Happiness 2.0: The Zero Stress System

There’s a big and very important distinction between two big movie releases of the last few years, ‘The Secret’ and ‘The Passion of The Christ’ that I want to bring up in this post. 

First I need to set a little disclaimer.  Two of the attributes that I am sometimes accused of, are being idealistic and intense. 

I admit to both.  I am idealistic in that I look for perfection (as I see it) as being the standard to strive for.  Generally I have found most people will look around and use other people as their reference.  So they’ll justify their actions by saying, everyone else is doing it. 

I am intense in that I want to get to that standard of perfection now.  I used to call myself a Coach.  Mainly from laziness.  Because I wasn’t ready to really dig into what was different about me or ready to start expressing it to other people.  So I used the handiest label around. 

When I started to work with people as a Coach, I would want to resolve every problem they had now or would ever face in one go.  I found most people were burned out after a couple of hours.  I was just getting started. 

My point is that I’m always striving for perfection.  I’m a long way from achieving it, but I want to share what it looks like to me.

I grew up in a Catholic home.  We went to church every Sunday.  I was even an Altar Boy.  Not because I was religious, but because if I had to go, I might as well be doing something.  I went to a Catholic school. 

So like every good rebel, as I grew up I rejected every part of religion.  I dismissed the Catholic Church and Jesus as being a ridiculous story. 

As I matured and looked for examples of greatness I looked more towards Lao Tsu and Buddha, because they hadn’t been shoved down my throat.  But two or three years ago I watched Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion of The Christ and that changed the standards I set for my life.

That film changed the way I thought about Jesus.  I’m still not a great believer in religion.  I believe the Church is a political organisation.  I think if you study Jesus’s words they contradict the doctrine of the church.  I’m only sharing this as a background, not to dissuade anyone.  If it works for you, that’s great, but it’s not for me.

I wanted to share what I saw in that film that I believe most people seemed to miss in it.

First, let’s set this up by explaining a few fundamentals that determine the frame from which I perceived the film.

I don’t believe that Jesus was any different than you and I from birth.  I don’t believe in the immaculate conception.  I do think he achieved a level of exceptional purity.  In studying what I can of his life, my belief is that St Paul created a myth around him to sell people on his church.  The account of Jesus’s life that seems most likely to me is the account in The Urantia Papers.  But to paraphrase him, all he did, we can too.

I believe the highest standard of living, the highest attainment we can achieve is not worldly success, not popularity or social status, but purity.  I believe we are designed with certain desires, interests and aptitudes placed into a certain environment that will, if purely expressed, allow us to exhibit our own unique greatness.

It doesn’t matter what you achieve, what you do.  What matters is what you are.  The end never justifies the means and there is never a greater good.

I veer between two attitudes towards the world.  At some times I understand where it is going, why people do as they do, and what the deeper meaning is. 

And sometimes I despair.  It’s filled with weakness, lack of integrity and the way it dilutes it’s purity for a short term gain.  Over the last couple of years there has been a vivid example of this in ‘The Secret’.  I watched 3 or 4 minutes of it that made me despair for humanity. 

‘The Secret’ is the ultimate in unintended irony.  While it bills itself as the answer to humanity’s problems, it actually encapsulates all of them.  It is the 21st century version of the money lenders in the temple. 

Every moment in time has it’s passing fads, that are wildly popular and soon fade into obscurity.

Some Opportunist gets all excited about discovering an elementary fact of life who, maybe is motivated by sharing it, or maybe just sees a chance to milk it for all it’s worth.  But there is no rigor or effort put into seeking the real truth.  There’s no purity in it.  It’s pure exploitation.

Either they are consciously over exaggerating their ’secret’ or they are debasing it.  If it really is the secret to all of life, is it’s highest use really going to be getting more checks in the post or driving a bigger car?

Contrast this with Jesus.  Someone who attained a far greater understanding and mastery of life.  Who’s understanding was so much deeper that he refused to use it for his own gain.  His life was the most vividly lived demonstration of;

‘let it be your will, not mine’.

Something the Creators of The Secret haven’t grasped. 

Many of the comments about ‘The Passion’ talk about the brutality of the film.  But life is brutal.  Besides, which, they’re missing the point.

