Pythagoras, The golden verses of Pythagoras, Vol. 1 Philosophia Perennis Chapter 9: Bliss Beyond All Duality, Question 4

The fourth question

Question 4

WHAT IS HAPPINESS?

HAPPINESS IS THE OTHER SIDE OF UNHAPPINESS. If you want to be happy, you will have to remain unhappy. The statement will look very paradoxical, but it is not. That's how life is. Only an unhappy person can be happy. Unhappiness creates the situation in which happiness can be felt.

If you have been ill for many months, then suddenly when you become healthy again you feel tremendously happy. And you have been healthy before illness for years and years, and you were never so happy, not at all; you had not even taken any note of it. Now you are happy that you are healthy.

Why? From where does this happiness come? It comes from your illness. Your illness created unhappiness, the background. Now you are healthy again and you can feel -- and you can feel only when something happens in contrast.

When a poor man becomes rich he is happy, tremendously happy. But you don't see rich people happy. They ARE rich, so there is no point in being happy; they don't feel it at all. The richer you become, the less happy you are. If you become the richest man in the world you will forget all about happiness.

That's what is happening every day. Happiness is only part, like an island in the ocean of unhappiness.

I have heard:

Mr Jones cringed with pain as he listened to his son Junior practising the violin upstairs. "I can't stand it any more!" he cried to Mrs Jones. "One year of lessons, the best violin money can buy, and our son makes sounds like a cat being tortured."

"I know you are disappointed," said Mrs Jones trying to console her husband. "He will never be a virtuoso."

"He will never be a street player! They would throw garbage at him."

The following day, at the same time, a strange silence ensued. "That's funny," noticed Mrs Jones. "Junior always practises at this time."

A smile crept over Mr Jones' face. "Peace -- it's wonderful."

"What did you do?" asked his wife suspiciously.

"Very simple," answered Mr Jones. "If the U.S. government can pay farmers not to grow crops. I can pay my son not to play the violin."

Nobody is playing a violin in your house, nobody is making sounds like a cat being tortured, but you don't feel the peace. You don't say, "Peace -- it is wonderful."

Only the prisoner knows what freedom means. When he comes out of the prison and looks at the trees and the sun and the sky and looks at people and knows that there are no more chains on his feet, on his hands, he knows what freedom is. Soon he will forget.

You are not aware of your freedom -- or are you? Have you ever enjoyed your freedom? Have you ever danced because there are no chains on your hands? Have you ever danced because you are not in a prison? Have you ever danced because you can see the whole sky, you need not look through the keyhole? No, you have never felt any happiness.

A very rich man once wanted to become happy. He had tried all kinds of ways but everything had failed. He went to many saints; nobody could help him. Then somebody suggested, "You go to Mulla Nasruddin. He lives in a certain town -- he is the only man who can be of some help to you."

The man went with a bag full of diamonds, and he showed the bag to Mulla Nasruddin who was sitting underneath a tree outside the town, resting under the sun. And he said, "I am a very miserable man -- I want happiness. I am ready to give anything for it, but I have not tasted even once what happiness is -- and death is coming closer. Can you help me? How can I be happy? I have all kinds of things that the world can give to me, yet I am unhappy. Why?"

Mulla looked at the man, and it happened so fast that the rich man could not understand what was happening. He just jumped on the man, took away the bag, and ran.

Of course the man followed, crying, shouting, "I have been cheated, robbed!"

Mulla knew all the streets of the town, so he was going zigzag, this way and that. And the rich man had never run in his life, and he was crying and tears were flowing down, and he said, "I have been robbed absolutely -- that was my whole life's earnings. Save me, people! Help me!"

And a crowd followed. And by the time they reached Mulla, the Mulla had come back to the place where the rich man had found him. The rich man's horse was still standing there, Mulla was sitting under the tree. The rich man was crying, breathing hard. And Mulla gave the bag back to him.

The rich man said, "Thank God!" And such tears of joy, and such peace.

Mulla said, "Look, I have made you happy. Now you know what happiness is? This bag has been with you for years and you were unhappy. It had to be taken away from you."

Happiness is part of unhappiness. That's why happiness should not be the goal of your life, because if you want happiness you will have to remain unhappy. The unhappier you are, then only a few moments, few and far between, will be those of happiness.

The goal is not happiness, the goal is bliss. Don't ask me, "What is happiness?" because that shows you are searching for happiness. If you have come here in search of happiness, you have come to the wrong place. Go to Mulla Nasruddin.

My effort here is to create bliss, not happiness. Happiness is worthless: it depends on unhappiness. Bliss is transcendence: one moves beyond the duality of being happy and unhappy. One watches both -- happiness comes, one watches and does not become identified with it. One does not say, "I am happy. Peace -- it is wonderful." One simply watches, one says, "Yes, a white cloud passing."

And then comes unhappiness, and one does not become unhappy either. One says, "A black cloud passing -- I am the witness, the watcher."

This is what meditation is all about -- just becoming a watcher. Failure comes, success comes, you are praised, you are condemned, you are respected, you are insulted -- all kinds of things come, they are all dualities. And you go on watching. Watching the duality, a third force arises in you, a third dimension arises in you. The duality means two dimensions -- one dimension is happiness, another is unhappiness. Watching both, a depth arises in you -- the third dimension, witnessing, SAKSHI.

And that third dimension brings bliss. Bliss is without any opposite to it. It is serene, tranquil, cool. It is ecstasy without any excitement.

And I cannot define what happiness is, because it depends on what kind of person you are. What is happiness to you may be unhappiness to your brother. What is unhappiness to you may be happiness to your neighbour.

Four women sat for hours under the hairdryers at the beauty parlour. After exhausting their gossip, they turned to philosophy. The first lady said, "Happiness is when my husband brings home his paycheck."

The second lady stated, "Happiness is gambling in Las Vegas and winning."

The third lady commented, "Happiness is vacationing without my husband or my children."

The fourth lady concluded, "Happiness is eating without worrying about calories."

Upon eavesdropping, one hairdresser whispered to the other, "Happiness is not having to listen to these cackling hens."

It depends. Your happiness is your idiosyncrasy; it may be unhappiness to somebody else. It has no truth about it; it is only your dream. And you can have any dream you like. To somebody power is happiness; to somebody money is happiness; to somebody else money is misery -- he escapes, renounces the money; he escapes from all power, goes to the jungle. To somebody, people are happiness; to somebody, aloneness. It depends on you.

But I am not interested in happiness at all. Because basically it has to depend on its opposite -- and anything that depends on its opposite keeps you divided. And to live divided is to live in hell.

I would like you to attain something which is not dependent on its opposite -- in fact, which has no opposites to it. Bliss has no opposite to it. And to be blissful is to have arrived home: one becomes a Buddha -- serene, calm, cool, quiet, and yet utterly blissful.

Pythagoras

VOL. 1, PHILOSOPHIA PERENNIS

Chapter-9

Bliss Beyond All Duality