START BY DOING A CORE CLEANING!

- We're partying ... flowers everywhere, on the tables, on the walls, on the window sills!

- But you forgot something, my friend ...

- I beg your pardon?

- A complete clean-up of the house! See the cobwebs in the corner ... the dirt on the floor!

- Never mind ... the flowers will hide the mess!

- But I think that before decorating it with flowers, it’s better a good swipe, antiseptics, detergent, bleach, solvent, etc.

Happiness is life in celebration - and celebration in life. However, to have a celebration and flowers, it is necessary to do core cleaning.

Unfortunately, our civilization and social life are almost all based on lies, fraud, greed, falsehoods, negative actions and reactions, hypocrisies and other pollutions. It is rare to see someone having a positive attitude for changes, improving values.

- The housewife instructs the maid to tell visitors that “she’s not at home”.

- The dealer has to lie constantly to sell its goods to customers.

- The milkman lies, saying that milk with 50% of water is pure milk!

- To make a better deal and meet the taste of addicted consumers, the winemaker adds to its wine a part of water and aniline, a handful of spices and harmful drugs.

- The pharmacist forges medical drugs in the laboratory to earn more money, endangering the lives and health of those who need medical treatment.

- The public campaigner lies to the public that its candidate is the best when it knows that its interest mainly obeys the pocket.

- The speaker stands up on the podium, aware of its unmatched expertise and began the speech with the familiar words: “I, despite my utter incompetence” ... pausing slightly to hear from the first queues a murmur of “no supported”, which is a gentle caress for its vanity.

- “Very pleased to meet you” – how often does this comment reveal only feelings as opposed to those that the lips say?

- Almost all of what newspapers, radio and television broadcast is a lie at the service of greed.

So inveterate are these and other toxic social vices that it is almost impossible to live in a society without being contaminated by such pollution. All this is moral dirt, making virtually impossible the development of true happiness.

I once went into a store to buy an item. One of the salespersons showed me the article desired, but then added: “It is not the best in the market; but you will find better products in that store”, pointing me out the new direction!

I had the impression that I was witnessing a miracle; because the seller should assure me that the article its store is selling is the best in the world, unsurpassed, without competitor and never equalled! And how, on top of that, shows me a store where I can buy something of better quality?

However, better publicity it could not have done ... of being scandalously honest! The fact is that, since that day, I only bought in that shop and there I sent my friends. “Honesty is the best philosophy” - pure truth, which few people comprehend.

When a man begins to be scandalously honest in all thoughts, words and deeds of his life, he discovers something he had previously completely ignored.

And ... how to explain this something?

The fact is that this individual discovers within itself a “safe place” - or better - a kind of fortress, a point of refuge in the storms of life. And, however violent it may be, within that safe heaven, the soul lives in perfect peace and serenity.

This person found that happiness or unhappiness is not something that can happen triggered by external circumstances, but that is produced from within. This person found a huge difference between happiness and pleasure, from unhappiness and suffering.

Pleasures and sufferings are on the surface of the peripheral ego - whereas happiness or unhappiness dwells in the central Self, in the soul. And this person discovers that no one or thing can make it happy or unhappy - but that it alone is the author of its happiness or unhappiness.

Therefore, candidate to true happiness ... Record well into your heart this great truth: I WILL NEVER DEPEND ON MY HAPPINESS FROM SOMETHING THAT DOES NOT DEPEND ON ME!

When a man, in a moment of weakness, yields to the temptation to replace the absolute code of ethics with a relative and fragmented code of morality; when sacrifices the straight conviction of conscience through the vacillating conventions of social coexistence - soon realizes that he has lost the sense of inner security and serenity; that the door is closed to that safe place of the soul; feeling insecure and at the mercy of external circumstances. And as much as he tries to deceive himself with intimidation and attitudes of independence, he cannot regain the strength of inner tranquillity unless returning wholeheartedly to an absolute and unconditional code of ethics.

Happiness is something immense, but it depends on little things, i.e., things that seem small to the inexperienced; and indeed, all things, even the smallest ones, are great when made with the greatness of soul.

Whoever is not willing to pay the price of absolute honesty will never attain true inner happiness.