Question: Does happiness in the outer being reflect the inner consciousness?

Sri Chinmoy: Certainly. If it is sincere happiness, not false happiness, then it does reflect the inner consciousness. Here the consciousness itself reaches a high degree of perfection. But if what you call happiness is actually a form of so-called earthly pleasure, then it can never reflect the inner consciousness. We have to know what we mean by happiness and pleasure. Most of the time the majority of human beings consider pleasure as happiness; but pleasure and happiness are actually two different things. When we have pleasure we feel that our pleasure is immediately captured by frustration and inside this frustration we see a real sense of destruction. But when we have happiness we see there is a constant and conscious expansion of the real reality within us.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Consciousness: God-Journey to man, man-journey to God, Sri Chinmoy Lighthouse, New York, 1974
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