What is the reason for our remaining alive? For what have we come here? Day after day we are being asked about the sense and purpose of our lives. And many of us keep on searching for answers. Will we be able to achieve happiness? That is also a question that forces us every day to find out its answer. What happens if the answer to those queries is quite uncomplicated? What if it is all about ONE thing? Bonding. The secret of happiness is explained perfectly in the stimulating voice of Masami Sato in the excerpt of her book, ONE.

What are we searching for?

There are many things we do in our life.

But have we ever thought about why we do what we do? What are we really looking for?

The world is a confluence of millions of people of all continents, races, religions, and ideologies, doing different things. They look different and also act in different ways. All of us have different interests and each have a different viewpoint. We converse differently using different languages. We have different emotions and desires.

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

While I travelled all over the world, I did ask people one simple question, “What would you like to achieve in your life? What do you really want?”

At first, it seemed everyone was looking for different things as they randomly said, “Good job”, “My own house”, “A nice partner”, “A loving family”, “A soul mate”, “More money”, “Wealth”. “Freedom”, “Peace of mind”, “A life purpose” There were many more answers.

I actually noticed that some of these things are temporal desires and some are more permanent desires. Temporal desire means we want it because we do not have it yet or we don’t think we have it yet. On the other hand, permanent desire is not about attaining things we do not have. It is about the ‘feeling’ we seek so this does not end no matter what we get or achieve at each moment of our life.

If one could just remove all earthly desires from our list and look at only permanent desires, it would be obvious that we just want to continue feeling positive sensations like excitement, happiness, inspiration, motivation, munificence, affection, joy etc. – put in other words, we want to continue 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 making relationships. Everything is part of something else. Just a look at our own lives would reveal it to us. Then we will understand the real purpose of our lives.

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 single thing we do is to satisfy the need for connection. If we’re not connected to our own body, we don’t even have to eat and sleep. Our connection to all our senses tells us to do something to satisfy the demand of the body. We feel pain and discomfort if we ignore the signals of our own body. And beyond our basic needs, we seek a greater sense of connection – connection to our existence – connection to our purpose. And without that connection, it’s empty. Just like the emptiness many of us feel inside when we’re not even connected to ourselves. That simply cannot be the natural way we’re designed to live our lives.

Bonds are powerful, and yet they are fragile and tender

When we cannot feel the intimacy in a relationship, we opt for separation, divorce, quarrels, judgement, and disapproval. It never feels good to lose the intimacy in a relationship. Nevertheless, it is possible to fall in love with someone one day and fall out of love with the same person the next day. The feeling can alter just by a flick of a finger. And the flick might be by your finger 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 are looking at the whole idea from the other end? When we do it, we realize this simple reality: we cannot feel miserable when the bonds are strong. It is just not possible!

Try to feel unhappy when we’re feeling connected to the people around us and laughing and sharing wholeheartedly together. Even when we have so-called ‘problems’ in life, we can still laugh together and feel happy and positive when we are feeling connected. At the same time, it is very difficult to enjoy anything if we’re not feeling connected.

Relationship: Our Life .

Relationship is the core of everything. That is what life is. Relationship.

Everything is a unified whole of smaller units. Everything combines together to form a bigger unit; the way our bodies are a fusion of smaller entities like atoms, molecules, cells and organs.

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.

Bonding and Religion

Some of us choose to be part of different religions to feel more connected. The connection they seek could be to God. It could be to the people with the same belief. When we share the same belief, it creates a stronger sense of bonding within that group of people. More giving happens naturally among people who are feeling connected to each other.

Connection and Business

Many people begin an enterprise to feel better bonded to themselves by being in control of their fate. But often in the entrepreneurial world, we end up being more and more segregated especially when we start viewing other ventures as contenders, staff as instruments and customers as a money flow. But the basic point of why we got into the venture was to feel the power of that bonding. So, why do we need to fashion that disconnection at all? May be in the perfect world, all business ventures worked differently, but hand in hand.

Relationship and Wars

Some of us even raise arguments or wars to feel some sense of ‘triumph’ or what is a heightened sense of safety and importance. But strangely, this ricochets. The minute we ‘win’ the fight, we are in fact weakening the relationship. We now require more sureness to defend ourselves from being assaulted by others. We thus end up being more unsure and frightened. We cannot take it lightly as it really happens to almost all of us in one form or another.

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.

Despite the varied ways in which our needs are expressed, everything we do is to satisfy the yearning we have to feel and have a strong relationship.

The real sense of connection comes only through our heart. We can connect with anybody when we are truly caring for them and feeling connected with them. If we know this, creating the desired state is actually simple, easy and fun. Then we would naturally experience more happiness and joy.

Life is just like a game. We experience things and do things in a game but fundamentally, the aim of any game is to enjoy. It is not about doing things or having things. When the game finally ends, the winners are only the ones who enjoyed the game. Not the ones who had more at the end. The results and outcomes of a game we play don’t affect our true life. But if we lost all our friends to play with during a game just because we wanted to be the winner in this round, would it lead us to the real winning game?

It is so easy to understand this in the example of playing a game, but we often become blind in our own everyday game called life. We forget so easily that it is also just a game.

We have no idea when this game began and when it would be over, all that we know is that it commenced in the past and that it will be over one day. When finally the umpire blows the whistle to stop the game, we can simply say, “Wow, it was a lot of fun. Let us play once again!”

In this play called life, the aim of the play is to ‘bond.’ We can keep bonding until we all merge to become one. It is the one way to perpetually feel bonded to our rationale – the feeling of joy and pleasure. We cannot afford to have the bonds to anything weakened or reject and decide even one thing if we are to reach the state of complete bonding.

Life is as simple as that. There is just ONE secret.

And the secret is to connect.

To become ONE.

To enjoy.

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