is spiritual, and not material; and thus can only be perceived directly by the most subtle level of the mind, and not through the five senses nor the conventional mind." He acknowledged that: "true wisdom is the acceptance of one's limitations in intelligence, and the need to seek spiritual guidance from a higher source, if one wishes to evolve to a higher state of awareness." He further concluded that: "the destination of one's existence after death is entirely dependent on the higher state of ethics of our existence before death, and that the way of adhering to the living action of higher principle offers us the most favourable and happiest outcome."
What Socrates was expounding is similar to the Buddhist's understanding of the Four Noble Truths, the practice of generating wisdom through taking refuge in the guidance of the Enlightened Mind, and the understanding of karmic forces which govern cause and effect. We are, in actuality, beings of the mind and not of the flesh. Principally because the subtle level of our pure consciousness continues to be reborn through countless lives until we attain full enlightenment, it is of paramount importance to understand the dynamics by which the mind can be properly cared for and developed. While our temporal existence relies upon the functioning of the mind, speech and body, our existence ceases to have a sense of purpose the instant our speech and body become deprived of their connection to the mind whereby they become not merely useless, but the aspirations we may have previously generated evaporate forthwith to nothingness.
It is evident that the well-being of the mind governs the effectiveness of being human. Any quick-fix attempt to change our outward demeanour by means of artificial image make-over is ineffective and pointless if we ignore the necessity to analyse and pinpoint the pattern and root causes from which that persona is brought into existence. The more we become aware of what we are dealing with, the more prepared we can be in taking responsibility for our lives. To achieve this objective, the only reliable means we can count upon is the guidance of True Wisdom which is the accumulated knowledge of the Enlightened Mind. Apart from having been time-proven for its transcendent value and its universal application in the grand design of all things, True Wisdom provides the fundamental insight into the dynamics of the Ultimate Truth. It is the implementation of True Wisdom in actual practice which dissolves the narrow vision of our ordinary mind, and sets free the pure consciousness, thus enabling us to reveal our authentic state of being as our body, speech and mind unify in oneness with all that are around us leading to the realisation of the true state of absolute happiness - a state of unsurpassable happiness more enduring than that of the physical.