Now what happens when you become liberated? When you awaken to your Self? You have unalloyed happiness, total peace, unfathomable joy, infinite love.
These are all attributes to awakening.
Therefore, develop these if you want to awaken.
For you will feel beautiful, wonderful all over and nothing will ever spoil it.
In other words, if you awaken, you will not react any longer to the television, to the newspaper, to the people, what they say or think.
When you awaken, you will know that all is well! All is exceedingly well in every area of your life.
And your life will be the life of the universe.
There will be no difference between you and the universe! Basically this is the reason why people come to Satsang, to awaken!

You have read the books.
You realize there's a world of beauty, a world of joy, a world of love that interpenetrates this world.
That brings you total happiness always, total peace that never changes.
Whereas, now in the world that you're living in, so it appears, certain things make you happy.
Certain things make you sad.
You react to what the world gives you, how the world treats you, you react to that.
So you're never really happy all the time.
You never really have peace all the time.
Your peace and your happiness is determined by what's going on in your life.

Whereas, to an awakened being what's going on in your life doesn't matter at all.
You're deliriously happy all the time! Whether they throw you to the lions, or you win the lotto, or your body is cut to pieces, or you have the healthiest body in the world, it makes no difference, for you're totally peaceful all the time! You're totally happy all the time! This is the reason why you want to be happy for you realize being happy feels wonderful.
Therefore, these are valid reasons to be happy.
But you don't want the happiness to end.
You want it to be forever.
This is what Satsang is all about.
This is why we're here, to experience unalloyed happiness.
To experience total peace, total joy!

Now, the main obstacle that keeps you from experiencing this joy and this happiness that I'm talking about is attachment to person, place and thing.
It is this attachment that makes you earthbound.
It keeps you reincarnating over and over again, so it appears, on this earth plane.
For if you're attached, you believe you are a body and a mind.
When you believe you're a body and a mind you're going to experience all kinds of things in this world.
You'll experience worldly things and become attached to these things.
You will believe that somebody, some place can make you happy.
Somebody, some place can make you miserable.
You will believe that if you attain this, you'll be the happiest person on earth and if you do not attain it, you will be miserable all the time.

You believe if you can only have this person in your life, you'll be the happiest person on earth.
But when this person comes into your life after a while you'll wish he never did.
Because he'll make you miserable! And so it is on this plane.
So learn to be detached!

A good example of detachment is this: Let’s say you have a dream.
In that dream you are a little person and you grow up.
You get married and you buy a brand new home.
You buy a brand new car.
You have three children and they grow up.
And you live a relatively good life.
And then you awaken from the dream.
Let me ask you, how long are you attached to your children of the dream before you forget about them? How long are you attached to your wife or husband of the dream before you forget about them? How long are you attached to your car and house? And anything else that you worked so hard to get in the dream, before you forget about them? A couple of seconds? A minute? An hour? It’s usually minutes, you forget all about the dream.
This is detachment.

If for some reason you did not forget about the dream people and the dream experiences, you wouldn't be able to function.
You'd be living in two worlds! You'd be living in the dream world and this world and you'd think they're both real.
So your nature makes you forget about the dream.
You have enough problems to handle in this world.
Imagine if all your dreams were on your mind all the time as if they were real! And so you become detached from the dream quickly.
Now you're done with this world called the earthly plane.
In this world you believe everything to be real also! And you do the same thing.
You grow up.
You elicit the things that you want to make you happy.
You want to meet the right person to get married to and you become attached to these things.
This is the problem, you become attached to person, place and thing.
This is the only problem that you have.

Now, I'm not saying to be totally detached so that you have no feelings, no love, I’m not saying this at all.
So being detached is totally different from what you think it is.
To be detached means you no longer feel an affinity to hold on to things.

You no longer have the necessity to own things.
To hold on to them.
You're free from this.
The more spiritual you become, the freer you become.
For you no longer have to obtain things, have things to make you happy.
You leave things alone.
You are no longer obsessed with people, places and things.
But you have a great compassion and love for every body and everything.
But you're not attached!

In other words, when you're with another person, you love that person.
But you're not obsessed with them.
You don't own them.
You give them freedom to express themselves, yet you love.
And if the person ever leaves, the love is still there.
It didn't go anywhere, for you are love itself! If you understand what this love means, it can't come or go depending on person, place or thing.
For love is always there because that's what you are.
The attachment is gone.
So, if your mate wants to leave you, or your car is stolen, or your house burns down, this does not affect you one iota.
For something deep within your heart tells you all is well.
There are no mistakes! You're no longer hurt-able.
You can't be hurt by any body, no matter what they do.
This is true detachment.
In other words, you can own things and not own them.
You can have certain people in your life and not have them in your life.
You can live in certain areas of this world and not live in certain areas of this world, it’s all the same.
There is no difference.

Your life will not depend on external things or internal things.
Think of what it means to live this way, how wonderful you will feel all the time.
You'll never depend on people again for anything, yet you love people.
It doesn't mean that you become sarcastic, obnoxious.
It means that you become a loving being, an understanding being, a compassionate being.
You leave things alone and you leave people alone.
You turn within yourself.
And all the answers are within yourself.
All the answers that you've been looking for, everything that you've been looking for is within yourself! You will learn to depend on the Self for everything.
Yet, you cooperate with people.
You cooperate with the world, but you understand in your heart that the world is a passing show, a passing fantasy.
Nothing is ever the same.