.... the light from within

Yours Sincerely ( Y S ) once read that "people are like stained glass windows! They glow and sparkle when it is sunny and bright; but when the sun goes down, their beauty is revealed only if there is light from within. "According to Buddhism, all beings are imbued with a spark of inner divine light.... The Jewish mystics use similar words when they speak of the inner spark or the spark of God. The Koran, referring to man, talks about the little candle flame burning in a niche in the wall of God's temple.

Almost inevitably a spiritual search becomes a search for divine or sacred light. By cultivating our inner core, we search for this light in ourselves as well as the divine." - Lama Surya Das It is the "light from within" that produces in man strength and happiness to find out the way in which God is going, and he going that way too.

It is often said that the foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feel. That is why that happiness is like a butterfly which when pursued is always beyond our grasp, but which if you sit down quietly may alight upon you.

Cecil Rhodes, born in 1853, played a major political and economic role in colonial South Africa. He was a financier, statesman, and empire builder regretfully said at the conclusion of his life, " Happy ? No! I spent my life amassing a fortune only to find that I have spent half of it on doctors to keep me out of the grave, and the other half on lawyers to keep me out of jail."

There is a common belief that happiness is something that is achievable and can be held on to. We look forward to that time in which we can finally be happy, but it continually recedes. We want to get to the top of the Wheel of Life and stay there. When in the university, we think, "If I can just graduate then I will be happy." Graduation, however, is not fulfilling, and we decide " Maybe it will come upon finding the right job, buying the right house / car / etc etc....... or getting married, or having children, or retiring. " The goal remains elusive. The "happiness that lasts" is never found because it is actually impossible to get happy and stay happy. If life is based on obtaining happiness, then we will always fall short because life is always changing as the wheel turns.

Y S likes what Richard L Evans once said, " May we never let the things we can't have or don't have, or shouldn't have, spoil our enjoyment of the things we do have and can have. As we value our happiness, let us not forget it, for one of the greatest lesson in life is learning to be happy without the things we cannot have or should not have," How true?

And above all, it is so important to know that we can choose to feel happy. Most people don't think they have that choice.According to Aristotle, "Happiness depends on our selves." For people are just as happy as they make up their mind to be. True happiness may be sought, thought, or caught but never, never bought. It is the light in our inner self that keeps burning even when the sun has set !