People work daily; they struggle to survive. Somehow they want to exist. However, they are not happy. The word happiness is like ‘Greek’ to people, as we say around here. However, worst of all is that they know this. But amid so much bitterness, it seems they do not lose the hope of achieving happiness one day without knowing how or in what way.
Wretched people! They suffer so much! However, they want to live and are afraid of dying… If people understood something about revolutionary psychology, possibly they would even think differently; but the fact is that they do not know anything. What they want is to survive in the midst of their misfortune, and that is all.
There are pleasant and enjoyable moments, but this not happiness. People confuse pleasure with happiness. Parties, bar hopping, drinking sprees and orgies are brutish pleasures, but they are not happiness…
There are, however, wholesome get-togethers without over-indulgence, vulgar behavior and the abuse of alcohol. But that is not happiness either.
Are you a kind person? How do you feel when you dance? Are you in love? Is it true love? What do you feel when you dance with the one you love? Allow me to be a little bit cruel for a moment by saying that this is not happiness either. If you are an older person, if you are not attracted to these pleasures, if they leave a bad taste in your mouth, forgive me if I tell you that it would be different if you were young and full of illusions.
At any rate, whatever you might say, parties or no parties, love or no love, whether you have that which is called money or not, you are not happy, although you might think the opposite. People spend a lifetime looking for happiness everywhere and die without ever having found it. In America and everywhere there are many who hope to win the lottery some day; they think that this way they will find happiness. Some in fact do win. However, this does not bring them the happiness for which they yearn so much.
When one is a young man, one dreams of the perfect woman, a princess from One Thousand and One Arabian Nights, someone extraordinary. Then the harsh reality of life hits: a wife and small children to support, difficult financial problems, etc. There is no doubt that as the children grow so do the problems, and they might even become impossible to cope with… Naturally, as children get bigger they need bigger shoes, which are more expensive. This is obvious. Naturally, as the children grow, their clothing is ever more costly. If you have money it is no problem; but if not, then it is a serious matter and there is a great deal of suffering. Everything would be more or less bearable with a good wife, but if a man is betrayed, that is, if his wife cheats on him, then what is the use of him struggling to earn money for the household? There are unfortunately extraordinary examples of wonderful women, true companions through both fortune and misfortune. However, to make matters worse, their husbands take them for granted, and worse still, abandon them for other women who will embitter their lives.
There are many young girls who dream of their prince. Unfortunately, the harsh reality is in fact different, and they end up marrying tyrants. The greatest dream for a woman is to have a lovely home and be a mother, a blessed predestination. However, even if she marries a good man, who may be unlikely, all things come to pass in the end. Sons and daughters get married and leave home or they are ungrateful to their parents. Ultimately, family life ends.
All in all, in this cruel world in which we live there are no happy people… All the unfortunate human beings are unhappy. In life we have met many individuals who are loaded with money and full of problems: they are involved in lawsuits, overtaxed, etc. They are not happy. What is the use of being rich if one does not have good health? Wretched rich people! Sometimes they are more unfortunate than any beggar.
Everything passes in this life: things, people, ideas, etc. Those who have money and those who have none also pass away. Nobody experiences genuine happiness! Many people want to escape from themselves through drugs or alcohol. In truth, they not only fail to escape, but worse, they get trapped in an inferno of vice. Friends in alcohol, marijuana or L.S.D. disappear as if by magic when an addict resolves to change his life.
Happiness is not achieved by running away from the Me, Myself, the Ego. Instead it would be interesting to grab the bull by the horns, to observe the ‘I’, to study the ‘I’ in order to discover the causes of suffering. When one discovers the real cause of so much misery and bitterness, it becomes obvious that something can be done…
If we manage to eliminate our Me, Myself, our ‘I’ of drinking sprees, our ‘I’ of vices and our ‘I’ of attachments that cause so much heartfelt sorrow in us; if we manage to eliminate those worries that torment our minds and make us ill etc., etc., then clearly what arrives is that which is timeless, that which is beyond the body, that which is beyond attachments and beyond the mind, that which is truly beyond our comprehension and is called happiness!
Unquestionably, while our consciousness remains trapped within the Ego, the Me, Myself, the ‘I’ , in no way will it be able to know genuine happiness. Happiness has a quality that neither the Me, Myself, the ‘I’ , or the Ego has ever known.
Samael Aun Weor
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