Chapter 4: Happiness Is Already Within You

The Words: Ramana Maharshi, about 1902

Around 1902, a young man in South Asia who rarely spoke in those years was asked a series of questions by a visitor. He answered them in writing, and his answers were later collected and printed as a small book called Who Am I? The young man was Ramana Maharshi. One of his central answers is about happiness. In my own words, he says: happiness is our own true nature. It is not found in outer things. When we think a thing has made us happy, the happiness did not come from the thing. For a moment the restless mind became still, and we tasted the happiness that was already within us.

The Life Behind the Words

Ramana Maharshi was born in 1879 and grew up as an ordinary schoolboy who enjoyed games and sport. When he was about sixteen, something unexpected happened. Alone in a room, he was suddenly gripped by a strong fear of death. Instead of running from the fear, he lay down, quietly imagined that his body had died, and asked what, then, he really was. He later said that in that moment he understood that his true self did not die with the body. Soon afterwards he left home and went to a holy hill whose name had stirred him since childhood, and he lived near it for the rest of his life.

For years he lived very simply, often in silence and deep meditation, in caves and small temples on and around the hill. Over time, people began to come to him, from nearby villages and from distant parts of the world. A community grew around him. He spent his days sitting with people and answering their questions, and he also helped with simple work in the kitchen. He taught within the Hindu tradition that he followed, but people of many faiths came to sit with him. He died in 1950, still living in the same plain way.

What the Words Ask of Us

The method Ramana taught is called self-inquiry. It is simple to describe. Whenever a thought or feeling arises, you ask: to whom has this come? The answer is: to me. Then you ask: and who am I? Instead of answering with words, you turn your attention back towards the feeling of "I" itself. Ramana believed that when the mind rests in that source, it finds a peace and joy that do not depend on anything outside. We do not need to share his beliefs to see the wisdom in one part of this: we often chase happiness in things, and forget to look at the one who is chasing.

Imagine a student named Omar who is sure he will be happy once he buys a new phone. For a few days, he is. Then the feeling fades, and he begins to think about the next thing. One evening, sitting on a step outside with no phone at all, he notices that he feels content; his mind is not asking for anything. Ramana would say that this feeling was not given to Omar by the evening. The evening only gave his mind a chance to be still, and the contentment was his own.

Similar Words From Around the World

Some seventeen centuries before Ramana, the ruler and philosopher Marcus Aurelius wrote private notes to himself in Greek, now called the Meditations. In one of them (4.3), he observes that people look for places to get away from it all: the countryside, the seashore, the hills. But, he reminds himself, you can retreat into yourself at any hour you choose, and there is no quieter place than your own mind. The two men lived very different lives, a silent teacher on a hill and a busy ruler, yet both point inward for rest.

The Daodejing, an old book of wisdom in Chinese traditionally credited to Laozi, whose life is uncertain, speaks in chapter 33 of different kinds of knowing. In my own words: one who knows others is clever; one who knows himself is wise; one who knows he has enough is rich. This echo adds a helpful thought to Ramana's teaching. If happiness is not in outer things, then the person who can say "I have enough" is already rich, whatever they own. In both teachings, self-knowledge and contentment go together.

Living It Today

Ramana's words can help anyone who feels that happiness is always one more purchase, one more success or one more change away. A busy parent may find contentment while folding laundry in silence. An older person who can no longer do everything they once did may discover that the quiet joy of simply being has not been lost. A young worker who is always waiting for the weekend may find something good inside an ordinary weekday.

This week, try a simple version of Ramana's question. Once a day, when you notice yourself wanting something strongly, pause for a minute. Sit still, breathe slowly and ask quietly: who is it that wants this? Do not hurry to answer; just rest in the feeling of being yourself, here and now. You may find that for a moment the wanting softens, and something calm and bright is there underneath it. Ramana believed that this brightness belongs to everyone, and that it has been waiting for us all along.

Chapter 5: Spreading Light as Candle or Mirror

The Words: Edith Wharton, 1902

In 1902, the writer Edith Wharton published a poem about an anatomist of the 1500s, a doctor who changed medicine by studying the human body with his own eyes instead of trusting only old books. In the poem the doctor, now older and tired, looks back on his life. He says: "There are two ways of spreading light: to be / The candle or the mirror that reflects it." He feels that his own flame has burned low. Yet he sees that he can still spread light by reflecting the flame that others have lit. In my own words: if you cannot be the candle, you can still be the mirror, and the room will still grow brighter.

The Life Behind the Words

Edith Wharton was born in 1862 into a wealthy family in a large city. Girls of her class were expected to marry well and manage a home, not to write books. But she loved reading from childhood and began writing stories as a young girl. One of her early books, written with a friend, was about the art of decorating houses, and she later wrote about gardens as well. Then she turned to fiction, and in 1905 her novel The House of Mirth made her famous. Over a long career she wrote many novels and stories, often showing how strict social rules could trap people, especially women.

During the First World War, Wharton was living in Europe, and she did not only write. She organised help for refugees, set up workrooms where women who had lost their jobs could earn a living, and helped care for children and sick people who had been forced from their homes. In that dark time she was, in her own way, a candle. In her writing she was often a mirror: she looked at the world around her with sharp, honest eyes and reflected it back so that readers could see it clearly. She died in 1937.

What the Words Ask of Us

Wharton's lines are a gift to anyone who has ever felt that they are not bright enough. Not everyone can be the inventor, the leader or the great artist. Some people are candles: they create something new. Many more are mirrors: they receive good things and pass them on. The poem treats both as true ways of spreading light. A teacher who shares a great book, a friend who repeats a kind idea at the right moment, a worker who passes on a better way of doing a task: all of them spread light, even if the first flame was not their own.

Picture Rosa, a retired teacher in her seventies. For many years she taught literature to young people, and now she no longer stands in a classroom. Sometimes she feels that her light has gone out. But each week she reads aloud to a small group of children at a library, from books she loves by authors she never met. The children's eyes grow wide at the stories. Rosa did not write a single word of those books, but in that room she is the mirror that brings the light to the children. The doctor in Wharton's poem would understand her well.

Similar Words From Around the World

In one of his letters to his young friend Lucilius (Letters 6.5), the philosopher Seneca, who wrote in Latin in the first century, says in my own words that the road through rules is long, while the road through examples is short and works. People learn more by watching a good life than by reading instructions about one. This echo shows how much a mirror can do. When we reflect someone's good example in our own behaviour, we pass on their light in a very effective way. We become a living example for the next person.

Confucius, in the Analects (4.17), gives advice that sounds like instructions for being a good mirror. When you see a good person, think of becoming like them; when you see a person who is not good, look inside yourself. A mirror reflects what is in front of it. Confucius asks us to do this on purpose: to reflect the best qualities we meet in others, and to let the faults we meet remind us to check our own hearts. His echo adds an inward turn that Wharton's image only suggests.

Living It Today

Wharton's words fit many kinds of lives. A young employee who is not yet an expert can still pass on what a good colleague taught. A grandparent can retell the family's best stories. A student can share a lesson with a friend who missed class. A person who is ill or tired, like the doctor in the poem, can still listen well and pass on encouragement. There is no age and no situation in which a person cannot be a mirror for some good thing.

Here is something to try this week. Think of one good thing you received from someone else: a piece of advice, a book, a habit, a kind way of speaking. Then find one person to pass it on to, and tell them where it came from. In that small moment, you will be doing what the poem describes. Someone else lit the light, but now it is shining in a new place because of you.