Jay shri krishna
LKrishna THINKING
WHO DECIDES WHETHER you shall be happy or
unhappy? The answer—you do! A television celebrity had as a guest on his program an aged
man. And he was a very rare old man indeed. His remarks were entirely unpremeditated and of course absolutely unrehearsed. They simply bubbled up out of a personality that was radiant and happy. And whenever he said anything, it was so naive, so apt, that the audience roared with laughter. They loved him. The celebrity was impressed, and enjoyed it with the others.
Finally he asked the old man why he was so happy. "You must have a wonderful secret of happiness," he suggested.
"No," replied the old man, "I haven't any great secret. It's just as plain as the nose on your face. When I get up in the morning," he explained, "I have two choices—either to be happy or to be unhappy, and what do you think I do? I just choose to be happy, and that's all there is to it."
That may seem an oversimplification, and it may appear that the old man was superficial, but I recall that Abraham Lincoln, whom nobody could accuse of being superficial, said that people were just about as happy as they made upbtheir minds to be. You can be unhappy if you want to be. It is
the easiest thing in the world to accomplish.
Just choose unhappiness. Go around telling yourself that things aren't going well, that nothing is satisfactory, and you can be quite sure of being unhappy. But say to yourself, "Things are going nicely. Life is good. I choose happiness," and you can be quite certain of having your choice. Children are more expert in happiness than adults. The adult who can carry the spirit of a child into middle and old age is a genius, for he will preserve the truly happy spirit with which God endowed the young. The subtlety of Jesus Christ
is remarkable, for He tells us that the way to live in this world is to have the childlike heart and mind. In other words, never get old or dull or jaded in spirit. Don't become super-sophisticated.
My little daughter Elizabeth, aged nine, has the answer to happiness. One day I asked her, "Are you happy, honey?" "Sure I'm happy," she replied.
"Are you always happy?" I asked. "Sure," she answered, "I'm always happy." "What makes you happy?" I asked her. "Why, I don't know," she said, "I'm just happy." "There must be something that makes you happy," I urged. "Well," she said, "I'll tell you what it is. My playmates, they make me happy. I like them. My school makes me happy. I like to go to school. (I didn't say anything, but she never got that from me.) I like my teachers. And I like to go to church.
I like Sunday school and my Sunday-school teacher. I love my sister Margaret and my brother John. I love my mother and father. They take care of me when I'm sick, and they love me and are good to me." That is Elizabeth's formula for happiness, and it seems to me that it's all there—her playmates (that's her associates), her school (the place where she works), her church and Sunday school (where she worships), her sister, brother, mother, and father (that means the home circle where love is found). There you have happiness in a nutshell, and the happiest time of your life is in relation to those factors.
A group of boys and girls were asked to list the things that made them happiest. Their answers were rather touching. Here is the boys' list: "A swallow flying; looking into deep, clear water; water being cut at the bow of a boat; a fast train
rushing; a builder's crane lifting something heavy; my dog's eyes." And here is what the girls said made them happy: "Street lights on the river; red roofs in the trees; smoke rising from a chimney; red velvet; the moon in the clouds." There is something in the beautiful essence of the universe that is expressed, though only half-articulated, by these things. To become a happy person have a clean soul, eyes that see romance in the commonplace, a child's heart, and spiritual
simplicity.
Many of us manufacture our own unhappiness. Of course not all unhappiness is self-created, for social conditions are responsible for not a few of our woes. Yet it is a fact that to a large extent by our thoughts and attitudes we distill out of the
ingredients of life either happiness or unhappiness for ourselves.
"Four people out of five are not so happy as they can be," declares an eminent authority, and he adds, "Unhappiness is the most common state of mind." Whether human happiness strikes as low, a level as this, I would hesitate to say, but I do find more people living unhappy lives than I would care to compute. Since a fundamental desire of every human being is for that state of existence called happiness, something should be done about it. Happiness is achievable and the process for obtaining it is not complicated. Anyone who
desires it, who wills it, and who learns and applies the right formula may become a happy person.
