Here's something for you to consider that may at once terrify you and yet at the same time cover your soul like a cool, refreshing breezed of unexpected relief. Remember this: your soul already knows the truth of life, and whenever it hears it, it goes: ahhhhhhhhhh. But most of the time, the mind jumps in VERY QUICKLY and does whatever it can to ruin the experience -- to make you think of something fearful or dreadful, or something -- ANYTHING! -- because the mind doesn't want you to have those ahhhhhhh moments. Those ahhhhhhh moments are experiences that are beyond the mind, and as far as the mind is concerned, if you start getting a taste for them, you won't use the mind anymore, right? It's all about self-preservation, and your mind wants to survive just like anything else in nature.

So what's this all about? What's this potential "truth" that may radically change your life from this moment forward?

It's simply this: your mind cannot be happy.

You may need to read that again, and again, and again before you start to admit the possibility that, yes, there is some truth in this.

It's not that your mind is chronically miserable or in search of misery. It's that the mind -- itself -- exists in duality. That's the very nature of mind; it is a dialectic. It exists in a world of polarities and contrasts. That's why language, itself, is fundamentally structured around opposites. What is sweet? It's not sour. What is sour? It's not sweet. What is hot? Not cold. What is cold? Not hot. And on and on and on. EVERY word in language must exists in relation to its opposite; without an opposite -- without an antonym -- words cannot exist. That is simply the nature of words -- of language -- they are like the two sides of a ladder. Take one side away, and it's not a ladder.

And that's why the mind cannot be happy, because the mind exists in duality -- in the play of opposites. So to be happy means, naturally, to prepare oneself for a period of unhappiness. Just as how you can't build a mountain unless you have a valley -- if there's no valley, there is no mountain (because how would you know it's a mountain?!), if you actually believe that your mind can "be happy," then you are simply...well, asking for the impossible. You're asking for mountains without valleys -- and that can't be, because the mountain and the valley travel together. They have to -- it's not a ethical or moral point, it's extremely practical.

So to envision -- through the mind -- a life of "lasting happiness" is envisioning the impossible. Yes, the mind can have moments of happiness -- tastes of happiness -- that can last for a little while, but it's invariably followed by a period of unhappiness. IT HAS TO BE THIS WAY. Again, think of the valley and the mountain. You can walk on the mountain for a while -- depending on the size of the mountain, and perhaps, a mixture of your skill and just plain luck -- but eventually, you will come to the valley, because the mountain can only exist in cooperation with the valley. If you want to find a mountain without a valley beside it, then you are not in fact looking for a mountain at all -- you're looking for plain, even ground.

Does this depress you? Yes, it can if you look at it through the eyes of the mind. For years and years (and maybe decades and decades), you have done all kinds of things -- some you likely regret, some that were just plain painful and some that have yet to make any sense to you and your soul -- in order to "be happy." Or, to put it more directly: you've done all kinds of things and invested so much precious energy in order to give your mind what it told you "you needed to be happy." Basically, you've been working for your mind, and your mind is a REALLY ROTTEN EMPLOYER. In fact, if your mind were personified as your actual employer, you would quit in a matter of days! And you'd be amazed that such an idiotic and often cruel employer could even exist!

Yet for so many of us, we spend our entire lives working for an inner employer -- the mind -- and we never actually get paid. We get little tastes of happiness...a moment here, a day there, maybe a few weeks or at most a few months...but then it changes. Something changes because the mountain ends and the valley arrives. And then we feel lost, and miserable, and sad, because we wanted our happiness to last forever. That's what the mind promised, right? That's why we sacrificed our present moment -- years and years of precious life -- in order to "be happy forever" right? But it never comes...and it never will, because the very fundamentals make it impossible. Your mind cannot be happy in any meaningful and lasting way, because your mind lives in duality -- and duality is DUAL (hence the name :).

There is, however, a way out of this cycle of happy/sad/happy/sad/happy/sad that infects our entire planet, more or less.

Exit the mind. Not through any destructive manner, such as through drugs or alcohol (which don't actually exit the mind, just numbs it temporarily, like a snake charmer's flute), and not through any distraction -- planning vacations or thinking of a happy future or eating excessively or the millions of things people do to avoid their own mind-created misery.

The only way out of the mind -- the ONLY way out -- is meditation. Because meditation is the one human experience -- aside from dreamless deep sleep -- that is beyond the mind. Except, of course, in dreamless deep sleep, you are unconscious, and so cannot be transformed by it. But in meditation, you are consciously aware of the space beyond the mind.

Be careful though and be VERY alert. What many people consider and label meditation these days is not meditation. Sometimes, it's simply positive thinking (which doesn't work, for the reasons noted above). Other times, it's just relaxation (which is a good idea, but won't transform you). And sometimes, it's just tired old mind-games in the guise of something called meditation. These are typically the meditations that promise you a better life or more money or something stupid like that.

Meditation is beyond the mind. It is an experience of conscious awareness.

If you really want to "be happy" then drop the search for happiness, because your very search is actually going to take you closer and closer the misery, in the end -- just as the closer you get to the top of Mount Everest, the closer you get the to other side of the mountain -- the one that leads back down.

Instead, reclaim your RIGHT to be blissful -- and you do that through meditation, or not at all.