The Cure of Sorrow - Dr. M W Lewis

Sunday service, Self-Realization Fellowship Temple, San Diego, California

There is a Reality behind outward consciousness that we must and can know. When we know this Reality, then sorrow will be secondary.

A few lines of verse might be appropriate here: "It is easy enough to sing and shout / When life goes along like a song. / But the man worthwhile is the man with a smile / When everything goes dead wrong." Now the "dead wrong" consciousness is not necessary. What is necessary is a positive inner awareness of the Eternal Verity behind our outward consciousness of alternating joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain. It is because our minds are tied to outward perceptions of change that a dead wrong situation comes about. But when we are inwardly conscious of God’s great light and love, nothing can be dead wrong.

You know about the optimist who fell ten stories, shouting as he passed each window, "All right––so far!" And you know some really super-optimistic people who say there’s nothing so bad that it couldn’t be worse. Isn’t that a little hypocritical? Unless you know the Reality behind this drama of life, which seems so real to us, you cannot truly say that. When you realize the Reality, it’s all right to say such things, because you’ve got something that fortifies you against all outward conditions of uncertainty, change, and chance in this delusive dream-consciousness of God. So let us realize that the cure for sorrow, in a few words, is to know that Consciousness which does not change, which is stable. Having That, we have everything.

© "Dr. M W Lewis : The Life Story of one of the Earliest American Disciples of Paramahansa Yogananda" published by Self-Realization Fellowship, 3880 San Rafael Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90065-3298, USA. Website: www.yogananda-srf.org. Reprinted with permission.

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