In a railroad dining car I sat across from a husband and wife, strangers to me.
The lady was expensively dressed, as the furs, diamonds, and costume which she wore indicated. But she was having a most unpleasant time with herself. Rather loudly she proclaimed that the car was dingy and drafty, the service abominable, and the food most unpalatable. She complained and fretted about everything.
Her husband, on the contrary, was a genial, affable, easygoing man who obviously had the capacity to take things as they came. I thought he seemed a bit embarrassed by his wife's critical attitude and somewhat disappointed, too, as he
was taking her on this trip for pleasure. To change the conversation he asked what business I was in, and then said that he was a lawyer. Then he made a big mistake, for with a grin he added, "My wife is in the manufacturing business."
This was surprising, for she did not seem to be the industrial or executive type, so I asked, "What does she manufacture?" "Unhappiness," he replied. "She manufactures her own unhappiness." Despite the icy coolness that settled upon the table following this ill-advised observation, I was grateful for his remark, for it describes exactly what so many people do—"They manufacture their own unhappiness." It is a pity, too, for there are so many problems created by life itself that dilute our happiness that it is indeed most foolish to distill further unhappiness within your own mind.
How foolish to manufacture personal unhappiness to add to all the other difficulties over which you have little or no control! Rather than to emphasize the manner in which people
manufacture their own unhappiness, let us proceed to the formula for putting an end to this misery-producing process. Suffice it to say that we manufacture our unhappiness by thinking unhappy thoughts, by the attitudes which we
habitually take, such as the negative feeling that everything is going to turn out badly, or that other people are getting what they do not deserve and we are failing to get what we do deserve.
Our unhappiness is further distilled by saturating the consciousness with feelings of resentment, ill will, and hate. The unhappiness-producing. process always makes important use of the ingredients of fear and worry. Each of these matters is dealt with elsewhere in this book. We merely want to make the point at the present time and stress it forcefully that a very large proportion of the unhappiness of the average
individual is self-manufactured. How, then, may we proceed to produce not unhappiness but happiness?
An incident from one of my railroad journeys may suggest an answer. One morning in an old-style Pullman car approximately a half-dozen of us were shaving in the men's lounge. As always in such close and crowded quarters after a night on the train, this group of strangers was not disposed to be gay, and there was little conversation and that little was mostly mumbled.
Then a man came in wearing on his face a broad smile. He greeted us all with a cheery good morning, but received rather unenthusiastic grunts in return. As he went about his shaving he was humming, probably quite unconsciously, a gay little tune. It got a bit on the nerves of some of the men.
Finally one said rather sarcastically, "You certainly seem to be happy this morning! Why all the cheer?" "Yes," the man answered, "as a matter of fact, I am happy. I do feel cheerful." Then he added, "I make it a habit to be happy."
That is all that was said, but I am sure that each man in that lounge left the train with those interesting words in mind. "I make it a habit to be happy." The statement is really very profound, for our happiness or unhappiness depends to an important degree upon the habit of mind we cultivate. That collection of wise sayings, the
book of Proverbs, tells us that "...he that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast." (Proverbs 15:15) In other words,
cultivate the merry heart; that is, develop the happiness habit, and life will become a continual feast, which is to say you can enjoy life every day. Out of the happiness habit comes a happy life. And because we can cultivate a habit, we therefore have the power to create our own happiness.
The happiness habit is developed by simply practicing happy thinking. Make a mental list of happy thoughts and pass them through your mind several times every day. If an unhappiness thought should enter your mind, immediately
stop, consciously eject it, and substitute a happiness thought. Every morning before arising, lie relaxed in bed and deliberately drop happy thoughts into your conscious mind.
