How to Secure Happiness This New Year
Come New Year and we get busy wishing each other best wishes and hoping that the year ahead brings only good, favourable and joyous events in our lives. To be positive is definitely so important in one’s life. But just wishing good things does not always make them happen; we need to do much more. So what precisely should we do and how to go about it in the right manner so that our lives are blessed with lasting peace? Swami clearly elaborates this in the following excerpts of a discourse delivered exactly a decade ago.
Every man expects the New Year to confer on him peace, happiness and prosperity. In reality, New Year does not bring happiness or sorrow with it. Yesterday is the same as today and today is the same as tomorrow. The days are the same, but one experiences either pleasure or pain depending on one’s own actions. Meritorious deeds will not confer misery while sinful acts cannot give happiness. One is bound to face the consequences of one’s actions. But one treats pleasure and pain alike when one becomes the recipients of God’s grace. Divine grace destroys mountains of sins and confers peace. But due to the impact of the Kali Age, man has lost faith in God. He is after money and power. How can such a being attain Divinity? Man can rise from the level of the human to the Divine only by practicing human values.
Years come and go, so also pleasure and pain. Nothing confers permanent bliss except the experiences of the athma. Man cannot attain peace and happiness from his actions unless he has sacred feelings within. Many people expect the New Year to confer happiness and prosperity on them. But in fact, the New Year confers on you only the results of your past actions. In order to atone for your past sins, you have to cultivate sacred qualities and involve yourself in sacred activities even more in the New Year. In fact, bliss is within you; it originates from your sacred feelings. Therefore you have to manifest bliss from within; it cannot be bestowed on you by others. None can take bliss away from you, and you cannot obtain it form outside.
The heart is the center of sacred feelings. It is filled with compassion, and it is compassion that gives rise to sacred feelings. One has to develop this sacred virtue, spread the light of love, and cultivate Divine feelings. Without doing so, how can one expect time to confer happiness on him? One gets what one does. If one expects good results, one must cultivate good feelings. With purity of heart, steadiness of mind, and selfless actions, one can become the recipient of divine grace, which will remove any amount of sufferings in a trice. One cannot achieve anything without divine grace. So, one has to undertake activities that will confer divine grace. Peace and happiness cannot be obtained from the external world; it can be achieved only through divine grace.
People celebrate the advent of the New Year with singing and dancing. This enthusiasm and happiness is momentary. What man needs is permanent peace and happiness. How can he expect to attain enduring happiness by indulging in worldly deeds? He has to undertake sacred activities in order to attain lasting joy.
Happiness results only from difficulties. Pleasure is an interval between two pains. It is impossible to experience pleasure without pain. You may be one of affluence or a spiritual aspirant; you still get what you deserve. You cannot expect mangos after sowing a neem seed and vice-versa. As is the seed, so is the fruit. Similarly, as is the feeling, so is the result. Pain and pleasure result from one’s own feelings. People are deluded thinking that they are subjected to pain and pleasure from the external world. In reality, they result from their own feelings. They should transform their heart with sacred feelings. Today, man is changing, but not his mind. Years are rolling by, but his feelings have not become pure. He will attain peace only when there is transformation in his feelings.
When your feelings are sacred, without asking you will receive noble results. Due to the impact of the Kali Age, man’s thought, words, and deeds are not in harmony with each other. You many say or do anything, but the result you get depends on your feelings. Therefore make your feelings sacred and become a good human being. Only one with good feelings and good mind can be called a good human being.
