“Happiness is not a thing: It is a state of mind.”

Friends, today is the birthday of the Great Yogi Paramahansa Yogananda – an outstanding spiritual figure of our time who brought the knowledge of Kriya Yoga to Western people.

On this day, we want to share his wisdom with you:

“To seek happiness outside ourselves is like trying to lasso a cloud. Happiness is not a thing: It is a state of mind. It must be lived. Neither worldly power nor moneymaking schemes can ever capture happiness. Mental restlessness results from an outward focus of awareness. Restlessness itself guarantees that happiness will remain elusive.

Temporal power and money are not states of mind. Once obtained, they only dilute a person’s happiness. Certainly they cannot enhance it.

The more widely we scatter our energies, the less power we have left to direct toward any specific undertaking. Octopus habits of worry and nervousness rise from ocean depths in the subconscious, fling tentacles around our minds, and crush to death all that we once knew of inner peace.

True happiness is never to be found outside the Self. Those who seek it there are as if chasing rainbows among the clouds!”