I haven’t ever tried searching for Truth, nor have I wanted to achieve enlightenment. However, I have always been curious about what I really am and what meaning my life has. Although I am not that old and haven’t had much life experience, everything in the world looked so wearisome and dull. When I was sad, when I entered the college I had aimed for, when I was immersed in drawing for quite a long time, even when I loved someone, I felt as though everything was in vain.
But it wasn’t actually me who thought this way. Many books stated that life is lonely and solitary. They also said mankind undergoes everything in vain and that pain is an inevitable part of life. Some said that life is a dream which just passes by, and that a better world will come along in the next life. But that was all these books had to offer. These authors could never reveal where I was, why I felt so alone, and I could escape from it all. Precisely speaking, these books couldn’t help me escape from my misery. In fact, with these empty and ostentatious words, the books dug me into deeper unhappiness. Even though I was so miserable, so sad, I covered up those emotions according to the books since they told me happiness is something that quickly vanishes like floating clouds. While saying life is a dream, they just made me dream even more. I empathized, cried and laughed with the characters inside those stories. But that was all – these thoughts vanished the moment I closed the book.
However, from the get go, I could feel this book was different. The title of the first passage is ‘From Despair to Hope’. It says the futile human life is false, and when you become real by throwing away the false, you are happy without any mind. I pored through the book page by page. It says humans are not living in the world, but in their own mind world, and thus they are false. That’s why life is solitary, futile and painful. The reason I was filled with hope after reading this book was because it provided me with the way to throw away the false mind world. This book doesn’t simply conclude that life is a dream; rather, it says ‘Life is a dream, so let’s wake up from the dream. And there is a way to wake up from the dream. After waking up from the dream, it is the life of everlasting happiness.’ The book even taught me the way to live.
I thought there was nothing everlasting in the world. But, I was wrong. This book is a story about the never-changing Truth. I learned the existence of Truth from this book. I believed I wasn’t interested in such a matter as Truth, but everything remained unanswered and seemed tedious because I didn’t know about Truth. Where a human comes from and goes to, why I live, what I really am, how I should live… all my curiosity has been resolved. Although I didn’t have much knowledge before, I came to really know about the ways of the world.
Stories about the human mind, stories about the way to wake up from the futile dream, and stories about the world of everlasting happiness… I could feel the author was truthfully revealing everything he knows to the public. I liked those candid stories written in direct language, without any fancy techniques. Occasionally, the author reveals simple yet warm and interesting stories of his past. The author repeatedly wakes people up from their dreams, and talks about Truth and the way to become Truth throughout the book: ‘Life is painful, lonely and in vain because humans live in the illusionary world. So, let’s live happily forever by waking up from the dream, the illusion.’ As I read and read more, I could feel his earnestness, coming from the heart, wishing to inform people of Truth. That truly comforted my exhausted mind and I cried a lot too, feeling true gratitude for his compassion and heart-warming words.
It is no longer the time to empathize with the concept that the human life is just a dream. It seems as though it is now the era in which everyone wakes up from the dream and lives without such mind, as the author explains. Accordingly, the medicine to wake up from the dream has come. Because there is a way, in this era, everyone will become Truth and live as Truth. When I first opened this book, I was somewhat interested. But it wasn’t until I finished reading the whole book that the book title, Stop Living in this Land Go to the Everlasting World of Happiness Live there Forever, stuck a chord deep down inside, resounding in my heart.
I read this book again today and realized the story hasn’t ended. As the book talks about the way to live, I still have much to learn and every time I read it, I come to know more. This book is the hope, the way, and the guidebook of life. Through this book, I was able to come out from the futile, solitary dream of the past and start living a new life. And, from the book, I learn the way of living with everlasting happiness, just as the title suggests.
