So these are the ways to be happy. This is happiness for the soul. This is what everyone needs. Love. Love is the nourishment of the soul. You can never be fulfilled, you can never be happy without it, never be satisfied without it.
And dissatisfaction is so present in our life. No matter what we get in the material world, we are not satisfied. We get all the objects, we get the cars and houses, all the money, and the fame, whatever we get. We got all the goodies, we are not satisfied. It didn’t satisfy. We thought it would. We worked so hard to get it. We thought when we get it, we would be satisfied. We are not. And then we try to get more and more and more, change it, “Oh, this used to make me happy, it doesn’t. I will just get something else.” It is just ongoing. It doesn’t stop because that doesn’t satisfy the soul.
We are spirit soul, if we were the material body, then the game we play, they will probably work for some people, but they don’t because we are not the body. That’s why it’s so important to know who we are. If I don’t know who I am, then I don’t know what to do with my life. I know I must love that’s why I want to love, but I don’t know anything about the subject. So I just go out and lust this, and lust that, and lust something else. And I go through my whole life like that, I die and I start all over next life. Nothing really changes. It’s just a repetition of the same game.
I hear people all the time saying, “But I do have someone I really love.” Ok, we will accept that, no problem, but it is temporary. When you get married one of the vows that you take is: I will love you until death do us part. So it is built-in that we have to leave each other. I love you and you love me, it is all ongoing, ongoing but I am going to die and I am going to leave you, or you are going to die and you will leave me. So the love is over.
That is why, you know, death of the loved one is the most painful experience in life because it breaks our heart, because we gave our heart to this person. And maybe they gave their heart to us so we were totally committed to each other, but we have to separate and death is so, so painful. It destroys our life. People say after a loved one like this dies, “I have no reason to live. My life has been taken away. It ripped my heart out,” and on, and on it goes.
So that is not really the solution. We don’t want to spend this lifetime and other lifetimes running around looking for a perfect person to love, because they don’t exist in this world.
That Person who we are designed to really love and really have this beautiful exchange with is God Himself. He doesn’t die. (laughs) It is not a temporary affair, it is never ever over. And He doesn’t run off for somebody else and leave us behind. I don’t have to worry, “Uh-oh, He is going to find somebody else, He doesn’t love me anymore.”
He loves me and you, and you, and you, everybody. And you are very happy about that, you know that, you are comfortable with that. You don’t have to worry about He doesn’t love me because it is built-in that He automatically loves us eternally. He is the all-loving Supreme Father. He loves all of His children, not just a select few, everybody. I don’t have to worry about, “Oh, I love Him but He doesn’t love me” which is one of the big problems in these lust relationships, “I love him but he doesn’t love me.” So what do you do?
– Why don’t you ever tell me you love me?
– I always tell you I love you. You never tell me you love me!
Anybody ever heard that? Sound familiar? (laughs)
– Ok, I love you!
– Oh, good. Do you really mean it? (laughs) Why don’t you tell me this more often?
– Oh God! What do you want, man? I have just told you.
You know, and then we go… (beating sounds)
– (With harsh voice) You don’t really love me. I saw you were looking at somebody else.
Really, really stressful, really, really painful, see. It is really, really agitating, no satisfaction, no security, there is no security here. So we are always afraid, fear is encompassing all of these affairs. Fear that I won’t get the one I want to love. Then I get them, I am afraid I will lose them. Then I lose them, oh, another pain. No matter which way it works, it is the same story.
So that is the material world. We have to get out of the material world. And you can get out of the material world while still in these material bodies, living in the material dimension. How? By developing that loving relationship with God. And that is the whole process of bhakti yoga. That is the whole process. That is what is taught. There is a formula, there is practice, there are activities that cultivate this relationship.
We already have it. It is already there but we forgot that. It is a lost relationship. It is like if you have a relationship with someone in this world, but you have lost it. It is still there.
A good friend of mine had a daughter. But the daughter’s mother was pregnant and they split before the child was ever born. So he never saw his daughter. But he knew he had one. They never met. Then when his daughter was, I think, 26 years old, I forget how it happened, but somehow they reconnected, they found each other. They had never seen each other before but he was her dad and she was his daughter, the relationships were there.
So then they were so happy and they started communicating and visiting each other. She had all kinds of problems. He is married and has another child from another woman, but he was so happy that he could help his daughter who needed help financially and she had some kind of health problems. But he was so happy to help. She had a kid or two and we wanted to help the kid. And he was right into the whole relationship thing and he was finding so much happiness, just because now he can give something, you see.
And then about one or a couple years ago I saw him walking down the street with his daughter and his daughter’s husband and a baby stroller, and there was a little baby there. Oh, he has a granddaughter, “Oh, come on over here, I will just show you my granddaughter!” He was so proud, “Look at this.” He was so happy. See, it is the relationship that made him happy. What to speak about this perfect relationship with the Perfect Person?