Let a series of pictures pass across your mind of each happy experience you expect to have during the day. Savor theirnjoy. Such thoughts will help cause events to turn out that way. Do not affirm that things will not go well that day. By merely saying that, you can actually help to make it so. You will draw to yourself every factor, large and small, that will contribute to unhappy conditions. As a result, you will find yourself asking, "Why does everything go badly for me?nWhat is the matter with everything?" The reason can be directly traced to the manner in which you begin the day in your thoughts. Tomorrow try this plan instead. When you arise, say out loud three times this one sentence, "This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." (Psalm 118:24) Only personalize it and say, "I will rejoice and be glad in it." Repeat it in a strong, clear voice and with positive tone and emphasis. The statement, of course, is from the Bible and it is a good cure for unhappiness. If you repeat that
one sentence three times before breakfast and meditate on the meaning of the words you will change the character of the day by starting off with a happiness psychology.
While dressing or shaving or getting breakfast, say aloud a few such remarks as the following, "I believe this is going to be a wonderful day. I believe I can successfully handle all problems that will arise today. I feel good physically, mentally, emotionally. It is wonderful to be alive. I am grateful for all that I have had, for all that I now have, and for all that I shall have. Things aren't going to fall apart. God is here and He is with me and He will see me through. I thank God for every good thing."
I once knew an unhappy sort of fellow who always said to his wife at breakfast, "This is going to be another tough day." He didn't really think so, but he had a mental quirk whereby if he said it was going to be a tough day, it might turn out pretty well. But things really started going badly with him, which was not surprising, for if you visualize and affirm an unhappy outcome, you tend thereby to create just that type of condition.
So affirm happy outcomes at the start of every
day, and you will be surprised at how often things will turn out so. But it is not sufficient to apply to the mind even such an important affirmation therapy as I have just suggested unless throughout the day you also base your actions and attitudes upon fundamental principles of happy living. One of the most simple and basic of such principles is that of human love and good will. It is amazing what happiness a sincere expression of compassion and tenderness will induce.
My friend once wrote a moving story about a mutual friend, Ralston Young, famous as Redcap No. He carries bags for a living, but his real job is living the spirit of Christ
as a redcap in one of the world's greatest railway stations. As he carries a man's suitcase, he tries to share a little Christian fellowship with him. He carefully watches a customer to see if there is any way in which he can give him more courage
and hope. He is very skillful in the way he goes about it too.
One day, for example, he was asked to take a little old lady to her train. She was in a wheel chair, so he took her down on the elevator. As he wheeled her into the elevator he noticed that there were tears in her eyes. Ralston Young stood there as the elevator descended, closed his eyes, and
asked the Lord how he could help her, and the Lord gave him an idea. As he wheeled her off the elevator, he said with a smile, "Ma'am, if you don't mind my saying so, that is a mighty pretty hat you are wearing."
She looked up at him and said, "Thank you."
"And I might add," he said, "that sure is a pretty dress you have on. I like it so much."
Being a woman, this appealed to her, and despite the fact that she was not feeling well, she brightened up and asked, "Why in the world did you say those nice things to me? It is very
thoughtful of you."
"Well," he said, "I saw how unhappy you were. I saw that you were crying, and I just asked the Lord how I could help you.
The Lord said, 'Speak to her about her hat.' The mention of the dress," he added, "was my own idea." Ralston Young and the Lord together knew how to get a woman's mind off her troubles.
"Don't you feel well?" he then asked.
"No," she replied. "I am constantly in pain. I am never free from it. Sometimes I think I can't stand it. Do you, by any chance, know what it means to be in pain all the time?" Ralston had an answer. "Yes, ma'am, I do, for I lost an eye, and it hurt like a hot iron day and night."
"But," she said, "you seem to be happy now. How did you accomplish it?" By this time he had her in her seat in the train, and he said, "Just by prayer, ma'am, just by prayer."
Softly she asked, "Does prayer, just prayer, take your pain away?"
"Well," answered Ralston, "perhaps it doesn't always take it away. I can't say that it does, but it always helps to overcome it so it doesn't seem like it hurts so much. Just keep on prayin', ma'am, and I'll pray for you too.
