“The mighty God! Here shalt thou find thy rest,
O weary one! There is naught else to know,
Naught else to seek—here thou may’st cease thy quest.
Give thyself up. He leads where thou shalt go.
“The changeless God! Into thy troubled life
Steals strange, sweet peace; the pride that drove thee on
The hot ambition and the selfish strife
That made thy misery, like mists are gone.”
Thirst is a characteristic of humanity. Wherever you find a human soul you find in it longings, desires, yearnings. It is only commonplace to say that in all this world there is nothing to satisfy a human soul. There has been no lack of searching for a fountain of life whose waters will quench human thirst; but in vain. There is nothing that has not been tried, and yet always the result has been the same:
“Life’s thirst quenches itself
With draughts which double thirst.”
The theory of happiness which Buddhism proposes is to tear desire from the soul, and to destroy the hearts hunger. But this is not possible. A craving repressed, held in check, shut up in the heart, is not at rest. The desire still lives, though caged, smothered, and confined. Happiness never can be found in this way.
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