"There are moments of bliss and there are moments of misery; it is all mixed, hodgepodge. You cannot keep those moments of happiness that come to you. They come on their own and they disappear on their own; you are not the master. And you cannot avoid the moments of misery; they too have their own persistence. They come on their own and they go on their own; you are simply a victim. And between these two – happiness and unhappiness – you are torn apart. You are never left in ease.

"This being torn apart into all kinds of dualities. The duality of happiness and unhappiness is the most fundamental and the most symptomatic, but there are a thousand and one dualities: the duality of love and hate, the duality of life and death, day and night, summer and winter, youth and old age, and so on, so forth. But the fundamental duality, the duality that represents all other dualities, is that of happiness and unhappiness. And you are torn apart, pulled into different, polar opposite directions. You cannot be at ease: you are in a dis-ease.

"According to the buddhas man is a dis-ease. Is this dis-ease absolute – or can it be transcended?

"Hence the basic and the most fundamental question is: What is true happiness? Certainly the happiness that we know is not true; it is dream stuff and it always turns into its own opposite. What looks like happiness one moment turns into unhappiness the next.

"Happiness turning into unhappiness simply shows that the two are not separate – maybe two aspects of the same coin. And if you have one side of the coin, the other is always there hidden behind it, waiting for its opportunity to assert – and you know it. When you are happy, deep down somewhere is the lurking fear that it is not going to last, that sooner or later it will be gone, that the night is descending, that any moment you will be engulfed into darkness, that this light is just imaginary – it can't help you, it can't take you to the other shore.

"Your happiness is not really happiness but only a hidden unhappiness."