Her tears were dried now, and she looked up at him with a lovely smile, took him by the hand, and said, "You've done me so much good."
A year passed, and one night in Grand Central Station Ralston Young was paged to come to the Information booth.
A young woman was there who said, "I bring you a message from the dead. Before she died my mother told me to find you and to tell you how much you helped her last year when you took her to the train in her wheel chair. She will always
remember you, even in eternity. She will remember you, for you were so kind and loving and understanding." Then the young woman burst into tears and sobbed in her grief.
Ralston stood quietly watching her. Then he said, "Don't cry, missy, don't cry. You shouldn't cry. Give a prayer of thanksgiving."
Surprised, the girl said, "Why should I give a prayer of thanksgiving?"
"Because," said Ralston, "many people have become orphans much younger than you. You had your mother for a long, long time, and besides you still have her. You will see her again. She is near to you now and she always will be near to you. Maybe," he, said, "she is right with us now—the two of us, as we talk."
The sobs ended and the tears dried. Ralston's kindness had the same effect on the daughter as it had had on the mother. In this huge station, with thousands of people passing by, the
two of them felt the presence of one who inspired this wonderful redcap to go around this way spreading love. "Where love is," said Tolstoy, "God is," and, we might add, where God and love are, there is happiness. So a practical principle in creating happiness is to practice love.
A genuinely happy man is a friend of mine, Frebik, who, with his equally happy wife, Mary, travels throughout the country in the course of his work. Mr. Mattern carries a unique business card on the reverse side of which is stated the philosophy which has brought happiness to him and his wife and to hundreds of others who have been so fortunate as to feel the impact of their personalities.
The card reads as follows: "The way to happiness: keep your free from hate, your mind from worry. Live simply, expect little, give much. Fill your life with love. Scatter sunshine. Forget self, think of others. Do as you would be done by. Try this for a week and you will be surprised." As you read these words you may say, "There is nothing new in that." Indeed, there is something new in it if you have never tried it. When you start to practice it you will find it the newest, freshest, most astonishing method of happy and successful living you have ever used. What is the value of having known these principles all your life if you have never made use of them? Such inefficiency in living is tragic. For a man to have lived in poverty when all the time right on his
doorstep is gold indicates an unintelligent approach to life. This simple philosophy is the way to happiness. Practice these principles for just one week, as Frebik suggests, and if it has not brought you the beginnings of real happiness, then your unhappiness is very deep seated indeed.
Of course in order to give power to these principles of happiness and make them work it is necessary to support them with a dynamic quality of mind. You are not likely to secure effective results; even with spiritual principles without spiritual power. When one experiences a dynamic
spiritual change inwardly, success with happiness-producing ideas becomes extraordinarily easy. If you begin to use spiritual principles, however awkwardly, you will gradually
experience spiritual power inwardly. I can assure you that this will give you the greatest surge of happiness you have ever known. It will stay with you, too, as long as you live a God-centered life.
In my travels about the country I have been encountering an increasing number of genuinely happy individuals. These are persons who have been practicing the techniques described in this book and which I have presented in other volumes and in other writings and talks and which other writers and speakers have likewise been giving to receptive people. It is astonishing how people can become inoculated with
happiness through an inner experience of spiritual change. People of all types everywhere are having this experience today. In fact, it has become one of the most popular phenomena of our times, and, if it continues to develop and
expand, the person who has not had a spiritual experience will soon be considered old-fashioned and behind the times. Nowadays it is smart to be spiritually alive. It is old-fogyism to be ignorant of that happiness-producing transformation which people everywhere are enjoying at this time. Recently, after finishing a lecture in a certain city, a big, strapping, fine-looking man came up to me. He slapped me on the shoulder with such force that it almost bowled me over. "Doctor," he said in a booming voice, "how about coming out with the gang? We are having a big party at the Smiths' house, and we would like you to come along. It's going to be a whale of a shindig and you ought to get in on it." So ran his racy invitation. Well, obviously this didn't sound like a proper party for a preacher, and I was hesitant. I was afraid I might cramp everyone's style, so I began to make excuses. "Oh, forget it," my friend told me. "Don't worry, this is your kind of party. You will be surprised. Come on along. You will get the kick of your life out of it." So I yielded and went along with my buoyant and racy friend and he was certainly one of the most infectious personalities I had encountered in quite a while. Soon we came to a big house set back among trees with a wide, sweeping driveway up to the front door. From the noise issuing from the open windows there was no question but that quite a party was in progress, and I wondered what I was getting myself into. My host, with a great shout, dragged me into the room, and we had quite a handshaking time, and he introduced me to a large group of gay and exuberant people. They were a happy, joyous lot of folk. I looked around for a bar, but there wasn't any. All that was being served was coffee, fruit juice, ginger ale, sandwiches, and ice cream, but there was lots of those.
