Gems of Wisdom - No one is “all right”

Whatever one may desire, the ultimate end is happiness. Nobody can deny this. But if a diseased fellow thinks, "I am happy," that is false happiness. A diseased man cannot be happy unless the disease is cured. Sometimes we go to a diseased person and ask, "How are you?" "Yes, I am all right." If he is all right, why is he lying down? He is not all right. He is artificially saying that "I am all right." What is this "all right"? Similarly, people are thinking, "I am happy." What is their happiness? A learned man always sees, "What is the value of this happiness? I will have to die, I will have to accept old age, I will have to suffer from disease. And as soon as I die, again I will have to enter into the womb of a particular mother to take birth again." So where is the happiness? Ignorantly if we accept something as happiness, that is not happiness. Full of anxieties always: "What will happen next?'' They're suffering, but they are accepting, "I am all right.'' So this is called maya. Real happiness is when you are free from birth, death, old age, disease. Otherwise, where is your happiness? But if you think that "Although I am dying, I am happy," that is another thing, a fool's paradise. Bhagavata says, “Purify your existence, and you'll get perpetual, eternal happiness.” So everyone is working hard for happiness, but how happiness can be attained in diseased condition? So cure the disease. If you go when there is ailment, if you go to a physician, "Sir, cure me." "Why?" because it is impediment to happiness. Similarly, the real disease is birth, death, old age, disease. You cure this, then you get real happiness.