Day 36 

If you are, even for a few moments, with a person who is very unhappy and sad then you also start feeling depressed. And if you are with someone who is very joyful and is bubbling with joy and enthusiasm, then you start feeling joyful, too. You have trained your mind to be happy or unhappy. If you have acquired the habit of being unhappy, then it becomes your second nature. 

You feel at home having a long face all the time. You would see this in the senior citizens homes. The very old people there have the habit of complaining. They just go on complaining, even when there is nothing to complain about. And they keep a long face and ever remain sad. You may have wondered why a person who is aged cannot be happy. 

They have done everything that they needed to do and they have everything that they need. But, they continue to be sad and depressed. Many people are unhappy because they are unable to work. Well, that is the body's nature. When one is eighty years old, and if he is unhappy because he cannot run as long as he could do when he was a 30 years old, then it is ignorance and foolishness. 

The other day, an elderly person, a senior citizen came to see me. I asked him how he was doing and if he was happy. He said that he had been able to run so many kilometers a day when he was younger and could do so much work. 

He could work 16 hours a day. He said that, currently, he was unhappy because he could not work so much. He had begun to get tired after walking just 1 km. Then, he asked me how he could regain his strength so that he could walk 4 miles a day. I asked him why he needed to walk 4 kms a day. 

This happens because a person feels that he needs to be fit but his body will not obey. The mind thinks that he should be working because he had been working earlier. It wonders how come the person is not working, that he is growing old. This idea of growing old makes a person very unhappy. Nobody can get rid of this unhappiness for them because it is self-imposed. And with that unhappiness the person gets jittery, angry and tensed. 

They get all the other negativities. They get soaked in them and die in that condition. Patanjali gives this, vishokaa. Vishokaa means getting rid of the unhappiness. Feeling sad is just your habit. If you look into your mind and see that the sadness is simply unfounded and self generated, it will disappear and you will become free from it. It is just a concept like the concept that people do not respect you. It is baseless. 

You may feel that you are not smart enough, that nobody cares for you. Why should you think so? Then, again you may feel that you are stupid. You are not so. Stupidity is only a comparative term. You may be considered wise by somebody who stupider than you. There is a scale for stupidity. There will certainly be people who are stupider than you. All these self imposed ideas make you very unhappy. 

Look down the scale and you will feel that you are wise. Your comparisons can disturb you and make you sad. Do not compare yourself with anybody. You should feel that you can be happier. Vishoka - make your mind free of sadness which comes out of your concepts.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji 

PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS