Meaning of Good Life

A man visited a barber's shop in his neighborhood to have his hair cut and his beard trimmed.

As the barber began to work, they started a casual conversation.
They talked about many things. When they eventually touched on the perennial subject of God, the barber was quick to say :

'I don't believe that God exists..'

'How can you say that?' the customer asked.

'Well, you only need to go out in the street to realize that He doesn't exist. Tell me, if He did exist , would there be so much pain and suffering, so many sick, unhappy people and hapless, abandoned children?

I can't imagine loving a God who would permit these things, or be powerless to control them.'

The customer paused, he didn't really want to start an endless argument.

The barber finished his work and the customer left .

Shortly after he stepped out, he saw a man in the street with long, matted, dirty hair and an untrimmed beard. He looked dirty and unkempt.

The customer quickly turned back and re-entered the barber's shop ; he said to the barber: who had meanwhile started attending to another customer, 'You know something ? Barbers really do not exist.'

This naturally surprised the barber. He asked, 'How can you say that? I I am a barber, right here, and did I not just work on you ? '

'No, no ! ' the customer exclaimed. 'You see, barbers do not exist because if they did, there would be no such people with long, dirty hair and untrimmed beards such as that man outside.'

'Ah, well, barbers of course do exist! What can I do, if people do not come to me.'

'Yes, Exactly!'- affirmed the customer. 'That's the point! God, too DOES exist! What happens, is, people don't go to Him and do not look for Him.
That's why there's so much pain and suffering in the world.'

'Do not ask the Lord to guide your footsteps if you're not willing to even move your feet'.

God will not declare from a roof-top that He exists. He is too shy and humble
for that ; besides, He has given us freedom to choose. He wants to see if we would love Him just for His own sake, and not merely for the sake of His many gifts of life and loved ones, food and water, rain and sunshine....We fail to thank Him even as we receive these...

Whether we believe or don't believe that He exists, He loves us all, just the same,
like even an earthly parent who would love his/her child, regardless of whether that love is reciprocated ! Wouldn't the Heavenly Father's love be much deeper, much more unconditional, than an earthly one's ?

To sum up, happiness is man's eternal and rational pursuit. Eternal because we always seek it - no matter what we do, we want to be happy. And rational because as souls (Sat-Chit-Ananda ), it is our real nature ; we are hard-disked to seek joy. But we need to differentiate joy from fleeting sense-pleasures. Yogic meditation turns us within where ceaseless joy awaits discovery. Sadness, depressiveness or any malignant mood is, Masters tell us, an offense against the ever-blissful nature of Spirit, which is our true identity.