Yet lasting happiness must lie somewhere, otherwise the Creator would not have put this inner urge within each human soul. Somewhere there must be a source of eternal and unchanging happiness attaining which all desires become at once totally fulfilled. Is there an experience, which grants at once total satisfaction and eternal bliss, which takes one forever beyond all sorrow, pain and suffering? This is an important question. It was to the resolution of this riddle of life that the ancient sages and seers of India devoted their entire lives. Relentlessly they pursued this quest until they ultimately achieved an experience of inexpressible joy that took them forever beyond all sorrow, pain and suffering.
These sages, being filled with universal love for all beings, did not want to keep this experience to themselves. Therefore, they declared to all: “O mortals, striving and struggling upon this earth plane, weeping, wailing, buffeted by the vicissitudes of life here, we have come upon a great discovery. There is something beyond these appearances, these vanishing names and forms that go to make up this universe. There is something beyond which forms the very source and support of all these objects of the phenomenal world. Why do you search in vain for happiness outside. Come, come, happiness resides within. Stop your wanderings amidst this desert of empty earthly objects, amidst this jungle of sensuality, and turn your gaze within. Dive within. Happiness is within. God is within you. Meditate upon the Reality within.”
They had discovered a Supreme Reality attaining which one goes beyond all relative experience, all duality, and enters into a blessed state of Bliss Absolute, a state beyond all sorrow. To attain that state in which even the heaviest sorrow is powerless to shake one is the birthright of each and every individual soul.
If Wealth is lost, nothing is lost.
If Health is lost, something is lost.
If Character is lost, everything is lost.
Excepted from Success In Life: A Young Person's Guide by Sri Swami Chidananda.
