This article is a continuation of a series Paramhansa Yogananda wrote during the depression about “Creating Your Happiness.”
Happiness is a will-o’-the-wisp which most people follow, and which oftentimes leads them astray until they drown in the marshes of suffering. Most temporary, easily attained, so-called happiness is nothing but suffering in disguise. It may be pleasant to the palate to eat a great deal at the table, but remember that such procedure is very likely to have many unpleasant after-effects, such as acute indigestion or stomach ache, so also is it with immoderation in your natural impulses. They generally give you sense pleasure in the beginning, but ultimately they produce satiety and unhappiness.
The greatest way to create happiness for yourself is not to allow sense lures or bad habits to control you, but rather be a stern, iron-like ruler of your habits and appetites. Remember that just as you cannot satisfy your own hunger by feeding some other person, so you cannot be really happy by trying to satisfy only the over-demands of your senses.
Too much luxury, instead of producing happiness, drives it away from your mind. Do not spend all your time in finding ways and means which you think will make you happy. Be contented always, equally in your struggle for prosperity, and also in your attainment of it., You can be a King of Happiness in a tattered cottage, or you can be a tortured victim of unhappiness even if you live in a palace.
Happiness is a mental phenomenon exclusively. You must first establish it firmly within yourself, and then with an undying resolution always to be happy, go through the world seeking health, prosperity, and wisdom. Remember that to battle failure and sickness and to seek success ever with a happy attitude will bring you far, far nearer to your desired goal than if with an unhappy mind you try to gain your heart’s desire, no matter what that desire may be.
“Bread the men of the world seek after–
Seek ye FIRST the Kingdom of God,
And His righteousness,
And ALL THESE THINGS
Shall be added unto you.”
Further Reading: