Astrall
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.........That is why we in India call life a "wheel." It is constantly moving, constantly repeating. As far as I can see, until this stonemason became a Buddha, the story would repeat itself endlessly. He would again desire a wonderful sofa with silk covers, and the same thing would start all over again. If this stonemason were truly satisfied, then perhaps he has jumped out of the wheel of birth and death. Perhaps he has become a Buddha.
This is exactly what happens continuously with every mind — you long for something, it happens, but by the time it happens, you see that you are still dissatisfied. Now something else makes you unhappy.
This is something that requires understanding: if a desire is not fulfilled, you are disappointed; if it is fulfilled, you are then disappointed as well. This is precisely the suffering of desire. When a desire is realized, *you* are not realized. As soon as one is fulfilled, many new ones suddenly arise.
You never thought that when you became a king and riders galloped before and behind you, the sun would be so hot that it would burn your face.
You never thought of this. And then you dreamed of becoming the sun, and so you became the sun, but you never thought of the cloud. Now the cloud has come and proven your helplessness. And this goes on and on without end, like waves in the ocean, infinitely — until you understand and simply jump out of the wheel.
The mind continuously tells you: "Do this, become that. Get this and that... how can you be happy if you don't have this? You must have a palace, then you can be happy." If your happiness has a condition, you will remain unhappy. If you cannot be happy exactly as you are, remaining a stonemason...
I know the work is very hard, the pay is low, life remains a struggle, I know — but if you cannot be happy as you are now, despite everything, you will never be happy. Unless a person is happy, simply happy for no reason at all, unless a person is mad enough to be happy without any reason, that person will never be happy. You will always find something to destroy the happiness.
You will always lack something; something will be missing.
And this "absence" will again become daydreams.
And you will not be able to reach a state in which everything is available, absolutely everything. Even if it were possible, even then you would not be happy. Just look at the mechanism of the mind: if everything you wanted is available, you suddenly become bored. What now?
I have heard — and I think this is reliable — that people who have reached heaven become bored. This comes from very reliable sources, they can be trusted — these people sit under wish-fulfilling trees, and they are bored. Because as soon as you say something, an angel appears and immediately fulfills that desire. There is no gap between the desires and their fulfillment. They want a beautiful woman, Cleopatra, and she appears. And what now to do with such a Cleopatra? It is meaningless — and they are bored.
Happiness is your inner nature. It needs no external conditions; it simply is, happiness is you yourself. Bliss is your natural state; it is not an achievement...
In the Indian "Puranas," there are many stories of maidens who grew so tired in heaven that they began to long for earth. There they had everything. When they were on earth, they longed for heaven. Perhaps they were great ascetics, perhaps they renounced the world, relationships, everything in attempts to reach heaven. Now they have reached heaven, and now they long for the world.
I heard:
The pilot of a new jet plane was maneuvering over the Catskill Mountains. He pointed out a pleasant valley below to the co-pilot.
— See that corner? — he said. — When I was a barefoot boy, I used to sit right there in a flat-bottomed boat and fish. Every time a plane flew in the sky, I looked up and dreamed of being a pilot in it. Now I look down and dream of fishing.
This is exactly how it continues without end. If you are not famous, you want to be famous. It hurts so much that people do not know you. You walk down the street, and no one looks at you, no one recognizes you. You feel like a nobody. You work hard to become famous.
One day you become famous. Now you cannot walk the streets. Now a crowd gathers around to look at you. Now you have no freedom, and you stay home, as if locked up. You cannot go outside; it is as if you are in prison. Now you begin to think of those wonderful times when one could walk the streets and be free... as if no one were around. Now you long for those times. Ask famous people.
Voltaire writes in his memoirs that when he was not famous — and everyone once was not famous — he desired it more and more, worked with all his might, and so he became one of the most famous people in France. His fame grew to such an extent that it became dangerous for him to leave his room, because in those times superstitious people thought that if they could get a piece of clothing from some great man, it would become a protective talisman; it possesses enormous protecting powers. It wards off spirits, prevents accidents, and so on of that sort.
