When you think everything is someone else's fault, you will suffer a lot. When you realize that everything springs only from yourself, you will learn both peace and joy.
When you have a more compassionate mind and cultivate warm-heartedness, the whole atmosphere around you becomes more positive and friendlier. You see friends everywhere. If you feel fear and distrust, then other people will distance themselves, they will also feel cautious, suspicious, and distrust. Then comes the feeling of loneliness. When someone is warm-hearted, they are always completely relaxed. If you live with fear and consider yourself as something special, then automatically, emotionally, you are distanced from others. You then create the basis for feelings of alienation from others and loneliness. JOY IS AN INSIDE JOB. THIS IS THE BEST NEWS EVER. It means that we don’t have to simply hope that we’ll feel better, someday, maybe. We can take the reins and create more JOY for ourselves.
When we see others as separate, they become a threat. When we see others as part of us, as connected, as interdependent, then there is no challenge we cannot face-together.
The goal is not just to create joy for ourselves, but ‘to be a reservoir of joy, an oasis of peace, a pool of serenity, that can ripple out to those around you.’ Joy is in fact quite contagious. As is love, compassion, and generosity.
The ultimate source of a meaningful life is within our own self. Usually everybody seeks happiness, joyfulness from the outside, from money, from power, from a big car, from a big house. The ultimate source of a happy life, even physical health, is inside not outside.
The ultimate source of happiness is within us. Not money, not power, not status. Outward attainment will not bring real inner joyfulness. We must look inside.