"A Conversation with a Friend"

“What does being happy have to do with anything?” I asked.

It has everything to do with everything, my Donkey-friend, Sonam fired back.  We were designed in the image of Ultimate Happiness to be happy…to live happily.  Our regrets over our mistakes and our worries over and cravings for the future separate us from the time and place of deep happiness:  Here…Now.

“Well…what about you?  Are you happy?”

Sonam paused for a moment and then looked straight into my eyes.  Yes, my friend, I am.  Infinitely so, in fact.  And pretty much all the time…even when I’m feeling sad and broken.  It has taken me a life time of practice to learn that it really doesn’t take a life time to learn that happiness is available to all of us…in this moment.

“That doesn’t make sense, Sonam.  How can you be happy and feel sad at the same time?  That sounds—”

Contradictory? Sonam interrupted.  Now you’re thinking.  That’s good, he said, half laughing to himself.  It tells me that you’re paying attention.  Feelings come and go, Dave, just like the clouds in the sky.  Happiness has nothing to do with transient emotion, such as the giddiness we feel when we get what we think we want or the relief we feel when we free ourselves of that which we think we don’t want.

Happiness is like the sun and the sky, he continued.  It’s always there like they’re always there…even at night or when it’s raining out.  Happiness comes from the deep knowing within that you are reconciled and that whatever is happening, despite how gut-wrenchingly painful it might be in the moment, is working for your supreme good.  Working to instruct you.  Working to break you down—when needed—so that you can be built back up, redeemed, awakened, even resurrected. 
 
It is a peace and contentment that defies all explanation.  It comes from your connectedness to the Source of All Good, and from nowhere else.  So…yes, my friend…I am happy.  For I am united with  Goodness.  With He Who is called "Good."  Happiness is not generated from within me, Dave; rather, it is received from outside of me.  But the gate is very much within me…right here…right now.  May the gates within you be flung wide open, my friend!  And may God's Happiness open your heart to the world around you.  Maybe then, you won’t miss so much.

Sonam Narayan is a character that came to me in a dream almost two years ago.  He is representative of a conglomerate of the many mentors I have had in life.  If you will oblige me—and as strange as it might seem, I would like to invite you to drop in on my conversations with this person from time to time.  :o)