Question: What is the best way to be happy?
Sri Chinmoy: You are always comparing yourself with others. You are standing in front of me, and I am looking directly at you. You also are looking at me, but your mind has gone to the fish market and is moving from this side to that side. You are trying desperately to remain either inside your own heart-garden or inside my heart-garden. But your mind is saying: “Oh, he or she is getting more blessings, more compassion, more love, more concern than I am.” Sometimes your mind is not doing it consciously, but unconsciously it is happening. Even if you touch fire unconsciously, your hand will get burned.Perhaps at this moment you are not consciously thinking of others when I am looking at you. But for ten days or ten weeks or ten months you have been doing it consciously. Now it is unconscious, but what about the times you have done it consciously when you were at home or in the office? If you wrote down each time you thought of God during the day, you would be shocked at the number of times that you have also been thinking of somebody else with jealousy or rivalry at the same moment. When this is happening, at that time you are not thinking of God or of your Guru. You are thinking of yourself. You are thinking of making yourself happy in your own way.
I always say that no human being can ever be happy by trying to make himself or herself happy. It is absurd! Happiness is like a most delicious mango. The mango grows on a mango tree; you cannot make one yourself. If you do not climb up the tree to get the mango or wait at the foot of the tree for one to fall, how are you going to get it? Right now you are not in a position to climb up the God-tree; you do not know how. But your Guru knows how to climb the God-tree. If you do not wait for your Guru to bring you this most delicious fruit, which will give you infinite joy, then how are you going to get it? You want joy, but you do not have the capacity to get it yourself and you do not have one-pointed faith in the person who can bring it to you.
People say, “I have been with you for so many years, and still I am unhappy.” But it takes time for the Master to climb down with the happiness-fruit. To get earthly things it takes so many years. To get a Master’s Degree takes twenty or more years. And even then you are not satisfied. Still you want more knowledge, so you get your Ph.D. But even then you are dissatisfied because you inwardly feel that you can have more wisdom, more light, more knowledge. So you go on studying, only to get earthly knowledge.
Heavenly knowledge, or illumination — which unites you with the Highest, with the Absolute Supreme, with the Universal Consciousness — takes infinitely longer to acquire. Do you think it happens in one year or ten years or even thirty years? O God, it is not like that! It takes incarnation after incarnation to become a real seeker and God-lover. To achieve conscious, constant, sleepless and breathless oneness with God’s Will is not like drinking water. It takes time and tremendous patience. It is not only my disciples but also the disciples of other Masters who do not have that kind of patience.
I am trying to make everything easy for my disciples, but they try to make it complicated. I will say, “Come and give me a flower, or just come near me.” But they will say, “If I come near Guru or just give him a flower, it is too easy! To prove how much I love him, let me first chop off my arms and legs; let me pluck out my eyes.” This is what is happening. Did I tell you that to prove your love for me, you have to pluck out your eyes or cut off your arms and legs? No, I just asked you to come near me with whatever you have and whatever you are, whether you are in your purest consciousness or in your most impure consciousness.
When Lord Krishna used to play his flute, did he care what the gopis were doing at the time? Whether they were feeding their children or doing their housework, when they heard the flute they just ran to Krishna immediately. The call had come! In your case also, the call has come. Has the Master said that you have to make tremendous sacrifices? No, the Master is not saying, “Make a sacrifice and then come to me.” He is just saying, “Come to me!”
As I said before, the road is simple and the method is simple. The Master tells you to do something simple, but your minds try to make it complicated in order to prove how much sacrifice you can make. The spiritual life is a matter of oneness with God’s Will. God gave each and every disciple common sense. If the Master says, “Come here!” you do not have to waste time looking for a flower or a glass of water or a piece of candy to bring to him. No, just come!
It is oneness with the Will of the Supreme alone that can make you really happy. If you follow your own will, for a while you may have the kind of happiness that comes from vital pleasure. But soon you will see that this vital pleasure is like a sharp knife. After a day or a month or a few years, that knife will stab you.
Once you enter into the spiritual life, if you are a good disciple, you cannot escape it. Your own sincerity will keep trying to make you perfect, which means pleasing the Supreme in His own Way. If you try to be happy in other ways, you will never be happy. You can pray to God for protection — for your protection, for your Master’s protection and for the world’s protection. That is a very good thing. I will be very happy and grateful if you pray for protection. But the very, very best thing is to become one with the Supreme’s Will. That will make both you and me infinitely happier.
Real happiness, not only for my disciples but also for disciples of other Masters, and even for seekers without any Master, has to be based on oneness with God’s Will. It is only through oneness with God’s Will that we can have inner peace and true happiness. I have realised this supreme truth; others have also realised it. There is no other way to make oneself happy.
