How can one be Happy among Suffering – Nisargadatta

Questioner: How can one remain happy among so much suffering?

Maharaj: One cannot help it — the inner happiness is overwhelmingly real. Like the sun in the sky, its expressions may be clouded, but it is never absent.

Q: When we are in trouble, we are bound to be unhappy.

M: Fear is the only trouble. Know yourself as independent and you will be free from fear and its shadows.

Q: What is the difference between happiness and pleasure?

M: Pleasure depends on things, happiness does not.

Q: If happiness is independent, why are we not always happy?

M: As long as we believe that we need things to make us happy, we shall also believe that in their absence we must be miserable. Mind always shapes itself according to its beliefs. Hence the importance of convincing oneself that one need not be prodded into happiness; that, on the contrary, pleasure is a distraction and a nuisance, for it merely increases the false conviction that one needs to have and do things to be happy when in reality it is just the opposite.

But why talk of happiness at all? You do not think of happiness except when you are unhappy: A man who says: ‘Now I am happy’, is between two sorrows — past and future. This happiness is mere excitement caused by relief from pain. Real happiness is utterly unselfconscious. It is best expressed negatively as: ‘there is nothing wrong with me. I have nothing to worry about’. After all, the ultimate purpose of all Sadhana is to reach a point, when this conviction, instead of being only verbal, is based on the actual and ever-present experience.

Q: Which experience?

M: The experience of being empty, uncluttered by memories and expectations; it is like the happiness of open spaces, of being young, of having all the time and energy for doing things, for discovery, for adventure.

Q: What remains to discover?

M: The universe without and the immensity within as they are in reality, in the great mind and heart of God. The meaning and purpose of existence, the secret of suffering, life’s redemption from ignorance.

I Am That – Talks with Sri Nisargatta Maharaj
Chapter: You are Beyond Space and Time – Item 94