HAPPINESS IN LIFE: –

When wickedness prevails there is disorder in every field of life, but where goodness rules, order prevails and people are happy. They are happy not in the sense that their material needs are satisfied, but in the sense that they lead virtuous and contented lives. As for material possessions, some men have fortunes and yet have a distracted life. That is no sign of happiness.

The same law applies to the world of the living, which applies to the world of inert matter. As clay and gold are ultimately the same substance, so the saint and the sinner are ultimately one. They are both manifestations of the SOUL. The layer of uncleanliness has disappeared from over the saint’s SOUL and is becoming ever thicker over the sinner’s SOUL. We should have risen above this ordinary level only when we learn to have equal regard for either. He who rises above both happiness and misery has achieved Yoga. Yoga here means ab- sence of suffering, never feeling miserable.

The speed of air can be measured by a meteorologist and that of electricity by a scientist; but no machine has yet been invented to measure the speed of the mind. It is unsteady and restless. We should withdraw it from every direction in which it flies and fix it in the right place, that is, in the SOUL.

He who acts towards others as if they were himself, will meet their needs as if they were his own, he would do to others what he will do to himself, will learn to look upon himself and the world as one. He is the true saint who is happy when others are happy and suffers when others suffer.

We should let no impurity enter our thoughts. Parents give us the human form, sometimes a form like their own. The subtle changes, which take place within us, become visible through our eyes. If we get a disease, we should believe that we ourselves are the cause of it. A person whose mind is so strong that he influences his surroundings instead of being influenced by them gets no disease. It is for our good therefore, to believe that our illness is the result of our own sins.

One should see oneself in the whole world and the whole world in oneself and act towards others accordingly. The ideal of non-violence had its origin in this realization – that when human life is full of suffering, we should cause suffering to no one.

Anger consumes many times more energy than does joy. It is because people spend more energy than they can afford that injustice and tyranny prevail in the world. Enjoyment of sense pleasure leads to death.