Solve the Mystery of Unhappiness

Our lives are devoted to finding ways to please ourselves. But in spite of our occasional victories a heaviness still remains in our hearts. The mystery of this unhappiness can't be solved until we have tried everything we can think of to make ourselves happy and finally have a collapse of our ideas about happiness - only then do we understand that we don't really know what it is.

When you look at nature you see an intricate web of life which is balanced between two qualities - give and take. There is no escaping this natural balance that's hardwired into all of life, permeating everything from the smallest cells to the cosmos. For years a person makes the same mistake they've always made when trying to solve their unhappiness - they consult themselves. They listen to what they tell themselves will make them happy. But as with all of life, human beings must give themselves up as part of the cycle that has been running since time began.

We physically give and take, as with our breath; but psychologically we just take. In a way it's not man's fault, since we're born into a system that is already set up. Currently when we "give" we are actually taking because we only give for the purpose of an imagined reward. Our ideas of peace are tied up in the ideas of possession. But no real life exists outside of a perfectly balanced give and take. If you take more than you give, you are in debt.

There's very little love on this planet. We give when it's convenient. What do I really have to give of value anyway? If what I give doesn't have a cost then I haven't really given anything. If you ever feel any resentment then you are taking. How can we never see that we're not here on this planet just for me, just to get stuff? How long does the mind remain apart from its own activity?

We are born into unhappiness - an animal body, a divided mind, which separates itself from what it sees. How does one give? The problem is we look for an answer and then just do whatever we come up with, and end up taking again because we expect peace as a result. The denial of life is still taking from it. I want my own solution, not what life is giving me.

We'll come to a point where we don't want to give - too tired, too angry, etc. And it will occur to us to give up that self and give anyway. Only then do we start living from a new order of being.