I have no money. I have no friends. I have no job. I have no house. I have no spouse. I am unhappy.

“If I were in your situation, I would be unhappy. I would pursue happiness,” the world may tell you.

First ask yourself, “Why does not having these things make me unhappy? And how do I know that having these things will make me happy? What if they don’t?”

You feel separate from happiness and believe that you need to achieve something first to become happy, as if you could add “happiness” to your life. Then you start to pursue happiness, and go after the things the world told you will make you happy.

But they never do. At the end of your life, you realize that the “pursuit of happiness” was a lie.

You see a rainbow. It makes you feel good. You want to add the rainbow to your life. You start to run towards it. But you never reach it, because it’s an illusion created by your mind.

This makes you unhappy. You stop running as you realize that both happiness and unhappiness stem from the same illusion.

Happiness is like a rainbow, an illusion. Peace is like the sun, real. @fabimarkl (Click to Tweet!)

You close your eyes and feel peace, joy, love, beauty and gratitude. You didn’t add these things to you. They have been there inside of you all your life. They are your true nature.

You have woken up out of your dream, entered the awakened life and realized that pursuing happiness is a form of madness.

What do you mean by “madness”?

“Madness” or “insanity” is not a label to judge, but a word that is used for the dysfunctional part of your mind also called “the ego” or “the egoic mind”.

The ego isn’t good or bad. It’s just the thing inside you that craves identification and separation. That constant craving is the root of all your unhappiness.

“Unhappiness” is the manifestation of the collective madness inside you, hence it is not your personal fault that you feel unhappy.

How do you know that there is a collective madness?

“Food” has become “diet”. “Movement” has become “exercise”. “Beauty” has become “sexy”. “Creation” has become “competition”. “Success” has become “money”. “Failure” has become “depression”. “Leadership” has become “politics”. “Security” has become “surveillance”. “Peace” has become “ceasefire”. “Spirituality” has become “religion”. “God” has become “Truth”.

What was once normal has become insane. The meaning of the word “normal” has changed. That is the sign that the collective mind has become mad.

Isn’t “losing your mind” the same as madness?

In our world, when you “lose your mind”, what people mean is that you are completely lost in your thoughts. That’s when they call you insane.

If that is what insanity means, then 99,999 out of 100,000 people around you are insane, because they’re completely lost in their thoughts.

If we take the expression “losing your mind” literally, it would be the best thing that could happen to you, because it means losing the identification with it.

Once you have lost your mind, you have become conscious of your own insanity, and you have become sane.

But when I lose my thoughts, don’t I become dumb?

Neuroscientists say that the default state of the brain is that of thinking. During 16 wakeful hours, the average mind produces about one thought per second.

That’s nearly 60,000 thoughts each day. “A person with so many thoughts must be very intelligent,” you wonder. But 99.99% of these thoughts are the same as the day before.

Only six thoughts are new each day. Now, reconsider your judgment. Imagine a person who has reduced the amount of thinking by 90% to one new thought every 10 seconds, a total of 6,000 thoughts each day. But now, just 90% of his thoughts are the same, and 600 are new each day.

“Wow!” you might say, “that person is 100 times smarter even though he or she thinks less.”

Knowing how to stop thinking is the secret to happiness and the secret to becoming a more creative person.

You don’t have to think as much as you think.

Don’t we need thinking to solve the complex problems of humanity?

The human mind makes all problems complex and difficult while all our challenges are simple:

• Give hungry people food.
• Give homeless people shelter.
• Give sick people caring.
• Give thirsty people water.
• Give poor people a job.
• Give young people a future.
• Give old people a hand.
• Give sad people a smile.
• Give cold people warmth.
• Give lonely people a hug.
• Give fearful people a word.
• Give all people love.

Pick one challenge a month and in a year you’ll have saved the world. But while you save the world, your priority remains your awakening.

What heals the collective madness?

If you would put a hot iron into the space of the universe, it will lose its energy until it reaches a point just above absolute zero, which is the temperature of the universe itself.

It’s the same with a thinking human being.

You put it in silence, and it will finally reach the state of silence itself, because that is your natural state. It’s not absolute nothingness, but just above absolute zero. It’s the awareness that is left, and that is the healer of the collective madness.

When you become present, you become a healer.

This article is a chapter from my book “unlimited freedom: your guide to an awakened life”. You can read the first 30 pages for free at fabimarkl.com/book (no sign up required) and you can get 80 Meditation Cards (based on the book) for free at fabimarkl.com.

” Hi, I’m Fabian Markl. I am the author of  unlimited freedom: your guide to an awakened life. It is helping more than 300 people in over 12 countries live more consciously and powerfully. I have dedicated my life to writing books for all of you who hold the vision of a conscious culture. My free gift to you: If you enter your name and email at fabimarkl.com, I’ll send you 80 Meditation Cards for inner peace and fulfillment that you can print out or put in your phone. If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, I’ll send you some of my best quotes every day and sometimes I give away free books to my followers.

Image courtesy of Heather Katsoulis.