The beauty of the film is in it’s brutality.

Does anyone really think that the people behind ‘The Secret’ have discovered something that Jesus didn’t know?

So did he miscreate his persecution, his crucifixion and so on?

Of course not.  He knew clearly his mission.  Jesus was not the most popular Teacher of his time.  The most popular is always the one that tells people what they want to hear.  They are the ones that best package their words to sell  

The best technically, in any field, usually isn’t the best selling.  I look at it like this.  I like to listen to music while I’m driving, walking the dog or doing something mindless.  I would never just sit and listen to music.  Nor would I go to a concert.  It’s just not important enough to me to devote time just to it. 

I’m not a Connoisseur of music.  I don’t trust my musical judgment.  I don’t have an educated musical palette.  So I never listen to anything outside the bestseller list.  I need other people’s judgment to filter out the rubbish. 

People that I know, who go to a lot of concerts and spend a lot of time listening to music tend not to listen to much of the bestselling songs.  Because it’s not refined enough for their educated musical tastes. 

Same in most fields.  Computer geeks wouldn’t dream of using mainstream bestselling software, because they know of technically better stuff.

Serious car lovers don’t buy Ford’s mass market cars. 

Jesus knew his life was about living his truth in such purity that he would be a shining example that people for thousands of years could strive to achieve.

There have probably been many people that have lived quiet lives, probably as enlightened and evolved as Jesus, but we have never heard of.  Jesus knew that he was to provide a light so that whatever circumstance we should find ourselves in, we would never be worse than him.

It wasn’t that he took away our sin.  I don’t believe this.  We do not need a Saviour to do it for us.  Jesus was a Saviour only in that he showed us a higher standard for us to aspire to.

His mission was to show us that the highest mission we have in life is to maintain our purity.  To be what we were created to be.  Regardless of any pressure or intimidation.  Even if everyone hates you.  Regardless of what you are threatened with.

Jesus showed the strength of purity.  He never flinched or took any of the weasel routes he was offered if he would just compromise.  He never begged, bargained, whined or complained.  He purely radiated what he was and trusted that God’s plan for him was greater than that of his ego. 

Everyone else in the film was conflicted and compromised and ended up diluting their integrity out of fear;

• The High Priests were weak because they were threatened by Jesus’s teachings.
• The Roman Governor was compromised because he feared the consequences of an uprising.
• Judas’s lack of integrity sold out Jesus, whether motivated by money, prestige or injured pride.
• His own Disciples were so frightened that they denied Jesus for fear for their own safety.

Peter tried and honestly wanted to be as pure, but he believed in the illusion of life.  You see life is a flow.  It comes from a source, God.  Translated through the senses, it seems real and can confuse and frighten.  Jesus was not swayed by his senses, because he maintained the purity of his connection to God.  He knew God as the source and origin of all..

This world deals in confusion, anxiety, guilt, stress, depression and so on.  Happiness comes only when our consciousness leaves this world. 

Think about it.  When you are happy, you are not focused on anything specifically.  You just are, without being aware of it.  But when you are unhappy, in any form, you are focused on something specific.  Unhappiness is rooted in worldly concerns.

While the world is your reference point, nothing is certain.  You will be enticed, swayed, manipulated and intimidated into diluting your purity.
 
The brutality of the film only goes to emphasize how nothing would break Jesus’s connection to his source. 

‘He was of this world, but not in it’.

People judge things by the way that they would react to it, but people are different.  They feel things differently and respond differently.  It may seem that he suffered greatly, but he knew that it would cause greater pain to suffer the internal miseries and pains that most of the world suffers.

His greatest wish was to give his gift of truth to the world.  And so the greater the brutality, the indignity, the persecution, the greater his gift was.  No one could ever feel that he had a harder challenge.

What is missed in most simplistic messages like ‘The Secret’ is the fact that there is a calling greater than money, prestige and so on.  In your calling, you may be called to look a fool, to reject money rather than dilute your purity, be persecuted and even suffer for your art.  But the pursuit of your art far outweighs the acquisition of stuff, of comfort or even the greater good.

Will you forsake all false Gods to live your truth or will you dilute it’s purity with conflict and compromise?