Happiness Lies within Us
Happiness rises from within ourselves; it cannot come from the world around. Attempts to extract it from outside of ourselves is therefore doomed to failure. The world is what you make of it; it depends on how you look on it. The electric lights in the house are operated by switches. If the source of electricity develops a fault, no manipulation of the switches will operate the lights unless and until the fault at the source is set right. Similarly, it is no use seeking happiness from things and persons unless you yourself adopt a cheerful, generous attitude to the world. The water of the oceans is brinish in taste all over. So, too, the people in the world are similar all over. Therefore, our happiness is a mathematical function of our own attitude, not of other persons or things.
The sole way, therefore, is to adapt our attitude to the world. God has gifted man with the unique faculty of discrimination. Making full use of this faculty, we should adopt good things and disregard unwholesome things and thoughts. It may not be easy for many to do whatever is good. The royal road to happiness, therefore, is to use the faculty of discrimination and accordingly, do things, as far as possible, which are wholesome, and avoid those that are otherwise, and to think of God all the while. To expect happiness from other persons or worldly things is fundamentally unreasonable. On the one hand, we do not toe the line with the world because it is sinuous and unpredictable; nor, on the other, do we determinedly walk in the way of God; how, then, can we expect happiness? So look for it within yourself, and not where it lies not.
The Lord, recounting His various manifestations in the world, cites the mind as one of them. Therefore we cannot reorient the mind without the assistance of God. So attach yourself fast to God, and rest contented. Keep the mind ceaselessly fixed on God, and contentment will automatically follow. Worldly opulence and grandeur never bring true contentment, because everyone lacks one thing or another and that he feels, is something that is necessary to complete his happiness. Remember that God gives enough to everyone to fill his needs; and it is for us to feel contentment with whatever comes.
* * * * *
