In this broken, bleeding world, we are all seeking happiness, if we could but understand that happiness is an experience which transcends externality. True happiness is not touched by external events.
He is happy, who sees God! God-vision is emphasised by the rishis of the Upanishads. To see God is to be truly happy.
To see God is to accept the Divine Will. We become unhappy by following the path of desires. Nations are unhappy because they are dominated by desires, of parties or dictators.
These desires constitute what the Gita calls dvandas or pairs of opposites. To be happy you must rise above these ‘pairs’ pleasure and pain, prosperity and poverty, praise and blame, life and death. These ‘pairs’ are the world’s values. Rise above the world’s applause and censure, to be truly happy.
God-vision is a realisation. Rise above the dvandas and realise your unity with the universe. It is the sense of separateness which makes you unhappy. Let the bheda-buddhi go! Develop the abheda-buddhi, the consciousness of unity with the Cosmos! Separation means ‘tension’ and ‘tension’ becomes unhappiness.
One of the disciplines to achieve happiness is silence.
When you ‘separate’ yourself from ‘others’ you feel ‘isolated’. Be one with Nature—and you will be happy. Modern civilisation is aggressive and develops ‘superiority complex’ which makes one feel ‘isolated’. All isolation is unhappiness.
Try each day to realise your unity with the human and the animal, your kinship with the plant and the rock. The sun, the moon and the stars, the earth, the water, the wind, the fire, and the sky are not aliens. You belong to them: they belong to you. Enter into unity with them.
Therefore, go into silence every day. One of the disciplines to achieve happiness is silence.
In periods of silence, you develop the sense of wonder. Wonder is the beginning of knowledge, and wisdom ends in wonder. In periods of silence you feel that you live and move in mystery.
If you would be happy, you must make your life an experience of gratitude. Yes—in gratitude you adore the Mystery that surrounds you, and in this adoration you feel happy.
And coming out of silence you work in love. Your life becomes a procession of love. In loving dedication of all you have, and all you are, to the service of Love is the secret of the happiness which the world cannot give and cannot take away!