Wednesday, February 6, 2013

The Key to Happiness - Svadyaya for Feb 9, 2013


The Key to Happiness - Svadyaya for DLS meditation and satsung Feb 9, 2013
 
Almighty Lord! Prompt these sadhakas to ever walk the path that leads to their own highest blessedness! Radiant Divinities! We receive from others what we make them do. Sometimes we invite temptations; sometimes we invite aggravated situations by working for them. We play with life in such a way that things do not merely happen to us, but we make them happen to us. If you have keen introspection, then after a situation has occurred you find, “Yes, indeed, it is I who worked for it.”
 
It is said; “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” Mystics have prayed to God: “O Lord, save me from myself.” Many a time, from inside we harbour thoughts and motives that attract certain situations towards us, and then we blame God! You think that you are doing all these things and no one knows. But God does know. There is someone within you and He is nothing but Consciousness, Awareness. Prajnana. He is jnana-svarupa (knowledge-incarnation). Nothing misses Him. Therefore, it is necessary that seekers and sadhakas be wise, not go in self-deception.
 
Life is a mirror. You see in it what you show it. If you make a pleasant face, a pleasant face looks back at you. If you make an unpleasant face, an unpleasant face looks back at you. Happiness and misery, favourable and unfavourable environments depend to a very large extent on our state of mind. Happiness is not contained in things, situation or environment outside. It is in how we look at it through our mind. It is the situations within.
 
If that inner state is adjusted and corrected, then nothing has power to give us any experience except that which we give to it. A shepherd was asked whether he liked the weather on that day. He answered: “Knowing that I have no control over weather, knowing that I cannot change it, long ago I decided that whatever weather comes I will like it. And therefore, now I am at peace. Instead of always trying to get only that thing that I like, I decided that it is wiser to like whatever things I get.” This is the key to happiness. The key is inside. It is the state of mind we create within us that ultimately has the effect of creating happiness or misery for us. A picture does not paint itself. It is the artist with his brush who paints it. Let us apply this truth: “I make my day. I make my happiness and misery. I make my darkness and light. I create it from within.” Apply this truth and then see what happens.
 
God Bless You!
Swami Chidananda

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