You Can't Buy a Piece of Mind

You can't buy yoga. You can't buy happiness. You can't buy a state of mind. People try. We've all tried. I remember standing in the gift shop of the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, thinking I could buy something that I could take with me. Something that would stay with me and last. I could buy something that would remind me of the good times, but that wasn't quite the same things as the times themselves.

If we could buy happiness or a state of mind or even health, we would. We try. God knows we try. But the way it goes, we have to maintain health all along the road. It's not something we can get when we need it and buy it off of the shelf. When we're depressed and we want to feel better, it's not like we can just wish it away, as much as we may try.

If we could buy peace, we would. So many people wish for peace. It turns out you can't buy it.

So many people at the end of their lives try to buy health. It turns out you can't buy it. It's something that is cultivated over time.

So you can't buy happiness or peace of mind or any piece of mind. It's cultivated. Over time. Not by achieving wealth or status or anything. Sometimes it takes practice, like through Santosha or other yamas and niyamas. Ultimately happiness just is. For no reason. But we strive and try and we're busy and we're working on things and that may be fun, but at some point we're going to be very interested in what state of mind we're in. And we'll want something other than what we have. And we'll realize we can't buy it. And we'll wish we'd been chasing peace of mind instead of whatever else we've been chasing.