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After all, what is happiness?
Love, they tell me. But love doesn't bring and never has brought happiness. On the contrary, it's a constant state of anxiety, a battlefield; it's sleepless nights, asking ourselves all the time if we're doing the right thing. Real love is composed of ecstasy and agony.
All right then, peace. Peace? If we look at the Mother, she's never at peace. The winter does battle with the summer, the sun and the moon never meet, the tiger chases the man, who's afraid of the dog, who chases the cat, who chases the mouse, who frightens the man.
Money brings happiness. Fine. In that case, everyone who earns enough to have a high standard of living would be able to stop working. But then they're more troubled than ever, as if they were afraid of losing everything. Money attracts money, that's true. Poverty might bring unhappiness, but money won't necessarily bring happiness.
I spent a lot of my life looking for happiness; now what I want is joy. Joy is like sex--it begins and ends. I want pleasure. I want to be contented, but happiness? I no longer fall into that trap.
When I'm with a group of people and I want to provoke them by asking that most important of questions--Are you happy?--they all reply: "Yes, I am."
Then I ask: "But don't you want more? Don't you want to keep on growing?" And they all reply: "Of course."
Then I say: "So you're not happy." And they change the subject.
I must go back to the room where Athena is sitting. It's dark. She hears my footsteps; a match is struck and a candle lit.
"We're surrounded by Universal Desire. It's not happiness, it's desire. And desires are never satisfied, because once they are, they cease to be desires."
"Where's my son?"
"Your son is fine; he's watching TV. I just want you to look at the candle; don't speak, don't say anything. Just believe."
"Believe what?"
"I asked you not to say anything. Simply believe--don't doubt anything. You're alive, and this candle is the only point in your universe. Believe in that. Let go of the idea that the path will lead you to your goal. The truth is that with each step we take, we arrive. Repeat that to yourself every morning: 'I've arrived.' That way you'll find it much easier to stay in touch with each second of your day."
I paused.
"The candle flame is illuminating your world. Ask the candle: 'Who am I?'"
I paused again, then went on. "I can imagine your answer. I'm so-and-so. I've had these experiences. I have a son. I work in Dubai. Now ask the candle again: 'Who am I not?'"
Again I waited and again I went on. "You probably said: I'm not a contented person. I'm not a typical mother concerned only with her son and her husband, with having a house and a garden and a place to spend the summer holidays. Is that so? You can speak now."
"Yes, it is."
"Good, we're on the right path. You, like me, are a dissatisfied person. Your 'reality' does not coincide with the 'reality' of other people. And you're afraid that your son will follow the same path as you, is that correct?"
"Yes."
"Nevertheless, you know you cannot stop. You struggle, but you can't control your doubts. Look hard at the candle. At the moment, the candle is your universe. It fixes your attention; it lights up the room around you a little. Breathe deeply, hold the air in your lungs as long as possible, and then breathe out. Repeat this five times."
She obeyed.
"This exercise should have calmed your soul. Now remember what I said: believe. Believe in your abilities; believe that you have already arrived where you wanted to arrive. At a particular moment in your life, as you told me over tea this afternoon, you said that you'd changed the behavior of the people in the bank where you worked because you'd taught them to dance. That isn't true. You changed everything because, through dance, you changed their reality. You believed in the story of the Vertex, which, although I've never heard of it before, seems to me an interesting one. You like dancing and you believed in what you were doing. You can't believe in something you don't like, can you?"
Athena shook her head, keeping her eyes fixed on the candle flame.
"Faith is not Desire. Faith is Will. Desires are things that need to be satisfied, whereas Will is a force. Will changes the space around us, as you did with your work at the bank. But for that you also need Desire. Please, concentrate on the candle!
"Your son left the room and went to watch TV because he's afraid of the dark. But why? We can project anything onto the darkness, and we usually project our own ghosts. That's true for children and for adults. Slowly raise your right arm."
She raised her arm. I asked her to do the same with her left arm. I looked at her breasts, far prettier than mine.
"Now slowly lower them again. Close your eyes and breathe deeply. I'm going to turn on the light. Right, that's the end of the ritual. Let's go into the living room."
She got up with some difficulty. Her legs had gone numb because of the position I'd told her to adopt.
