For many people daily life is a struggle–to pay the bills, to solve problems, to deal with difficult people, to cope with illness, to meet the blows that rain upon us from every side. The hardest struggle, though, and one which it seems we can never really win, is the struggle to overcome unhappiness.

In this context, unhappiness is not the same as a momentary displeasure at some event or circumstance, but the persistent, often unnoticed clouding of our vision that fades our enjoyment, that dims the shine of success and confuses our sense of direction. Becoming aware that we are unhappy, we may try such tactics as changing something – our work, our activities, our diet, our partner, or perhaps the place where we live – or simply deciding to think more positive thoughts, but the results never seem to last. And the reason is, that the foe we are battling doesn’t exist.

In the short teaching about mysticism posted here, Hazrat Inayat Khan makes the point that unhappiness, like a shadow, is evident but in fact non-existent. A shadow, properly understood, is an appearance caused by an absence or a lessening of light, and unhappiness is a lessening of happiness. This is not merely a trick of language, but an important distinction, for it points the way toward release from suffering. As a child with a toy sword knows, we can never defeat our own shadow, and in the same way we can never defeat unhappiness. But victory is ours if we simply change our point of view: we can turn toward the light and forget the shadow, and we can turn from unhappiness toward happiness.

Happiness is not something that can be acquired; it is not produced by certain experiences, nor is it erased by other experiences. Happiness is our own nature. In Vadan, Chalas, we find this saying:
The reason why man seeks for happiness is not because happiness is his sustenance, but because happiness is his own being; therefore, in seeking for happiness, man is seeking for himself.

When we begin to search for our self, as Hazrat Inayat explains in the posted text, we discover that the self is not our body; the physical form is like a coat that we wear, or a cart in which we ride, but it is not our self. Similarly, our mind is not our self; we witness it, but it is not ‘us.’ And when we know this, not merely as a concept, but from our own undeniable experience, we unearth our true self from the grave in which it has been lying, and know a happiness which can never be extinguished.