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Happiness and Pain

Happiness cannot come to you as long as you love yourself so dearly that a little pain becomes too terrible for you to bear. Only by accepting this pain can you become detached enough from your ego until pain will no longer be necessary for your development. This does not mean that you should resign yourself and become hopeless, wallowing in your little pains and tribulations. It means that you should be perfectly aware that every difficulty in your life is self-inflicted and therefore you have to go through it, bear it, accept it, and most important of all, find its cause within you, so as to eliminate it once and for all.

The cause can be found only on a path of self-knowledge. Find the fault in you that is responsible for your outer hardship and eliminate the fault, knowing that the outer manifestation of the root cause cannot disappear immediately but has to be dissolved by the process of slow, organic growth. As long as this process lasts, honor God by accepting His laws; do not love yourself so much that you shirk a little pain, but shoulder it courageously and humbly, not making your own little comfort so important. This is the true and best way to practice positive thinking.

- Excerpt taken from Pathwork Guide Lecture #13 Positive Thinking: The Right and the Wrong Kind