How to live a happy life? How to find happiness in our life? The answer is our mind and our thoughts.
The mind is conditioned from birth by our likes and dislikes. Every experience is weighed on a scale of pleasant or unpleasant. The balance of the two ultimately determines our level of happiness. The road to greater joy travels through each individual's mind.
Memorable events cloaked in sounds and visuals have the power to shape our thinking. Memories are created and enjoyed if there is a real-life narrative to go along with them. Perhaps the greatest storyteller of all is our own minds. Effortlessly weaving memories and future plots into the present context, the mind has the ability to make the image appear very real. We are the protagonists in our own life stories. The recital of thoughts going through our consciousness may never answer all the hard questions such as the deeper meaning of our existence, but it keeps life interesting. In the end, what really matters is a consciousness brimming with happiness. A careful inquest into why we don't have the happiness we desire will lead to discovering the answers within our own minds. The mind is not easily tamed.
The mind has a beginning at birth and an inevitable end. We are caught in whirling rapids midstream, created by our entanglement with the senses. Fighting the pull of the senses saps our energy and leaves us with a feeling of incompleteness. We reach a fork in the road at this point, one leading to a search for greater happiness in the external world; the other in the opposite direction, within ourselves. The finitude of the world contrasts with the infinitude of the mind.
An invisible current that flows deep within us. This current is the form of the life principle. The mind revels in matter through the senses. When the mind operates at this level, it may be compared to a child seeking a new toy once the novelty of the old one runs out. For a child, wanting something new is essential to acquiring knowledge in their rapidly expanding mind. The senses play a key part in this. A child ultimately grows out of this stage as he or she grows up. However, the mind carries the imprint of this conditioning. This translates to the craving for "bigger and real-life" toys as we grow into adults.
We cannot physically interact with thoughts. Like satellites roaming in the near space around earth, thoughts may be likened to relay stations that link the outside world with the deeper parts of the mind. Thoughts are like the characters in a story. In its restlessness, the mind, a master storyteller, is constantly changing the storyline. We have the power to direct what we want to hear from the storybook of the mind. There are plenty of examples of scientists and inventors who have spent countless hours researching something without finding success. All of a sudden, when least expected, answers come to them as a flash of inspiration. This is not blind luck, but the result of prior efforts at coaxing the mind in a focused direction.
Changing thinking patterns is not easily achieved. Ultimately, above all else, everyone wants to be happy. There are countless avenues to achieve transient happiness. However, the path significantly narrows when one talks about permanent and everlasting happiness. That path travels within the mind; the realization by each one of us that this happiness lies within will help alleviate much of the problems of the world.
The Red Ruby explores an imaginary journey through the mind where several obstacles and distractions are to be encountered before the ultimate prize is realized. Written in free verse, this journey may apply to modern minds. The ancient yearnings for the answers to our questions are explored with the realization that this epic journey may hold a deeper lesson for all.