And if he came to the station to take a train, he had to call for police escort, otherwise people began to tear his clothes. And not only that — they tore his skin, and he returned home in bruises and scratches. He grew so tired of this fame — he could not even leave the house; people always lay in wait for him, like wolves, to pounce on him — and he began to pray to God: "Enough! I have learned this. I do not want it. I have become almost like a dead man." And then it happened. An angel appeared — probably an angel appeared — and said: "Alright." Little by little his fame dissipated.
People's opinions change very easily; there is no integrity in them. Everything changes, just like fashion. Today you are at the peak of fame, tomorrow people completely forget about you. One day you are president, the next day you are simply citizen Richard Nixon. No one cares about you.
It happened that people's minds changed, opinions, the climate changed, and people completely forgot about Voltaire. He would come to the station and hope that at least someone, just one person, would come to meet him. No one met him anymore, only his dog.
When he died, only four accompanied him on his final journey: three people and one dog. Perhaps he died unhappy, again longing for fame. What to do? This is how it all continues.
The mind will never allow you to be happy. Whatever the conditions may be, the mind will always find something to be unhappy about. Let me put it this way: the mind is a mechanism for creating unhappiness. Its entire function consists of creating unhappiness.
If you cast aside the mind, suddenly you become happy — completely without reason. Then happiness is natural, like breathing. To breathe, you don't even need to be aware of it. You just continue breathing. Happiness is exactly the same.
Happiness is your inner nature. It needs no external conditions; it simply is, happiness is you yourself. Bliss is your natural state; it is not an achievement. Simply by getting out of the mechanism of the mind, you begin to feel blissful.
That is why you will see that insane people are happier than so-called normal ones. What happens with insane people? They also get out of the mind — of course, not from the right side, but they still get out. An insane person is one who has fallen below the mind. He has lost his mind.
That is why you can see that many insane people are so happy that you almost feel envy. You might even begin to daydream: "When will this blessing happen to me?" The insane man is condemned, but he is happy.
What happened to the insane man? He no longer thinks of the future and does not think of the past. He has fallen out of time. He has begun to live in eternity.........
This is exactly what happens continuously with every mind — you long for something, it happens, but by the time it happens, you see that you are still dissatisfied. Now something else makes you unhappy.
This is something that requires understanding: if a desire is not fulfilled, you are disappointed; if it is fulfilled, you are then disappointed as well. This is precisely the suffering of desire. When a desire is realized, *you* are not realized. As soon as one is fulfilled, many new ones suddenly arise.
You never thought that when you became a king and riders galloped before and behind you, the sun would be so hot that it would burn your face.
You never thought of this. And then you dreamed of becoming the sun, and so you became the sun, but you never thought of the cloud. Now the cloud has come and proven your helplessness. And this goes on and on without end, like waves in the ocean, infinitely — until you understand and simply jump out of the wheel.
The mind continuously tells you: "Do this, become that. Get this and that... how can you be happy if you don't have this? You must have a palace, then you can be happy." If your happiness has a condition, you will remain unhappy. If you cannot be happy exactly as you are, remaining a stonemason...
I know the work is very hard, the pay is low, life remains a struggle, I know — but if you cannot be happy as you are now, despite everything, you will never be happy. Unless a person is happy, simply happy for no reason at all, unless a person is mad enough to be happy without any reason, that person will never be happy. You will always find something to destroy the happiness.
You will always lack something; something will be missing.
And this "absence" will again become daydreams.
And you will not be able to reach a state in which everything is available, absolutely everything. Even if it were possible, even then you would not be happy. Just look at the mechanism of the mind: if everything you wanted is available, you suddenly become bored. What now?
I have heard — and I think this is reliable — that people who have reached heaven become bored. This comes from very reliable sources, they can be trusted — these people sit under wish-fulfilling trees, and they are bored. Because as soon as you say something, an angel appears and immediately fulfills that desire. There is no gap between the desires and their fulfillment. They want a beautiful woman, Cleopatra, and she appears. And what now to do with such a Cleopatra? It is meaningless — and they are bored.
