Happy - At All Times

Each one of you should feel that you are very special. Don't think 'Oh, Gurudev is for the crowd and not for me'. This you have to fix.

I will tell you an incident. In Paris there was a big program that had been organized, in which around 200 people were to attend satsang. At the same time, there was another program which was announced by someone else, and there was only one person to attend that program. When the time came, I attended the program which had only one person attending it, and sent two of my teachers to Paris to that 200 peoples' satsang. Do you know who is that one person? Marcel! (A devotee).

Actually, I planned to stay here, but I have promised one person that I will come for his wedding and his wedding is tomorrow morning. Since I have promised him, I will go for his wedding which is in the Ashram. Otherwise I had told the Bangalore Ashram that I am not coming for the birthday celebrations, and I will be in Germany itself. But now I have to go because I have to keep my word.

So, what is the lesson that you have learnt today? You are special. You are here to do something good. You are here to do some important work on this planet, and so do it, and then move on to the other side.

I would like to take you into deeper knowledge soon. We will go into deeper knowledge, but for that the first thing you need to do is be satisfied.

See, in the world there is no end to problems. Some or the other problems keep coming up, either financial, or health related, or relationship related problems. And if none of these are there, there is the problem of someone saying something to you and you feeling upset about it. The mind keeps getting caught up in problems. You should rise above this, and understand that the nature of the world is like that.

See, if you have a home which is near the highway, how can you complain about noise? Similarly, if someone has a home in the forest and they are afraid of animals, then what can you say? If someone has a home near the ocean, and they are afraid of water, what can be said to them? Similarly, when you are in the world, there will be some pleasant experiences and some unpleasant experiences. There will be some blame and some praise, all of this will happen, but none of these should touch you, you should just keep moving ahead. So, sit happily, walk happily and do everything happily.

Someone asked me yesterday, 'What was the happiest time of your life?' I said, 'What? The happiest time? Why do you tie 'time' with 'happiness'? I am happiness'.

Time changes, sometimes there are good times and sometimes there are bad times. If you tie 'happiness' to 'time', then happiness will also change as times change. But when you know, that happiness has nothing to do with time, then you can be happy at all times. And this is knowledge!

We tie our happiness to people, places, situations, or time. All that you need to do is move away from this and realize that your nature is happiness, and it has nothing to do with time. This is the highest knowledge. It may sound very difficult, but it is not impossible. Any fool can be unhappy when things are not okay. But it takes courage to be happy even when things are falling apart. And you are all courageous and strong!

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji