Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:Man seeks happiness in pleasure, in joy, but these are only shadows of happiness. The real happiness is in the heart of man. But man does not look for it. In order to find happiness, he seeks pleasure. Anything that is passing and anything that results in unhappiness is not happiness.
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https://wahiduddin.net/mv2/VI/VI_3.htmIn reality very few in this world know what happiness means. Pleasure is the shadow of happiness, for pleasure depends upon things outside ourselves; happiness comes from within ourselves. Happiness belongs to the heart quality; pleasure to the outer world. The distance between pleasure and happiness is as vast as that between earth and heaven. As long as the heart is not tuned to its proper pitch one will not be happy. That inner smile which shows itself in a man's expression, in his atmosphere, that belongs to happiness. If position were taken away and wealth were lost in the outer life, that inner happiness would not be taken away. And the smiling of the heart depends upon the tuning of the heart, the heart must be tuned to that pitch where it is living.
khan easily defines the source of our challenges when seeking true happiness, which is very helpful. Yet I find myself always going to other Masters for the means to those aspirations. Because we may know the source of our problems and often a great psychiatrist can help us identify them. Yet at some point most of us need a step by step routine to take us to the goal we seek.
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https://wahiduddin.net/mv2/VIIIa/VIIIa_4_4.htmThere are a thousand excuses for unhappiness that the reasoning mind will make. But is even one of these excuses ever entirely correct? Do you think that if these people gained their desires they would be happy? If they possessed all, would that suffice? No, they would still find some excuse for unhappiness; all these excuses are only like covers over a man's eyes, for deep within is the yearning for the true happiness which none of these things can give. He who is really happy is happy everywhere, in a palace or in a cottage, in riches or in poverty, for he has discovered the fountain of happiness which is situated in his own heart. As long as a person has not found that fountain, nothing will give him real happiness.
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https://wahiduddin.net/mv2/VI/VI_1.htmIf there is any source from where one can get the direction on how to act in life, it is to be found in one's heart. The exercises of the Sufi help to get to the source where one can get the direction, the right direction, where there is a spark of the Spirit of Guidance. Those who care to be guided by the spirit, they are always guided, but those who know not whether such a spirit exists or does not exist, they wander through life as a wild horse in the woods, not knowing where it goes, why it runs, why it stands. It is a great pity to be thirsty and remain thirsty when the spring of fresh water is within one's reach. There can be no loss so great in life as having the spark glittering in one's heart and yet groping in the darkness through life.
~~~ "Sangatha II, Saluk: The Good Nature", by Hazrat Inayat Khan (unpublished)
In point of fact, whatever one makes of oneself, one becomes that. The source of happiness or unhappiness is all in man himself. When he is unaware of this, he is not able to arrange his life, but as he becomes more acquainted with this secret, he gains mastery, and the process by which this mastery is attained is the only fulfillment of the purpose of this life.
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https://wahiduddin.net/mv2/X/X_3_4.htmI think that many of us, as spiritual seekers, find ourselves seeking what Hazrat Khan calls here ‘shadows of happiness’ We may be aware of what true happiness is and have found it. Yet we still are pulled back and forth from pleasure to true happiness. That is because we still identify our progress or lack thereof with the senses and the body and its joys and pleasure. We may have found happiness of the heart, yet we still are pulled back in the world by excuses for outer desires that do not lead to true happiness. That is why I continually remind myself that the happiness I seek has been found in meditation and spiritual discipline. Especially when I again find that the outer happiness I have been drawn to causes sorrow. Like a tug of war the spiritual seeker finds him or herself pulled between physical and spiritual aspirations and worlds , until anchored in the heart and spirit.
A good psychiatrist can tell us what we are doing wrong that makes us unhappy. But it takes the decision of the patient to correct these wrong actions to make us happy. In the meantime there may be someone along the way who also directs us and shows us a means to feel and access happiness to encourage us towards practicing ways that lead to our true happiness. That is why I continually practice the Iam and such techniques as Kriya yoga. Because in the practice of such meditation techniques I have more and more glimpses of what the heart offers and what temporary pleasures do not.
