Once upon a time, several time zones from your house, there lived a
king who had tons of money, mansions and castles on too many lots,
plenty of art and cultural treasures, dozens of wives (some of whom
loved him), and so much power that the mere mention of his name
caused cardiac arrest among a considerable number of his subjects.
But--he was not happy. So he called his advisors to him to seek
their advice.
"My soul troubles me," he told his court. "I have seemingly a full
life, but I do not find happiness here. In the middle of an
amusement, or when I wake at night, or as I take a bite of rare and
delicious food, I feel an overcast sky in my heart. Help me to
dispel this cloud."
"Perhaps your majesty would be happy if he had more wealth,"
suggested his treasurer. So the king increased the taxes on his
people, hired traders to go to distant lands to buy and sell, told
his workers to redouble their efforts in his precious metals mines
and minted more coins than ever. It wasn't long before the king had
so many storehouses full of treasure that he couldn't even count them.
On many an occasion his majesty would be riding through a city and
see a huge building he didn't recognize, and upon inquiry, discover
that it was yet one more warehouse full of his loot. And let me
tell you, these warehouses were so glutted with gold and jewels and
coins and rich carpets and Old Master paintings and antique vases
that when the king wanted to look inside one, the jewels would flow
out the door like gravel and the coins would spill out like water.
His servants got so tired of replacing the excess that they finally
just began to shovel it into the trash can after the king left. (Of
course, they probably helped themselves to a little bit of it, too.)
In his palaces, the king had so much fancy stuff that ancient
statues were used as door props in the stables, thousand-year-old
urns were used as spittoons in the kitchen, and scraps of precious
carpets were used to clean the servants' boots. The point is that
after all this additional acquisition, the king's lifestyle was much
fancier, but the king himself was still not happy.
"What his majesty needs is activity," said the king's culture
minister. "Activity is the rubbing paper that scours the rust from
the soul and burnishes her to a new shine. If the king would just
engage in some hobbies, he would find contentment." So the king
took up some hobbies: hunting, painting, dancing, building (more
mansions and castles), eating, woodworking, stamp collecting, riding
(in his golden carriage and on horseback), swimming (in his pool
full of pearls), and even knitting. In all he tried thousands or
perhaps hundreds of activities, each of them dozens of times.
He also held athletic contests, built amusement parks, and ransacked
the world for jugglers and magicians and singers and players and
storytellers (that's how I met him) and musicians. He ate too much,
drank too much, and danced and played and watched and traveled and
did too much and basically engaged in a constant frenzy of activity
from morning to night, from January to December, from the beginning
of the decade to its end. And the result was that he was amused for
awhile, but was mostly fat and tired and sometimes drunk and often
disoriented, but still not happy.
"Perhaps your majesty would be happy if he ruled the surrounding
lands and felt secure from attack," suggested the head of his army.
"For the proverb says, 'In security lies happiness.'" So his
majesty instructed his generals to go forth and conquer the
territories around him. After a preposterous quantity of noise,
smoke, blood, guts, and dying, the king found himself in possession
of jillions of acres of farms and towns and houses and cottages and
the souls of all those who lived therein. He now ruled over the
land as far as he--or even someone with good eyesight--could see in
every direction from the top of his highest tower. At any time of
day or night the king could call for the relief of a distressed
friend or the beheading of an enemy. He had absolute say over the
life or death, the happiness or suffering, of millions of people of
every rank and degree, from the most exalted noble in a seaside
mansion to the most unfortunate street urchin in a grimy and
stifling hovel. Such a thought sometimes gave the king half a
smile, but he was still not happy.
"Perhaps what the king needs is love," said the eunuch in charge of
the king's harem. "If he would marry a new variety of ever more
beautiful wives, he would perchance find happiness among them." So
the king decided to realize this scenario in three dimensions and
searched throughout his kingdom for the most desirable women he
could find. He found pretty ones and witty ones and laughing ones
and moody ones and smart ones and elegant ones and plain ones and
philosophical ones and decorated ones--women of every proportion,
size, color, personality, and talent, and he married a hundred of
them, some of whom loved him even more than those among the first
few dozen he was already married to. And the king found much
pleasure in his wives, but he was still not truly happy.
"The king will find happiness only in wisdom," said one of the
king's scholars. "For it is written that 'truth is a joy unto
itself.'" So the king applied himself to books of wisdom, and to
seeking the knowledge of all his many scholars and sending
throughout all his realm to find the wise from every land. Dozens
came and dozens pretended to instruct him in wisdom or in the way to
happiness, but while he found some really good advice and some
satisfying rules for life, happiness still eluded him.
Then one day came a woman from a land beyond the sunrise. Her words
were few but they so affected those who listened that she was
immediately granted an audience with the king, who explained the
discontent of his condition.
"Here before me," he said, "it would seem that I have everything a
man could want. I have three or four rings on every finger, I can
caress a beautiful woman's hair in any color, I can ride a week in
any direction and find my statue erected and feared, and I can hear
any melody or see any play at my command. I possess or can do or
enjoy everything I can imagine, and everything that the most
creative of my servants can imagine. And yet I find that happiness
is nowhere to be found. I am always rankled by a feeling of
dissatisfaction and haunted by an awareness of emptiness."
"Truly, his majesty's desires seem to be infinite," said one of his
courtiers, scarcely more able to hide his disgust than his envy.
"His majesty's desires are indeed infinite," said the woman. "For
that is the nature of the human heart. The heart's deepest desires
cannot be satisfied by any finite thing."
"Then what am I to do?" asked the king with dismay.
"You must seek the Infinite," the woman said.
"And where can I find it?" he asked. "What form does it take?"
"The Infinite is not a thing or in a particular place," said the
woman. "But seek Him and you will find happiness."
When the people saw that the woman was returning to her land, they
asked what she had said to the king.
"She reminded us of what we had forgotten," said one of the king's
scholars, "that we are but travelers through an ephemeral landscape,
and that on a journey through a desert, we should not expect to find
happiness from fingering the grains of sand in the dunes. We find
happiness by finding our way home."