HAPPINESS

9 Jan 2011

Today we shall talk about something which all of us want, I am not talking about money. All of us want happiness. Not a single person here is not looking for happiness. Happiness is part of human nature. All of us wants to be happy. Happiness leads to peace of mind. Because peace of mind is something that you achieve after you have happiness. You cannot achieve peace of mind without happiness yet why is it so difficult for us find happiness? Because we look for it in the wrong places.

We look for happiness outside us. We look happiness outside us in something we want to acquire, like you want to buy something. A TV set maybe. A car maybe. A house maybe. Relationship maybe. Finding a wife or husband maybe. Because we think it give us happiness. Anything outside you, the happiness is very short lived, very short lived. You buy a TV set for example, you watch it and after a while the thing gets spoiled, you get fed up, you get angry, and unhappiness sets in. But in the end why do you get angry with the TV set? The TV set got nothing to do with it, you know. The anger and unhappiness is inside here (heart). Happiness and unhappiness is a choice we make in life.

No one can tell you to be unhappy or happy. Our prayer of attunement tells us you create for yourself the world in which you want to live by releasing all feelings of fear, resentment and hate. So, the choice is ours. You cannot say my wife made me unhappy or my husband made me unhappy or my job made me unhappy – that’s got nothing to do with it. You cannot say your job make me unhappy. A job is a job. If you are unhappy with a job then ask yourself why am I not happy with this job. How can I change my thinking so that I became happy.

So no one can force you to change. You are the only one who has the ability to change your thinking. Ultimately, it is your thinking. Come back to thinking again. Your thinking makes you unhappy or happy. Your job is a job. If you are not happy with the job then use the receipt of happiness and change it. How? Be thankful that you have been given this job. Who gave you this job, God gave you this job. So at the end of the day you work for God. Then you begin to change. “I am working for God I am not working for my boss, the physical boss. If you don’t like your boss’ face for example and you really like your job but you don’t like his face, then work for God.

Who give you this job, God gave you this job, not your boss. Then your thinking has changed. Be thankful for the job you are doing. You may think it is stupid. That is a fact of life. A lot of people are unhappy because they look for happiness in the wrong places. Most of all, they think happiness is something they can buy outside you. They say money can’t buy happiness also. So forget about trying to find it outside you. It is in you. Now look at it this way, for some reason some people like to be unhappy. Because there is something to talk about. Think about it. If you are happy, you don’t share this with people. You don’t go and tell your neighbour or your friend and share this happiness. Funny isn’t it.

But if you have a problem, you share with everybody. Why? It is funny isn’t it. There is something wrong with us isn’t it. If you are happy you keep quite you never share but when you are unhappy you tell people “this fellow call me this, my boss scolded me today, my job is like this.” You are ready to share with the entire world your unhappiness. That is something very funny. So now we have to change our thinking. If you are unhappy, it is inside here (heart). We have said this many times.

Spiritual journey is an inward journey. An inward path in which you discover yourself. To discover your true self, I mention this last Sunday and I don’t how many of you pick it up. The steps of your mind. Walk the steps of your mind. I don’t know how many of you pick it up and how many thought about it. Walk the steps of your mind. We said that if you want to find holy places you got to walk many many steps. First few steps, it is easy to walk, right or not but as you reach 100 steps you legs cannot take it. Walking the steps of your mind is like that.

The more you analyse your thinking, the higher you walk the steps of your mind and higher you reach the apex of the mind, the harder it gets, the weaker your limbs get and you need perseverance. You need to go on and on and on. It is easy to take one two steps but to face yourself in a reality of your true self, very difficult. Why? Because your ego refuse to allow you to do so. Your ego will say forget what this fellow says. Waste of time. “Where is there such a thing as analysing yourself”. “I know myself what, I am like this. I cannot change.”

Yes, if you say you cannot change, you cannot change. The very fact that spiritual journey is a journey of change. Changing your mind. Changing your mind set. If you cannot change your mind set, forever you will be like this. Forever you will be unhappy and the most important thing is, very few people realise this, if you are unhappy, you create a very negative vibration around you. You carry it outside you to your friends, to your work place and you attract negative vibrations towards you. This is something people don’t realise.

When you attract negative things towards you all the bad things will come to you. So you have to create a positive vibration in which you are able to attract positive things, good things, good friends, good job, anything that is good will come to you. By your own vibration you create for yourself inside here. Now we have all gone to holy places and feel good, you come to Sunday prayers you feel good. You go to Puttaparthi you feel good but it doesn’t last. Maybe it will last, if you go Parthi, maybe three days. At the end of three days when you come back, you are back to square one. You come to Sunday prayers, the moment you live the door, the next morning you wake up, all the energy has dissipated.

Why? Because our mind does not allow us to maintain this positive vibrations. Our mind doesn’t allow us and who doesn’t allow, your own self, your own ego. It likes you to be unhappy. It is very happy if you are unhappy. That is the very funny thing about Human Being. The ago is very happy If your unhappy. Why? It can tell the whole world about it.

Now we have to change our thinking. This journey is about a journey of change, journey of getting to know yourself. The deeper you know yourself, the higher you climb the steps of the mind, the more effort you have to make. There is nothing more than writing down on a piece of paper what you want to do. A lot of people say spiritual life, so many things to do. Yes, you cannot find this in books. Books don’t talk about such things. So where do I start? Start from yourself. Which area you know which you want to change. Is it the thinking?

Is it everytime you see something you become unhappy or people tell you something, you become unhappy or something within you that you want to change and start from there. That’s why they say take baby step. Take small steps. Don’t try to, if you have this feeling of jealousy in you, try to leap frog and climb hoping to reach it overnight and say I want to get rid of this, cannot.

It impossible. It may take one life time. That’s what we are born here. We are born in this world now taking this human form because it is a learning process. There is something in us that we need to change. That’s why we are born. If you don’t need to change anything you won’t be born again. Because you are pure. The very fact that you take human birth is because there is something in us we need to learn. Whether you have to learn to be selfless, whether you learn to be more forgiving, whether you have to learn to be more charitable or you have to learn to be less negative or you biggest problem is being envious of people, whatever it is.

And this is between you and God. So don’t think that you take this human form for nothing, there is a reason. And don’t think that because you are having these negative feelings you are bad. No. No one is bad. We are all here to learn. So long as you take this effort to learn. If you don’t learn, never mind, come back again, God has plenty of time. Because in that world there is no time. Only we human being have what we call time. That world is timeless. Its beyond space and time. So if we cannot make it in this life time because, assuming that when we finish our assignment, we still have negative feelings of certain things, its O.K. But make this effort so that you don’t waste one life. Important thing is don’t waste one life. At the end of this lifetime you say, I have done my best and I am ready to go. And when you go, be happy, don’t go unhappy, go happy. Then at least you can smile. There is this saying by Swami Vivekananda he says when you are born you cry everybody smiles. When you go, make sure you go smiling when other people are crying. Words of Wisdom.