comes to one who has fought the good fight and overcome habit and
weaknesses of character.

May every reader experience this supreme joy of overcoming.




CHAPTER XI.

HAPPINESS AND JOY.


Deep down in every heart is an unquenchable desire for happiness. The
advanced soul desires happiness just as much as the pleasure-seeking
worldling, the difference between them is simply that the former,
through knowledge and experience, does not search for happiness,
knowing that it can never be found by direct seeking, but finds it
through service and love to others and in victory over self; while
the latter seeks happiness, like a will-o'-the-wisp, in every form
of pleasure, and finds it not.

Man is never satisfied with his life: he is for ever seeking something
that is better. Until he learns wisdom, he looks for it in pleasure,
in sense gratification of various kinds, in wealth, luxury and
possession. The less evolved a man is the more convinced he is that
happiness can be gained in these ways, and the lower are his desires.
For instance, those who form what is called the underworld of our
cities, seek happiness in vice and debauchery. Those who are more
evolved seek pleasure in more refined things, hoping to find happiness
in intellectual pursuits, friendships, and in pure human loves. These
more evolved types get much more pleasure through the senses than
do those who are more elemental, but they are capable also of greater
and more acute suffering. They can derive great pleasure from a
picture gallery, whereas a savage would see nothing interesting at
all: they can also suffer from things which a savage would not be
capable of feeling. Yet, in spite of this developed refinement and
ability to derive pleasure from art, science, literature, etc.,
happiness is still as far off as ever. All attempts at finding
happiness lead finally to "emptiness." There is no satisfaction,
either in wealth and all that it can command, getting on in life,
or in fame and power. They allure at first and promise happiness,
but they fail us, and finally are seen to be but vanity and vexation