Everybody is struggling to be happy but no matter what enjoyment you get, whether it's eating, sleeping, sex, anything - it still does not actually satisfy that inner craving that you as the spirit soul, the part and parcel of God, that you the person who's in that body, you, the spiritual entity who inhabits your physical body, none of these things satisfy you in your heart.  None of this gives you actual spiritual food.

Of course we need material food and other things for this body and we need some economic development, but the problem is that I do not take care of myself. I spend so much time and energy taking care of my material needs, but I don't want to spend twenty minutes or an hour a day taking care of myself.  It is like we take very nice care of the bird cage but we do not feed the bird that's in the cage and so the bird dies from lack of care.  Similarly, I am the spiritual being within this body and if I neglect this, I will never be truly happy.

We're so accustomed to try to find satisfaction outside that we do not know that real satisfaction is within ourselves.  So in the Bhagavad-Gita Krishna says that the yogi, the mystic, finds happiness within. Jesus Christ describes that the kingdom of God is within. I am the spirit soul and I need to focus upon my relationship with the Supreme.  I need to cultivate that relationship.  Then I begin to experience that inner happiness.

When we speak about God, we speak about the most happy, the most satisfied Entity.  When we speak of the spiritual world, we are speaking about the happiest place where there is true satisfaction, blissfulness. That blissfulness is not present in the material world.

The truth is that the actual spiritual process is where real happiness lies.  And although there is pleasure and happiness from this material dimension, the material enjoyments in this world, they are really very superficial.  It's all very passing compared to spiritual happiness.

So the process of hearing and chanting the names of God and then hearing of the pastimes of God in the spiritual world, gradually we take part in or we begin to experience the nectar of the happiness that's in that spiritual world.  It is as if the spiritual world descends to the material world in the form of transcendental sound and we gradually begin to taste the happiness that's overflowing.   And so when we focus, we meditate upon the Supreme, we take part or we begin to partake of that happiness.  So that is the process of spiritual life, to actually focus our attention upon the Supreme and gradually we begin to actually taste the nectar that's descending from that supreme abode.

As we live in this material world we can simultaneously have a secret life.  We can have a secret life so to speak, an inner life, a life that somebody else doesn't really know about, a private life within our self in that personal relationship with the Supreme. How do we do this? We take the names of God through our ears, let them into our hearts, embrace them, take refuge in them, and rest in them.  Then we experience that inner spiritual happiness. And we are able to live our lives with all the responsibilities we have to deal with. So you can have a secret life, where you have refuge from the concerns of the world.  And this happiness within grows as one experiences moving closer to the Supreme each day.