by Swami Yatiswaranandaji

God alone is the repository of all peace and blessedness. We should try to look within and find Him seated within our own hearts. This body of ours is the living temple of God.

This is a concept we find stressed again and again in all the Scriptures. The best temple of the Divine are the greatest prophets and seers. That is why they exert the greatest influence. Those who have realized the Truth in their own souls can alone teach others the way to realization. The Lord is always at the back of our minds, at the back of our whole personality, and only if we can pray with a fervent heart, will the prayer be heard, and otherwise not. We should never think in terms of happiness while praying. Happiness by itself is no real index for spiritual life, no proof whatsoever of spiritual progress or realization.

The lover, when dreaming of his beloved, imagines things that have no reality. The mad man, too imagines things that do not exist at all. All hallucinations are to be avoided in spiritual life. We must try to get a glimpse of the Truth by following a systematic course of spiritual practice. If such a glimpse comes unawares, and if we are not properly prepared for it through long and regular training, the reaction may be tremendous, and may even unsettle us for life. We first learn how to become fit for such glimpses so that we can then make them our own for good. Spiritual evolution at first brings pain to the aspirant, not happiness. In the intermediate stage his life becomes very difficult. Then he has no longer interest in what he has in the world and cannot yet obtain self-realization. It is still beyond his reach. It is just like hanging in mid-air without being able to go either up or down.

Very often when we get a thing we find that we never really wanted it. We may have been seeking it, but when we get it we may actually find that the desire has vanished, and some other desire has taken its place. Many people mistake the true nature of their yearnings and give them worldly direction, whereas in reality no human yearning can ever find satisfaction in anything that is not permanent and unchanging, however much people may try to deceive themselves on this point. The old void haunts them again and again and most likely in a more terrible and relentless form than before.

People seek happiness outside, in attributes, in forms, in the phenomenon, whereas it lies in themselves from all time and for all time and can never be lost. Whatever can be lost, can never bring true happiness to us. We commit the mistake of looking at a certain span of time instead of looking at the whole. Temporary happiness there is, no doubt, in worldly thing and worldly relations, in human love and human affections, but temporary happiness can never mean real happiness, rather it is the opposite of it. Let us have the desire to know our own nature, to know our true Self. In Self-realization alone there lies real blessedness.

The test of Truth is this: whereas in the case of worldly things and worldly relations you can never get any ultimate satisfaction, in the case of spirituality and spiritual life you can get the perfect satisfaction which is not dependent upon anything external.

So the great sage Narada says,

"Realization of That is attaining to One's heart's desire. And only thus does one become immortal. Thus only does one become full of bliss."