WHAT IS HAPPINESS?

People strive to achieve success without knowing the laws of creation. Therefore, along with success, money and a career they encounter various problems in their lives. Their personal plan destroyed, inner dissatisfaction builds up leading to depression, and so on. The concept of "the ecology of success" means that my success has been achieved correctly without breaking the laws of creation. There are many books on psychology around which explain how to get rich. But not everyone can be rich. There are people who by nature have to be rich. That is their way of fulfilling themselves in the world. But there are others who, once they start to do this lose themselves as individuals. If, in contrast to their inner nature, they try to become millionaires, they will simply become unhappy.

If you walk towards the sun

There are two reactions that do nothing to change the problem. The first is the reaction of the loser, when a person agrees that nothing will ever come of him and nothing will ever go right. But what will change in his life if that is his attitude to failure? Nothing. The second reaction is anger. Something unfortunate happens and he blames other people. But this doesn't change anything, either. One can only alter a failure by first ingraining in oneself other qualities of character. If a person starts to care about others that is already a 100-per cent success, because then that success starts to take charge of him. All one has to do is to address it. It is like a person walking away from the sun, and in order to see the sun he doesn't have to walk backwards on his heels - all he has to do is turn his face towards it. The awareness of success is developed according to definite stages and requires that routine tests must be taken. At first it seems that if one has a lot of something this can make him happy. But look at the situation from the side: If you eat too much you get ill. If you have too many things and too much money you get scared. If you are around too long you grow old and die. If you have too much water you drown. If you take on too much you wear yourself out. So too much does not mean good. Too much means deadly dangerous. If we have too much of something we are just greedy and nothing else. And this is already a sign of failure because greed makes a person unhappy. How can this happen?

The time has come to assess our failures on merit. If we can assess a failure we can happily pay a fair price for this lesson. A person who tries to conserve his failures conserves his successes. A wise landlady only has to allow her food to go off a couple of times to know she can no longer cut corners on her guests. Sooner or later one comes to realize there is no point in hoarding without reason. Predominantly, it is a superficial aggressive atmosphere which is automatically whipped up around a situation that contributes to such a concept. Mikhail Khodorkovskiy, the former head of the Russian oil company YUKOS, who is behind bars, says: "I already realized that property itself in no way makes a person free. As a co-owner of YUKOS, I had to spend huge sums to protect this property. And I had to restrict myself in everything that could have harmed this property. It was not just I who controlled the property - it controlled me. Therefore, I would like to particularly warn the young people of today not to envy big property owners. Don't think that their life is easy and cosy. Property opens up new possibilities but it also leads to the enslavement of man's creative powers and to the erosion of his personality. Here grinding tyranny - the tyranny of property - manifests itself. And so I have re-classified myself. I am becoming an ordinary person for whom existence - not possession - is the most important thing. It is a struggle not for property but for oneself, for the right to be oneself. In this struggle positions in ratings, bureaucratic links and commercial bling have no meaning. Only you yourself, your feelings, ideas, capabilities, will, wisdom and faith. This also means, probably, that the only possible and correct choice is the choice of freedom."

Life's illusions

In life there must be a proper balance between education, practical activity and the development of relations. A real deep understanding of life only comes to one who has this balance. If a person merely works and does not learn he will turn into a workaholic. If he only studies philosophy he will turn into a useless cynic. And if he relies only on relationships he will turn into a sentimentalist. Even our physical body is based on the principle of balance. We often experience mood swings, periods of good health and illness and the ordinary ups and downs of life. This is the normal process of life and is explained in yoga terms as the alternate dominance of lunar and solar energy. We are very rarely in a balanced state. Illness arises when we concentrate too much on the internal or the external, on thoughts or on work. In terms of imbalance people are divided into two types: There is the extravert who is not worried by internal feelings. He is constantly drawn towards external happiness which cannot satisfy his internal demands. This leads to internal excessive stress which forces him to be even more active. Such people are constantly ready for "battle" or "escape", are restless and touchy. 

People who are primarily introverted are by nature dreamers. They think a great deal but they do not transfer their thoughts to the level of action. They can be acutely upset and hypersensitive to external events and interpersonal experiences. They may think about disasters, dangers and problems. This makes their desire to operate actively more difficult. They find it difficult to achieve a result in collaboration with others because they depart into a world of inner experiences. These people have insufficient vital energy to act and carry their plans through to the end. States of low physical energy particularly easily lend themselves to exposure to harmonized yoga gymnastics. One needs to increase the amount of energy in the body in order to obtain the necessary supply of strength to overcome illness. In a state with a reduced physical energy it is important to turn the energy from mental activity to physical, shifting our attention to the physical process. One must switch from plans to action. This, incidentally, quickly dispels many illusions which also leads to the restoration of harmony. One of the paradoxes of the therapeutic situation is that in a state of reduced energy we must first tire the body, although our ultimate aim is to saturate the body with energy. This is like cranking a rusty engine. At first great effort is required. In one beautiful moment we feel that the work is becoming easier and easier, especially if we practice every day. The effect of body fatigue is twofold. First - we expend energy and we cannot use it for negative thoughts and thereby destroy our life. Second - drifting off to sleep becomes easier. Mental hyperactivity and insufficient physical activity hamper deep restful sleep, the type of rest that is necessary to restore sick fibres. Without proper sleep it is almost impossible to recover from any chronic illness. In order to harmonise hyperactivity one needs to develop rest and consider one's activity. One needs breaks where one can switch off completely. Moreover, external activity itself must be linked with pure behaviour and concern for others. And then life itself is wonderful - because we have wonderful possibilities for concern. And one is struck by the fact that one was unable to appreciate this before. Here lies the great illusion of life - finding oneself in the epicentre of happiness and success one believes one is unhappy and has been cheated by fate.