.::.Easy Mind Reading.::.

Why do we live? What are we here for? Day after day we asked these questions of the purpose and meaning of our lives. And most of us constantly look for the answer. How can we achieve happiness? This is yet another question urging us to look for its answer every day. What if the answer to those questions is simple? What if it is all simply about ONE thing? Connection. The secret of happiness is explained thoroughly in the clear and refreshing voice of Masami Sato in this excerpt of her book, ONE.

What are we trying to find out?

There are many things we do in our life.

However, have we ever wondered why we do what we do? What are we actually looking for?

The world now is full of billions of us coming from different races, countries, religions and beliefs all doing different things. We all look different and act quite differently. We have different interest and attitude from others. We communicate differently often using different languages. We have different desire and feelings.

However, if we were to say there is just ONE thing we are ALL looking for, what would it be?

As I travelled around the world, I often asked people a simple question, "What would you like to achieve in your life? What do you really want?"

In the beginning it appeared that different people were looking for different things. People said different things like "A house of my own", "A good job", "A perfect partner", "A soul mate", "A little more money", "An affectionate family", "Freedom", "Peace of mind", "A purpose to life" etc. There were many answers of this type.

I did notice that some of these requirements were of a more earthly nature while others were of a permanent nature. Earthly desires are those that we want because we do not yet have it, or think that we do not yet have it. As against this, permanent desires are not about getting things we do not have. It is about a 'feeling' that we yearn for, so that it does not come to an end, whatever we get or accomplish at every moment or our lives.

If we removed all the temporal desires from out list and only looked at the permanent desires, it is so obvious that we simply want to continue feeling positive feelings like excitement, enjoyment, inspiration, motivation, generosity, love, joy etc.-in another way, we want to stay being happy.

Contentment

Contentment is a state of emotion that all of us are yearning to be in. Each of us may define it differently. We may also value it differently. Each of us may be familiar with different levels of intensity of contentment. Still we definitely have something in common when contentment comes to us. And when we realize this secret about contentment, we hold the key to greater contentment, and to make those around us know the same feelings as well.

This life, that we live, is a mystery. All of us like it in our own different ways. We may also dislike it in different ways. We may wonder about it. We may cherish it. Or we may just accept it in an offhand manner. But what is the ultimate purpose of this life? What if the mystery of our existence is at hand? What if its revelation actually brings us happiness and fulfilment when we come face to face with it?

What if the truth of our life's purpose, and of its happiness, is as simple as this:

It is all about connection.

Relationship is everything

Everything is about connecting. Everything is part of everything else. If we look at our own life, it says it all. Then we will start to see the real purpose of our life.

Why do we do anything, ANYTHING at all, in life as humans?

It is simply because we want to connect more and more. We make friends to feel connected. We get married to connect with someone more deeply and more permanently. We create a family to feel even more connected. We go out to meet more people to connect with, not only to get practical benefits from those connections, but also to feel more connected to the world.

We buy good clothes or go to a hairdressing saloon for a better relationship with our aesthetical sense and to our own physical appearance. We eat all types of food to feel more connected to the sense of taste and flavour. We eat out to feel the relationship to the people we dine with. We get mobile phones and computers to weave relationships with others and the world. We read magazines and newspapers to remain in touch with whatever is going on and what others are doing and experiencing. We educate ourselves to keep in touch with what others know and value.

Every thing that we do is to satisfy the need of keeping alive relationships. It is our relationship to our own body that makes it imperative that we eat and sleep. Because of our relationship to our senses, we are asked to do things to satisfy the demands that body makes. If we ignore the demands that body makes, we have to bear the resultant aches and distress. And above our mundane needs, we yearn for another relationship - a relationship to our very existence - a relationship to our purpose. And without that connection, it is vacant. Just like the blankness so many of us feel when we have no relationship even to ourselves. That is just not the way our lives are supposed to be lived.

Connection is powerful, and yet it's fragile and tender

When the bonds in a relationship lose strength, we go in for a separation, divorce, disagreements, judgement, and bitterness. It never feels good to lose the bonding. Still, it possible to be in love with someone today, and totally disconnected and bitter towards him tomorrow. And this change of feelings can happen just by the flicker of an eyelid. And the eyes might be yours or theirs!

