chapter 2 - why are we not happy?

We are not happy generally because we are not happy about ourselves; not happy with our lives, with other people and the happenings in the world. We are discontented about something or everything. We have lots of fears and worries. We want to enjoy life but we don’t really know how?

We cannot even please our own self because our mood and wants are changing all the time, and thus it is impossible to please everybody in this world of diversity.

Most of the time, we don’t know what we really want and don’t want.

We are afraid of losing "this" if we decide to choose "that" or vice versa. Indecisive is a common reason why people are not at peace, being troubled and unhappy in life.

And egoism is the main cause for all the unhappiness in us. Anger, hatred, jealousy, greed, arrogance, attachment, craving, aversion, low confidence, low self-esteem, depression, fears and worries are derived from the ego.

We are not happy because we don't have wisdom or right understanding at the moment. It doesn't matter if we had went through higher education or had read a lot of books and had attained lots of various certificates or having many talents.

Mainly because the knowledge that we attained from school did not teach us how to be happy. Or it has given us a huge wrong idea that our happiness is to achieve through worldly success, wealth, fame, material enjoyments and sensual pleasures.

All the knowledge that we could get from this world is conditioned and is limited. These knowledge and talents that we have cannot and do not guarantee us happiness. In fact they have promoted the pride and arrogance in us, empowering our ego, and thus make us more unhappy and discontent in life.

The more that we learn, the more that we realize that we are so ignorant and don't know much actually. This will make us become a humble person, which is good. But if we are attached to our ego strongly, this will make us feel low self-esteem, depressed and also will generate jealousy towards people who are better than us or know more than us.

And thus we are unhappy and not satisfy with ourselves. We will try to remove this dissatisfaction by trying to acquire more worldly knowledge and achievement in life. Again this is enhancing our ego, pride and arrogance, and makes us more unhappy.

It is like a snowball that rolls down a hill full of snow and attached itself with more and more snow, and become bigger and heavier.

The knowledge that we learn from school education certainly will benefit us to a certain extent; for us to be able to read and write; to communicate with others; and to have some skills for finding jobs to make some living.

But this knowledge cannot give us salvation, or remove our ignorance. It doesn't take away the pain; the suffering; the unhappy feelings; the negative thinking; the anger; the hatred; the jealousy; the greed; the fears and worries; the illness; the old age and death that everyone has to go through at one stage in life.

Look at so many people who are unhappy and even have gone crazy. Many of them are well educated and some of them are intelligent and materially successful wealthy people.

They may be very smart and intelligent, but it doesn't help them to transcend painful sorrow and suffering. The more they know and the more wealth that they have, the more emptiness and meaningless that they feel, because they know that we all are going to leave all these knowledge and wealth behind due to impermanence. We cannot forever own this success and wealth that we have now and we cannot forever be with the people who we love so much. And also knowledge and wealth cannot buy us true love or give us permanent true happiness.

Because without wisdom, we all don't know how to stay detached and let go.

And wisdom is entirely different from worldly knowledge.

It allows us to realize the Truth of all the things in this world that we perceive with our mind through the senses and let us understand what is happening in us that is making us unhappy and suffer.

It gives us the true confidence that has got nothing to do with the knowledge in the world and how much that we know about everything; and the true confidence is not affected by the ever changing phenomena; or the judgment and criticism from other people.

It helps us to be able to detach from worldly objects and the suffering cause by them. It also let us to be able to detach from duality which is the cause of likes and dislikes; cravings and aversions which is the cause for irritation, frustration, dissatisfaction, disappointment, and suffering.

It helps us to be able to let go our likes and dislikes; the past and the future.

It helps us to deal with our feelings and emotions; the anger; the hatred; the jealousy; negative thinking and evil thoughts.

It gives us the courage and strength to withstand all the discomforts that arise due to the functions of our mind; the ego; the intellect and the senses.

It gives us peace of mind and sustain happiness. It takes away our fear and worries.

It is the key to our salvation and self-realization.

When there is wisdom, there is no unhappiness or depression.

When there is wisdom, there is no fear.

May we all attain wisdom in this life now and be happy.