Acquiring Happiness
by Paramhansa Yogananda, November 1936
We can never be happy unless we are progressing and seeking satisfaction in doing so, and unless we are guarding our happiness from all the influences which destroy it. Happiness comes, not by helplessly thinking, but by living it in all the moods and actions of life. No matter what you are doing, keep the undercurrent of happiness, the secret river of joy, flowing beneath the sands of various thoughts and the rocky soils of hard trials.
Learn to be secretly happy within your heart in spite of all circumstances, and say to yourself, Happiness is my greatest Divine birthright the buried treasure of my Soul. I have found that at last I shall secretly be rich beyond the dream of Kings.
Do not make unhappiness a chronic habit, for it is anything but pleasant to be unhappy, while it is blessedness for yourself and others when you are happy. When it is so easy to wear a silver smile, or to pour sweet happiness through your voice, why be grouchy and scatter unhappiness around you? It is never too late to learn.
Happiness grows by what it is fed on.
Learn to be happy by being happy all the time. John said, If I get money, I shall be happy. He became wealthy; then he said, I shall be happy if I get rid of my acute indigestion. His indigestion was cured, but he thought, If I get a wife, I shall be happy. Then bedlam started, for he married a nagging, tongue-lashing woman. He divorced this wife, and after many years married again, but the second wife was worse than the first one. Then he thought that he would be happier if he divorced his second wife, so he did, but at the age of seventy he thought, No, I shall never be happy unless I can be youthful again. In this way people try but never reach their goal of happiness. They are like the man who raced in anger to bite his own nose, but never could, of course.
Ignorant people, like animals, do not heed the lessons which accompany pain and pleasure. Most people live a life checkered with sadness and sorrow, for they do not avoid…
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