In plain words
Life has its observances, its rules and its disciplines. We must take a principle bound up with such rules and discipline as the true life.
‘May all the worlds be happy’: that is our Hindu tradition. Bhārata gave alms of morality and Dharma to every country. Our aim is that all should be happy and joyful. With that very aim Bhārata has gone on prospering. Such a Bhārata today, for not following the right path in either field, this world or the next, is falling prey to unrest.
Oneness with God is Ānanda
Ānanda is life; Happiness is union with God. Oneness with God is Ānanda. We must begin this first in our own homes. The home is the very first school. The parents are the first teachers. The home must be a dwelling of joy. It must always be dancing with laughter. There must be no moping. Today even little children go about with faces as if they had drunk castor oil, their lips pursed. That is not good. Why should you be sad? Suppose some sorrow, hardship, unrest or pain has come. How long will it last? Many things keep coming in the world. Not one of them stays fixed and lasting. When you do not grow excited thinking of joy, you should not grieve thinking of sadness. Through these worries we lose the joy we ought to enjoy. You must be joyful all the time. You must find happiness from moment to moment. You must not think that happiness is passing. Take it not in the sense of present, the present moment, but in the sense of omni present, that which pervades all. The reason is this: in the present we experience the fruit of what has gone by. If we ate a mango last night, today that mango comes back as a belch. What we ate yesterday comes back today, not what we are going to eat tomorrow. What we eat now is what comes back in the future. The future and the past both work in the present.