Joy - The Happiness that comes from Within

Foreword

Let me first tell you an anecdote:
"My doctor insisted that I come to see you," the patient told the psychiatrist. "Goodness knows why - I am happily married, secure in my job, lots of friends, no worries..."
"Hmmm," said the psychiatrist, reaching out for a notebook, "and how long have you been like this?"

Happiness is unbelievable. It seems that man cannot be happy. If you talk about your depression, sadness, misery, everybody believes it; it seems natural. If you talk about your happiness nobody believes you-it seems unnatural.

Sigmund Freud, after forty years of research into the human mind-working with thousands of people, observing thousands of disturbed minds-came to the conclusion that happiness is a fiction: Man cannot be happy. At the most, we can make things a little more comfortable, that's all. At the most we can reduce unhappiness a little, that's all, but happy? Man cannot be.

This sounds pessimistic...but if you look at humanity, it seems to be exactly the case; it seems to be a fact. Only human beings are unhappy. Something deep down has gone wrong.

I say this to you on my own authority: Human beings can be happy, more happy than the birds, more happy than the trees, more happy than the stars - because human beings have something that no tree, no bird, no star, has. They have consciousness.

But when you have consciousness, two alternatives are possible: Either you can become happy or you can become unhappy. Then it is your choice.