Happiness is your inner nature. It needs no external conditions; it simply is, happiness is you yourself. Bliss is your natural state; it is not an achievement...
In the Indian "Puranas," there are many stories of maidens who grew so tired in heaven that they began to long for earth. There they had everything. When they were on earth, they longed for heaven. Perhaps they were great ascetics, perhaps they renounced the world, relationships, everything in attempts to reach heaven. Now they have reached heaven, and now they long for the world.
I heard:
The pilot of a new jet plane was maneuvering over the Catskill Mountains. He pointed out a pleasant valley below to the co-pilot.
— See that corner? — he said. — When I was a barefoot boy, I used to sit right there in a flat-bottomed boat and fish. Every time a plane flew in the sky, I looked up and dreamed of being a pilot in it. Now I look down and dream of fishing.
This is exactly how it continues without end. If you are not famous, you want to be famous. It hurts so much that people do not know you. You walk down the street, and no one looks at you, no one recognizes you. You feel like a nobody. You work hard to become famous.
One day you become famous. Now you cannot walk the streets. Now a crowd gathers around to look at you. Now you have no freedom, and you stay home, as if locked up. You cannot go outside; it is as if you are in prison. Now you begin to think of those wonderful times when one could walk the streets and be free... as if no one were around. Now you long for those times. Ask famous people.
Voltaire writes in his memoirs that when he was not famous — and everyone once was not famous — he desired it more and more, worked with all his might, and so he became one of the most famous people in France. His fame grew to such an extent that it became dangerous for him to leave his room, because in those times superstitious people thought that if they could get a piece of clothing from some great man, it would become a protective talisman; it possesses enormous protecting powers. It wards off spirits, prevents accidents, and so on of that sort.
And if he came to the station to take a train, he had to call for police escort, otherwise people began to tear his clothes. And not only that — they tore his skin, and he returned home in bruises and scratches. He grew so tired of this fame — he could not even leave the house; people always lay in wait for him, like wolves, to pounce on him — and he began to pray to God: "Enough! I have learned this. I do not want it. I have become almost like a dead man." And then it happened. An angel appeared — probably an angel appeared — and said: "Alright." Little by little his fame dissipated.
People's opinions change very easily; there is no integrity in them. Everything changes, just like fashion. Today you are at the peak of fame, tomorrow people completely forget about you. One day you are president, the next day you are simply citizen Richard Nixon. No one cares about you.
It happened that people's minds changed, opinions, the climate changed, and people completely forgot about Voltaire. He would come to the station and hope that at least someone, just one person, would come to meet him. No one met him anymore, only his dog.
When he died, only four accompanied him on his final journey: three people and one dog. Perhaps he died unhappy, again longing for fame. What to do? This is how it all continues.
The mind will never allow you to be happy. Whatever the conditions may be, the mind will always find something to be unhappy about. Let me put it this way: the mind is a mechanism for creating unhappiness. Its entire function consists of creating unhappiness.
If you cast aside the mind, suddenly you become happy — completely without reason. Then happiness is natural, like breathing. To breathe, you don't even need to be aware of it. You just continue breathing. Happiness is exactly the same.
Happiness is your inner nature. It needs no external conditions; it simply is, happiness is you yourself. Bliss is your natural state; it is not an achievement. Simply by getting out of the mechanism of the mind, you begin to feel blissful.
That is why you will see that insane people are happier than so-called normal ones. What happens with insane people? They also get out of the mind — of course, not from the right side, but they still get out. An insane person is one who has fallen below the mind. He has lost his mind.
That is why you can see that many insane people are so happy that you almost feel envy. You might even begin to daydream: "When will this blessing happen to me?" The insane man is condemned, but he is happy.
What happened to the insane man? He no longer thinks of the future and does not think of the past. He has fallen out of time. He has begun to live in eternity.........