By Wes Annac, Culture of Awareness

If you think about it, the way we seek happiness as a society seems counterproductive. We rush around every day to earn a living, and in doing so, we never give ourselves any time for the pursuit of actual happiness, contentment or inner peace.

The busy, hurried nature of life causes us to seek happiness in shallow external things that only satisfy us for a short time before failing to meet our growing material hunger, and this causes us to crave more and more external stimulation as we gradually lose touch with our essence.

Anyone can temporarily lose touch with it, even spiritual seekers, and if we aren’t careful and we don’t diligently watch our thoughts and habits each day, we could fall into the trap and start relying on material things for happiness like everyone else.

Like countless others have said, we have to search for happiness within. There’s no way around it, and in searching deep within, we usually find and transcend the stumbling blocks that stand in our way, effectively clearing the way for the bliss, joy, fulfillment and satisfaction we seek.

What we ultimately seek is love, and every quality mentioned above is a shade of this omnipotent creative force.

When we willingly turn away from all of the external distractions and look within for our happiness and fulfillment, we allow ourselves to confront our inner obstacles, make the path clear and connect with our greater awareness.

Once we have an unbreakable connection with that inner light, the light of the Self, we can consciously go about our mission with elevated passion and enthusiasm. With our inner channel open and flowing, our creativity will pour out of us and we’ll be naturally led to whatever we need to do each day.

Some of us will find one or two trusted creative outlets and wholeheartedly pursue them, and if we want to stay active, flowing and enthusiastic, we have to remember to make time for rebalancing and reconnecting with the Self in whatever way works for us.

All of our power and subsequent fulfillment come from within, and if we don’t already feel powerful and fulfilled (in a non-egotistical way) all the time, we’ll have trouble integrating that enthusiasm into our work.

We’ll probably feel drained after we work, and it’s because we haven’t maintained our essential inner connection. We’ve effectively cut ourselves off from our source of creativity, inspiration, and most importantly, love.

We have to stay rooted in love if we want to achieve anything creatively or spiritually significant, and if our goal is to help others, we first need to help ourselves by getting to a space where we feel active, alive and connected with our higher consciousness, which we connect with through an open and flowing heart.

We need to sustain this connection if we want to go anywhere with it, and if we’re serious about keeping our inner channel open, we’ll have to commit wholeheartedly to our personal path and give up things that no longer serve us.

It isn’t about bossing ourselves around or quitting something because a guru told us it isn’t right – it’s about being brutally honest with ourselves and determining if there’s anything that keeps us from staying connected.

Our connection is essential for our creativity and our general wellbeing, so making it a top priority seems just as essential. Our path is ours to walk how we please, but we’ll have to hold ourselves to a fairly high standard if we want to stay connected.

There will be a lot of obstacles in the way when we first start to keep the channel open, and this is why a high standard in terms of the things we let into our lives will be helpful. If something (or a lot of things) in our life is blocking our connection, we’ll have to be honest enough with ourselves to be able to let it go.

Even if letting it go is rough, we’ll know in the end that it was necessary for our advancement and we’ll be glad we made the change.

The first step is to recognize that we can no longer search for happiness in society or anything it gives us, because we’ll be disappointed every time.

Now that we’ve become aware of the awesome spiritual power that seems to exist just beyond our ability to grasp, nothing else will satisfy the insatiable hunger we feel for this power, which, little do we know, we’ve had inside of us all along. Most people just haven’t looked within, but fortunately for us, we have.

We’ve rediscovered an infinitesimal fraction of our higher consciousness – our connection with our creator – and now, we’re bound to the path of expanding that love and creatively expressing the results of our union for the world to enjoy.

We have to open our inner channel first, and we’ll want to focus a lot of attention on keeping this connection strong and flowing.

Enlightenment, and even the spiritual practices and experiences that lead to it, is the single greatest and most important thing any genuine spiritual seeker could want, and all of our social and spiritual awareness flows directly from this elevated consciousness.

Honestly, what could be more important than keeping that connection alive?

Share freely.

I’m a twenty-one year old spiritual writer, blogger and channel for the creative expression of the inner universe, and I created The Culture of Awareness daily news site.

The Culture of Awareness features daily spiritual and alternative news, articles I’ve written, and more. Its purpose is to awaken and uplift by providing material about the fall of the planetary elite and a new paradigm of unity and spirituality.

I’ve contributed to a few different spiritual websites including The Master Shift, Waking Times, Golden Age of Gaia, Wake Up World and Expanded Consciousness. I can also be found on Facebook (Wes Annac and The Culture of Awareness) and Twitter, and I write a paid weekly newsletter that you can subscribe to for $11.11 a month here.