It’s easy together to laugh, because we do it together. But you have to do it alone.
When you wake up in your bedroom, do the same. Because together it can become a kind of show. You do it to be part of the group. But real happiness is alone. Can you laugh like you just did, every morning in your bedroom? Please. That is what is important. Not in front of Maitreya, saying: “Look, I follow the teaching of Rael and I laugh loudly. Look how I am a good Raelian.” That is not important.
Alone.
Happiness, you must make it grow inside yourself. Smile alone, without a mirror. Because if you look in the mirror and smile, you smile to yourself, no! Smile to nobody, not even the mirror. Wake up in your bed and smile.
Some people may say, “Oh, this is just a cute trick.” Not at all. As soon as you smile, happiness hormones are produced in your body. If you are very sensitive, and not everybody is, you can feel it. If you pretend to be very negative and sad, with a serious and depressed face, you feel something. Because negative hormones are produced. And when you smile, happiness hormones are produced.
It is not something spiritual or psychic. It is physical. Just by smiling, if you pay attention – as Buddha said, if you witness yourself – you can feel it. Many people cannot because they do not pay attention. Happiness is paying attention to what is inside and to what is outside, but mostly to what is inside. When you laugh alone, alone. Together it is fun. You can make a competition of who laughs the loudest. That is for the outside. But alone…
Don’t answer me. Have you ever laughed loudly in your bedroom, completely alone? Don’t answer. It is very important to begin the day with one smile, to yourself, without a mirror. To laugh for no reason. If somebody passes in front of your bed and falls down, that is not interesting. Alone, and for absolutely no reason.
Well, there is a reason: To be happy.
That is enough of a reason. It is to produce hormones. Oxytocin is produced when you smile and when you laugh. It is a kind of masturbation of the hormones. You like masturbation, no? Then do it for your hormones. They are produced everywhere, especially around the heart, the neurons of the heart. That is happiness. And you cannot find it outside yourself.
“Oh, tomorrow is Sunday. I will go to the Contact at eleven and I will be happy.” No. Tomorrow I may go to the Contact, but I cannot be happier there than I am now. If you are happier at the Contact, then you are not truly happy. Your happiness must be the same everywhere. Not by going to another country, not by meeting somebody, not by having a new job, not by having a new partner. It is inside.
Alone, in the morning, in your bed, when you wake up, that must be the moment of absolute happiness. And tomorrow I may go to the Contact at eleven, but it will not make me happier. I come because I want to help Maitreya spread the Message. I want to feel the Raelians. I want to feel this fantastic dynamic we create together. But not to become happier.
“Oh, I will meet Maitreya, I will be happy.” No. If you are very happy when you meet me, but unhappy when you leave me, then you are not truly happy. You can feel my light, my love, many different things, but it should not make you happier. So, work on it. It is very difficult because you must witness yourself.
What happens in your life? Ninety percent of what happens in your life is not interesting. But how you react to what happens in your life, that is interesting. Nothing can make you happier. Nothing and nobody. The stupid illusion everywhere on Earth: “I will go on pilgrimage to Mecca and discover happiness.” “I will go to Tibet, to a monastery in the mountains, and discover happiness.” All illusions. Alone, when you wake up, you must already be at the same level as Buddha.
No need for people. No need for a guru or teacher. No need for a prophet. No need even for the Elohim. By yourself. I am not here to make you happy. I can’t. Even if I would love to, I can’t. I teach you not to make you happy, but to give you tools to create your own happiness. Again, as Buddha said: “I can guide you to the spring in the mountains, but I cannot drink the water for you.” That means you must do the work. And is there anything more beautiful than being the supreme leader of your own happiness?
Not Yahweh. Not Maitreya. You. You are your own guru, your own prophet, your own guide. So do it. Feel it.
And I hope that nobody coming to the meeting at 11 a.m. will be happier there than before arriving. I do not want to be the reason for your happiness. You can use magazines, porn videos, many things. But it is illusion. You can go to the beach and say, “Oh, the ocean is so beautiful.” But it is ugly if there is no happiness inside.
Do you know where most people decide to kill themselves? On the beaches of beautiful tropical islands, in beautiful resorts. Not people living in ugly cities with factories and noise. No. Because people living in ugly cities with pollution, they dream of being on a beach. But if they are unlucky enough to make a lot of money, they buy a house on the beach. Then they sit on the sand in front of the beautiful ocean… and there is no happiness. It is terrible. Because you are living your dream, but your dream does not make you happy.