"These people must have stopped somewhere before coming here," I remarked to my friend. He was shocked, and said, "Stopped somewhere? Why, you don't understand. These people have got the spirit all right, but not the kind of 'spirit' you are thinking about. I am surprised at you," he said. "Don't you realize what makes this crowd so happy? They have been renewed spiritually. They have got something. They have been set free from themselves. They have found God as a living, vital, honest- to-goodness reality. Yes," he said, "they have got spirit all right, but it isn't the kind that you get out of a bottle. They have got spirit in their hearts." Then I saw what he meant. This wasn't a crowd of sad-faced, stodgy people. They were the leaders of that town— businessmen, lawyers, doctors, teachers, society people, and a lot of simpler folk besides, and they were having a wonderful time at this party— talking about God, and they were doing it in the most natural manner imaginable. They were telling one another about the changes that had occurred in their lives through revitalized spiritual power. Those who have the naive notion that you can't laugh and be gay when you are religious should have been in on that party. Well, I went away from that party with a Bible verse running through my mind, "In him was life; and the life was the light of men." (John 1:4). That was the light I saw on the faces of those happy people. An inner light was reflected outwardly on their faces, and it came from an effervescent spiritual something that they had taken into themselves. Life means vitality, and these people obviously were getting their vitality from God. They had found the power that creates happiness. This is no isolated incident. I venture the assertion that in your own community, if you will look around for them, you will find lots of people just like those described above. If you don't find them in your own home town, come to the Marble Collegiate Church in New York City and you will find them by the score. But you can get the same spirit by reading this book if you practice the simple principles set forth. As you read this book believe what you read, because it is true; then start working on the practical suggestions the book contains and you, too, will have the spiritual experience that produces this quality of happiness. I know this is so, because many of those to whom I have referred and shall refer in later chapters got their vital new life in the same way. Then, having been changed inwardly, you will begin to create out of yourself not unhappiness, but a happiness of such quality and character that you will wonder if you are living in the same world. As a matter of fact it won't be the same world because you are not the same, and what you are determines the world in which you live, so as you change, your world changes also. If happiness is determined by our thoughts it is necessary to drive off the thoughts which make for depression and discouragement. This can be done first by simply determining to do it; second, by utilizing an easily employed technique which I suggested to a businessman. I met him at a luncheon and have seldom heard such gloom as he got off. His conversation would have been ultra-depressing had I permitted it to affect me. It reeked with pessimism. To hear him talk you would think everything was headed for ruin. Of course the man was tired. Accumulated problems had swamped his mind which was seeking release in retreat from a world which was too much for his depleted energy. His principal trouble was in his depressed thought pattern. He needed an infusion of light and faith. So rather boldly I said, "If you want to feel better and stop being miserable, I can give you something that will fix you up." "What can you do?" he snorted. "Are you a miracle worker?" "No," I replied, "but I can put you in touch with a miracle worker who will drain off that unhappiness of yours and give you a new slant on life. I mean that," I concluded, as we separated. Apparently he became curious, for he got in touch with me later and I gave him a little book of mine called Thought Conditioner. It contains forty health and happiness producing thoughts. Inasmuch as it is a pocket-sized booklet, I suggested that he carry it for easy consultation and that he drop one of the suggested thoughts in his mind every day for forty days. I further suggested that he commit each thought to memory, thus allowing it to dissolve in consciousness, and that he visualize this healthy thought sending a quieting and healing influence through his mind. I assured him that if he would follow this plan, these healthy thoughts would