Page 81 - Soul's Divine Journey

You Alone Are the object of Your SeArch

secret to ultimate bliss and fulfillment. he knew there was
a secret to wealth, love, friendship, and popularity, and so
he naturally felt there must also be a secret to everlasting
happiness, and he was determined to find it.
So, the man first embraced the secret of wealth and
amassed great riches. he then pursued the secret of love
and was blessed with a good wife and many children. And
finally, he gathered a cadre of friends and became the most
popular among them. but even though he was very thank-
ful for what he possessed, there still remained a void of
emptiness that called out longingly within his heart. the
man eventually concluded that the secret to happiness did
not lie in the temporal gains of the material world, and
so he assumed that it must lie either within the pursuit of
the psychic arts or the traditional religions. he dabbled in
spiritualism, psychic healing, and positive-thinking mind
theories, but rather than shedding the karmic barriers that
held him prisoner, he seemed to have acquired more. he
then became a hindu, a buddhist, and finally a christian,
studying diligently the bhagavad-Gita, the Dhammapada,
and the holy bible, gaining wisdom and knowledge from
them all. but the ultimate secret to his happiness still
eluded him, causing him to become visibly distraught.
Much like a wildfire, his unhappiness consumed him,
for this wandering seeker had seen his entire lifetime pass
before him, but he had not yet achieved his goal. thus,
while lying feebly upon his deathbed, he summoned a wise
man and put a heartrending question to the noble sage:
“Where did I go wrong? I pursued and attained all of the
goals and ideals available in society, and I was a faithful
devotee of every religious institution and psychic art known,
but I openly admit that I have not discovered the ultimate
secret to my own happiness. can you offer to me, oh wise
man, any wisdom on my plight?” And the wise man said,