We will continue to explore the conversation between, Sim, Sam and the wise old man that we started here.Sim thought about the story deeply and asked the wise old man, It seems easy enough when we listen to such stories. However, IRL (in real life), it is not so easy. We are caught up in our lives so much and in the moment it is extremely difficult to remember these teachings. In the moment, we are so caught up in our emotions, whether they are of fear, anger, frustration or sadness, that the only thing that we can think of is the question - “Why?” or “Why me or us?” or “What have we done to deserve this?” How can we learn to find joy in the moment like Shunya did in your story? Is this even possible? If yes, can you be kind enough to teach us this? The wise old man was very impressed with the question. Sim did not bear around the bush. She meant business. He stopped to think about how to best share the knowledge that he learnt from his teacher in a way that Sim and Sam can practice this in their day to day lives. The old man said, There is a way. Every time you feel a negative emotion strongly, just do the following Take a deep breath and say to yourself “Thank God! This too shall pass!”. Then take another deep breath. Then smile. You can also say to yourself - “All is well” or for that matter anything that can soothe you and your agitated mind. Smiling at the end of this practice is significant. You see the mind-body connection works both the ways. When you mind is experiencing joy, your body responds by smiling. Similarly, when you smile, your mind responds by experiencing joy. It will take some practice but once you are able to do that, you will realise that you can experience joy in any given situation. Even simpler way is to keep smiling - genuine smile not the kind of fake smile. Your body can make out if your smile is genuine or fake as we can’t fool ourselves. Sim then asked, Obviously, it cant be this simple. If it were, wouldn’t this be more common? Why would people not use this often and why isn’t this well known? The old man smiled and said, While this is simple, it is not in any way easy to do. This is not so obscure. Almost all the religions in the world and all the realised beings who have preached on this world have recommended this in one form or the other. The trouble is that in moments of intense emotions, we forget this and any other advice that we have received. So, we end up not doing something that we know can help us in that situation. The key is to practice this all the time - when the emotions are not intense. Every time we experience something negative (and positive), stop to breathe and to know that this too shall pass as eventually everything does pass. The more we do this in our day-to-day life, the easier it gets to do when we are in the midst of experiencing strong emotions (negative or positive). And the old man asked them to reflect upon what they just heard and think about how they will put this in practice. What do you think about the advice that the old man gave Sim? Do you agree or disagree? Get full access to Being Happy at beinghappy.substack.com/subscribe

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