Their happiness depends on others, hence it creates dependence. The husband is happy because of the wife and the wife is happy because of the husband. This is what I call false happiness because you cannot depend on the other, there is no guarantee. The other may turn his back on you at any moment – the other is not reliable.

One has to find happiness which arises within oneself. Then it is true because then it gives you independence. You can go on sharing it with your friends, with your husband, with your children, but then you are not getting it from them; you are sharing whatsoever you have already got.

Usually, just the opposite is the case: neither are you happy, nor is the other person happy. You depend on him – who has no happiness of his own – for your happiness; he depends on you for his happiness – and you don’t have any happiness of your own. Two beggars hoping that the other is an emperor, both will be disillusioned sooner or later. And the sooner it is, the better, because then you can start searching in the right direction. The right direction is inwards.

There is a bliss that arises in you. Like a fountain it wells up within you, like a flower growing on a tree it grows in you; it is your fragrance. And when one is happy not depending on anybody else – one is simply happy by oneself – it is true happiness. Then it has a quality of spirituality because by being truly happy you become rooted in God, you become centred in God.