আত্মার পাশে বসে

There is a self within us. We must come to know it, to understand it. The path to this knowing and understanding is not an easy one. Yet if we learn to think simply, we can draw near to that self. We must set aside what we know—clear it from our minds. We must set aside what we think—sweep it from our thoughts. Without doing these two things, we cannot walk properly along this new path.

What I think and what I assume to be true may not be true at all. We must accept this. If we cannot, sorrow comes, again and again. If we wish to make a friend, if we wish to build a relationship with someone, we must first shake loose from our heads all the assumptions we have made about that person. Only then does the self within me begin to speak with the self within them. This is how friendship begins.

There is a magic within all of us. That invisible magic draws beauty out from within us, awakens strength. Most people grow weary, bending beneath the weight of sorrow on their shoulders. Then the will to walk a new path abandons them. The invisible magic hides this way, stays in shadow. And staying there, it is lost one day, somewhere we cannot name.

What is happiness? It is a feeling that people have forgotten how to feel. The eternal dialogue between soul and self—the one that shows us the way to light—we drift further and further from it. And in time, we convince ourselves that what lies within the reach of our eyes is all there is, that there is no use trying to step beyond it.

People try to befriend the entire world, yet they keep their distance from their own hearts until death. Who in this world is more trustworthy than oneself? Because we do not see this, we choose people who are not like the person within us. In the end, we lose ourselves, and we lose our friends too.

People are guided far more by the judgment of others than by their own judgment. The first step to happiness is to live by your own judgment. Only if time remains afterward, only if we wish to spend that extra time, should we then live by the judgment of others. It is far more comforting and fruitful to sit beside our own soul and make peace with our mind than to sit beside the opinions of the world and wage war against ourselves.

Just as a mother tends to her child with devoted care, from the day we begin to care for the self within us in that same way, our eyes open. From that day, we step out of darkness and begin to walk toward the light.