“How is that done?”

“You have to ask yourself the question, Who am I? This investigation will lead in the end to the discovery of something within you which is behind the mind. Solve that great problem, and you will solve all other problems thereby.

“Will it be clearer if I put it in this way? All human beings are ever wanting happiness, untainted with sorrow. They want to grasp a happiness which will not come to an end. The instinct is a true one. But have you ever been struck by the fact that they love their own selves most?”

“Well?”

“Now relate that to the fact that they are ever desirous of attaining happiness through one means or another, through drink or religion, and you are provided with a clue to the real nature of man.”

“I fail to see—”

“Man’s real nature is happiness. Happiness is inborn in the true self. His search for happiness is an unconscious search for his true self. The true self is imperishable; therefore, when a man finds it, he finds a happiness which does not come to an end.”

“But the world is so unhappy.”

“Yes, but that is because the world is ignorant of its true self. All men, without exception, are consciously or unconsciously seeking for it.”

“Even the wicked, the brutal, the criminal?” I ask.

“Even they sin because they are trying to find the self’s happiness in every sin they commit. This striving is instinctive in man; but he does not know that he is seeking his true self, and so he tries these wicked ways first as a means to happiness. Of course, they are wrong ways, for a man’s acts are reflected back to him.”

“So we shall feel lasting happiness when we know this true self?”

He nods his head.

“What exactly is this self of which you speak? If what you say is true, then there must be another self in man.”