Happiness must be inside.
Remember this beautiful story I told you about the rich American man who wanted to find happiness. So, he flew first class to Tibet, rented a car with a driver, and went to the village where the greatest guru in the world was supposed to live. He arrived in the village and saw a building with the symbol of this guru. In front of it there was an open marketplace, lots of noise, animals, people shouting… a village. And he went to this building thinking: “They will tell me how to go to the monastery in the mountains.”
So, he entered the building, and a monk welcomed him. He said, “I want to receive the teaching of Guru…” And the monk replied: “It’s me.” “Where do we go to receive the teaching?” “Here.” “Can I begin learning meditation? It’s not in the mountains? It’s here, in the village, with all the noise of the market, the animals, the children running, the people shouting?” “Yes. It’s here.”
“So, when do I start? When will you begin teaching me?” And the monk said: “Now.” “Now? Immediately?” “So, this is the first lesson. Listen.” “Sit down.” So, the man sat down on the floor, and the monk walked away. The man thought: “Okay, he will come back with a book or something…” One hour. Two hours. Nobody came back. Finally, the monk returned, and the man asked: “So, when will you start teaching me?” “Sit down.” “All day?” “Sit down. This is the teaching. Pay attention to yourself. Witness yourself.” Then the monk guided him to a small room. In this room there was, of course, no telephone, no radio, no books, nothing. “You don’t sleep. You don’t speak. That’s all.”
And the man stayed there all night, alone, with nothing. He began to witness himself. All the ideas he had about receiving teachings from somebody speaking like Maitreya… In the morning, he opened the door. The monk was there. “What do we do now?” “Sit down.”
One week. Nothing. No food.
No drink.
No music.
No telephone.
No books.
No writing.
Just sit down.
This one-week seminar cost ten thousand dollars, for nothing. But the man left after one week crying, because he understood. He learned, through nothingness, to witness himself. So, I always think about that when we go to Happiness Academy. Why do I waste energy teaching? My dream is to receive everybody at the Happiness Academy and simply say: “Sit down.”
Everything is inside.
Sit down and be. No need even to say “be.” When you are sitting in silence, you have no choice but to pay attention to yourself. At first there is an explosion of thoughts:
“When will it start?”
“When will the monk come back?”
“What will we do tomorrow?”
It is all thinking. And nothingness creates nothing. Nothingness helps you witness yourself. It is like making a fire outside. You put wood, more wood, more wood, and the fire becomes beautiful. The fire of your thoughts is the same. When there is no more wood, there is less and less fire and suddenly, nothing. It is the same with the fire of your thoughts. The fire of your thoughts creates the opposite of happiness, because it takes you out of the present moment.
Fire is a beautiful example because fire exists only now. The wood burns now. And the fire itself is almost an illusion. Physically, nothing special is happening, yet there is fire. That is exactly what happens in your brain and in your heart.
Everybody thinks thinking happens only in the brain. The thinking of the brain is poison. But the thinking of the heart is an even stronger poison. The most beautiful example of the fire of the heart is jealousy. Jealousy is the thinking of the heart. Your partner looks at another man or another woman and immediately thoughts appear. Not here, in the brain. Here in the heart.
“Why did you look at him?” “Why did you look at her?”
It is so funny when you witness yourself. You know in the extreme cases of jealousy, the thinking of the heart, some people take a gun and kill their lover. They kill the person they love. That is “la planète des cons”. “I love you, so I kill you.” Please, someone wake me up, I must be dreaming. But it happens every day. Every day. Jealousy is the thinking of the heart. You meet somebody, you feel enthusiasm, and then the thinking of the heart says: “You are mine.” Why?
You are you. You do not belong to anybody. You do not belong to any nation. You do not belong to any religion. You do not belong to any language. You are free to choose. Free to be.
How can you be?
That is difficult. By smiling. When you smile, you smile, nobody else. Who is inside your smile? Nobody else. It’s you. It is completely you. When you laugh, who is laughing? Can you postpone laughter into the future? Somebody tells you a good joke: “Oh wonderful! I will laugh tomorrow morning.” Never. So, when you laugh and when you smile, you are completely in the now. That means you are witnessing yourself.
So please: Smile and laugh as soon as you wake up.
And don’t stop. Why stop?
Thank you.
