Happiness Can’t Be Sought

 

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Happiness Can’t Be Sought

Happiness cannot be sought; we cannot seek it. It is a by-product; it is a natural consequence. If we make a goal out of happiness, we will never find it, we will always miss it. It comes very silently, it comes like a whisper, it comes like our shadow. When we are totally absorbed into something and not thinking about happiness at all, it is there. Whenever we are thinking about it, it is not there, it is very shy. Whenever we look around, it disappears; whenever we start thinking - ‘Are we happy or not?’ - we are not. A happy person never thinks about happiness - he/she is so happy, how can he/she think about happiness? Only an unhappy person thinks about happiness, and by thinking, he/she becomes more unhappy.

Actually, when we go about our business, our day-to-day work honestly and diligently with complete focus – our mind becomes quiet, silent, and in that silence we find our true happiness. In fact, when we work in this manner happiness comes after us.

Whenever we are dissolved in our act, ego disappears. Then there is no space for the ego to exist. In that very moment when ego is absent, there is happiness. So, let’s put it in this way: Ego is misery, no ego is happiness. And ego remains only when we are split, ego disappears whenever we are harmonious. Dancing, we become the dance — ego disappears; singing, we become the song - ego disappears; sitting silently doing nothing, we become that non-doing - and ego disappears.

When the self disappears, when self-consciousness disappears, we are vast like the sky. Suddenly it pours into us. So, the art of being happy is the art of forgetfulness. And when we say this, remember - don’t start planning about how to forget, how not to think about happiness - otherwise we are again in the same trap. It is not a question of ‘how’, we simply do it. And it is not a question of tomorrow, we do it right now, this very moment.

Don’t postpone because one never knows. Tomorrow we may not be here, the next moment we may not be here, so this is the only moment we have. 

NOW IS the only time we have and HERE is the only place we have. That’s the whole message of Tao: WE ARE READY AS WE ARE. As soon as we start enjoying this moment, happiness will follow us.