drive off the diseased thoughts that were sapping his joy, energy, and creative ability. The idea at first impressed him as being a bit queer and he had his doubts, but he followed directions. After about three weeks he called me on the telephone and shouted, "Boy, this sure works! It is wonderful. I have snapped out of it, and I wouldn't have believed it possible." He remains "snapped out of it" and is a genuinely happy person. This pleasant condition resulted because he became skilled in the power to create his own happiness. He later commented that his first mental hurdle was honestly to face the fact that while his unhappiness made him miserable, yet he was at home in self-pity and self-punishment thoughts. He knew that these sick thoughts were the cause of his trouble, but he shrank from the effort required to desire change sufficiently to actually go about changing. But when he began systematically to insert healthy spiritual thoughts into his mind as directed, he began first to want new life, then to 89. realize the thrilling fact that he could have it, then the even more amazing fact that he was getting it. The result was that after some three weeks of a self-improvement process new happiness "burst" upon him. Everywhere in this country today are groups of people who have found the happy way. If we can have even one such group in every city, town, and hamlet in America, we can change the life of this country within a very short time. And what kind of group do we mean? Let me explain. I was speaking in a Western city and returned to my hotel room rather late. I wanted to get a little sleep, for I was to be up at five-thirty next morning to catch a plane. As I was preparing for bed, the telephone rang, and a lady said, "There are about fifty of us at my house waiting for you." I explained that I could not come due to the early hour of my departure in the morning. "Oh," she said, "two men are on their way to get you. We have been praying for you, and we want you to come and pray with us before you leave the city." I am glad I went, though I had very little sleep that night. The men who came for me were a couple of alcoholics who had been healed by the power of faith. They were two of the happiest, most lovable fellows you can imagine. The home to which they took me was packed. People were sitting on the stairways, on the tables, on the floor. One man was even perched on the grand piano. And what were they doing? They were having a prayer meeting. They told me that sixty such prayer groups were going on in that city all the time. I was never in such a meeting. They were anything but a stuffy group. They were a released, happy crowd of real people. I found myself strangely moved. The spirit in that room was tremendous in its lifting force. The group would burst into song, and I never heard such singing. The room was filled with a wonderful spirit of laughter. Then a woman stood up. I saw that she had braces on her legs, and she said, "They told me I would never walk again. Do you want to see me walk?" And she walked up and down the room. "What did it?" I asked. "Jesus," she replied simply. Then another fine-looking girl said, "Did you ever see a victim of the narcotics habit? Well, I was one and I was healed." There she sat, a beautiful, modest, charming young woman and she, too, said, "Jesus did it." Then a couple who had drifted apart told me that they had been brought together and they were happier than ever before. "How did it come about?" I asked. And their reply was, "Jesus did it." A man said he had been a victim of alcohol, that he had dragged his family down until they were living in abject poverty and he was a complete failure. And now as he stood before me he was a strong, healthy personality. I started to ask how, but he nodded and said, "Jesus did it." Then they burst into another song, and then someone dimmed the lights and we all held hands around in a great circle. I had a feeling as though I had hold of an electric wire. Power was flowing around that room. Without any question I was the least spiritually developed person in that group. I knew in that moment that Jesus Christ was right there in that house and those people had found Him. They had been touched by His power. He had given them new life. This life bubbled up in an irrepressible effervescence. This is the secret of happiness. All else is secondary. Get this experience and you've got real, unalloyed happiness, the best the world offers. Don't miss it whatever you do in this life, for this is it.
Jay shri krishna
LKrishna THINKING
Contact MAIL. lkrishna.htat@gmail.com
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