Anyone, who has not found an answer to the question as to why we are in the world, will be unable to discover the ultimate happiness, for which we have all been created. Perhaps you have already experienced the fact that, success does not make you happy deep down - not even your marriage and, viewed over the long-term, not even your children. What's this life all about anyway? Why are we here? Everything else follows on from this question. Most people attempt to get a handle on their lives and end up of reaching solid ground at some point. In reality, all they have to do is to stop splashing about and they would discover that they already have solid ground below their feet. The solid ground is a way of being happy, which entails a dimension of which you have probably never had a taste until now.

Whilst hanging out the washing in the laundry a young mother suddenly thinks: "I have done everything that was expected of me. Where is the happiness I was promised?" Why are we in the world? If you ask people if they're happy then many will hurl a: "Yes, I am happy!" at you in a self-consciously firm voice. The happiness they are referring to is a happinessconsisting of three meals a day, a secure job, a steadyrelationship, a few recreational activities, a comfortable apartment, a nice little family, one pleasant vacation trip per year, a nice party now and again, a nice glass of beer in the pedestrian zone in summer and the pleasant family get together at Christmas. That is not the happiness I am talking about in this book. I am talking about a kind of happiness that encompasses your entire being and makes you invulnerable to every external event. I am not talking about the few snapshots of joy that you already call "happiness" but rather about a fundamental condition of your life. Bliss would actually be a better word for this condition than the worn out word "happiness". I am talking about something other than the relative satisfaction that most people out there consider to be the ultimate "happiness". You cannot achieve this profound happiness in this life without having dealt with one question that is fundamental and pervades every area of your life. It is the question as to what life is actually all about? Why are we on this Earth? That is the one question that very few people have asked themselves whilst busying themselves with the development of goals within the framework of accepted convention, which they hope will not disappoint anyone. But everything else is derived from the answer to the question "what's it all about"? This book is also concerned with this question, because only then can you go further than you have ever gone before. Only if you take this foundation as the basis for everything you do on Earth will you be able to experience this profound happiness. If all you are striving for is "three meals a day happiness" then this book was not written for you. In that case you can confidently put it away. In this book I talk a lot about suffering or sorrow and many of my readers might be thinking: "But I don't experience any suffering". Under suffering most people only think of things like being ill, suffering a great loss, being sad for some reason or suffering from physical pain. The condition we have filed away under the word "suffering" is one in which we feel close to tears. That is only the surface level of suffering; it's the eruption of the volcano. The suffering that I mean is that permanent subtle lack of satisfaction with the way things are, that constantly restless companion beneath the surface, that never resting discomfort that simmers beneath the surface. This suffering is manifest itself in that constant feeling of "wanting to achieve something", in never wanting to stop minor and major worries, in those disappointments we experience again and again, in the continuous judging and condemnation of others, in the ongoing uncontrollable stress-thoughts in our minds,. in short, in the absence of the feeling of having arrived. Observe it when you drive to the supermarket, get out of your car in the parking lot and see all the others with their stony faces but yours doesn't look any different to them. Check your thoughts on an occasion like this. There is no "happiness"; there is no profound sense of calm; there is no peace. You are an animal hounded by its own self. And none of your efforts will change that. That is what I mean by suffering. Your life is suffering!