When the relationship is not there.

When we do not feel the connection, we start seeing problems. We start seeing differences and barriers. We start judging and criticising others. We magnify, dwell on and give energy to those things we perceive as problems. When that happens, we could even turn it all inwards and give ourselves pain and criticism. We cannot feel totally happy when we're feeling disconnected from even one thing.

Bonding: the Secret to Happiness

What if we choose to perceive the entire thing in reverse? When we do that we understand this simple truth: we cannot feel despondent when we are in a strong relationship. It is simply not possible!

Try to feel moody when we feel the security of our bonding to the people around us and laughing and enjoying with our whole heart. Even if we have our own fair share of difficulties in life, we would still be able to break into a laugh and enjoy and feel good when the bonds are strong. At the same time, we would be unable to enjoy things when those bonds are absent.

Bonding: Our Life

Connection is the core of everything. That's what life is. Connection.

Things are just a combination of smaller parts. Things connect together to form a greater whole; the way our bodies are collections of smaller units, cells, organs, molecules and atoms.

Our actions and choices also express the need for connection. We are designed to constantly seek ways to connect to each other and to a greater purpose.

Connection and Religion

Some of us opt to be part of various religions to feel better bonded. This bonding that they seek could be to God. It may be to the people with the same convictions. When we share a similar credence, there is a greater feeling of being bound to the people in that group. More awarding and handing over takes place among people who are feeling strong bonds with each other.

Connection and Business

People start a business to feel a stronger relationship to themselves by having better mastery over their destiny. But quite often in the world of entrepreneurship, there is a greater sense of isolation especially when we start seeing other enterprises as rivals, staff as devices and customers as a source of income. With all that, the main reason for getting into the business was to establish a relationship. So why should we cause any secluding at all? Maybe in an ideal world, all enterprises worked in another way, but jointly.

Bonding and Wars

Some of us even create arguments or wars to experience some sense of 'victory' or supposedly a greater sense of security and significance. But ironically, this rebounds. The moment we 'win' the battle, we are actually more disconnected from others. We now need more security to protect ourselves from being attacked by others. We somehow end up being more insecure and afraid. We can't laugh at this because it actually happens to almost every one of us in different ways.

It may be the differences of opinion we have with people around us. It may be the wrong conclusions we reach at when we decide another person is wrong. When we want to be the only person to triumph, it will not be a victory in the true sense of the word - there would be no bonding. We can only rejoice when we succeed in unison. Then we feel the strong bond.

No matter how differently we express our needs, everything we do is to fulfil the mere desire we have to feel and be connected.

The complete experience of relationship is only felt through our heart. We can build a relationship with anybody when we truly care for them, and feeling that association with them. If we know this, forming that needed state is not difficult, but just simple and amusing. Then we would really feel more pleasure and contentment.

Life is a sport. We feel things and do things in a grand game but in reality the aim of any game is the pleasure we get out of it. It is not about doing something or having something. When the sports finally end, the winners are only the ones who have derived pleasure from the game. Not the ones who had more at the final tally. The upshots and end results of the sports in which we participate do not affect our actual life. But if we lost all our friends to participate in a game just because we wanted to win in that round, would it lead us to a lasting victory?

It is easy to comprehend this when compared to acting in a play, but we often fail to understand it while enacting the play of life. We do not remember that life is also a play.

We have no idea when the play started and when it would come to an end, we know that it began some day in the past and it will be finished some day. When the curtain falls on the stage of the play, we can just say, "Wow, it was really good. Let's act in it once again!"

In this game called life, the aim of the game is to 'connect'. We can keep connecting until we all become one. It is the only way to continuously feel connected to our purpose-sense of happiness and joy. We cannot feel disconnected to anything or deny and judge even one thing if we are to achieve the state of total connection.

Life is as easy as that. There is only ONE secret.

And the secret is to establish a relationship.

To become ONE.

To find pleasure.