The first is to become self-reliant. If you are not happy, you should not expect others to give you happiness. Happiness can never be given by anyone. This is the only concept that can help you be happy in the world, and if you don’t grasp it – if you don’t really learn it – then you will never be happy. If anyone claims that they can give someone else happiness, it is not true. Nobody can give happiness to anyone; they can, at best, only create patches of happiness for them. It is just as if something should happen to your own house. A neighbour could come and help you patch it. But if you were to depend too much on others, after sometime you would be thanking everybody and those thanks would become a curse. You would realize that your whole house was nothing but patches and that it was no longer a sound structure. One day it would collapse. So you should do the rebuilding yourself and not depend on others; otherwise you will let yourself become a house of patches.

You should be self-reliant and learn how to make yourself happy. Many people expect others to make them happy – but they are never happy no matter how much others try to please them. Life is not limited to only the span that is seen. It is a long procession from the unknown to the unknown. Happiness is an attitude of mind coming out of an internal state of tranquillity that allows you to through the procession without disturbance. If you are expecting pleasure, you are also bound to have pain. Life is like a coin of which one side is pain and the other pleasure. You should realize these two inseparable opposites and accept life as it is. If you learn to be self-reliant, then you will be happy.

Editor’s Note

This is an excerpt from A Practical Guide to Holistic Health by Swami Rama, Himalayan Institute Press; Revised edition (February 8, 1999), Chapter “Self-Training”, (pg 95).

For all Swami Rama’s and Swami Veda Bharati’s published works, please visit www.yogapublications.org or email info@yogapublications.org.

Published works of Swami Rama and Swami Veda Bharati are also available at other venues.