“What we are all seeking is clarity. Forget about religious rationalizations. Forget about elaborate explanations. What we want is clarity…

It is a misconception that spirituality brings everlasting happiness. There is no such thing. Sadness still comes to the wise, but, unlike most people, their clarity of mind allows them to see beyond the temporal emotionalism of the moment. They are farseeing, and so happiness and sorrow become the same to them.

True clarity is more than just being smart, more than just being wise. Clarity manifests from meditation. It comes when you can unite all the faculties of the mind and unify them into a magnificent light of perception. It is hard to talk of this in anything but mystical terms. Our language is unfamiliar with the frontiers of the spirit because few have ever seen those limits, let alone described them. But let us try:

If you unite sound with vision, then you will create light.
That light is the concentrated force of the mind.
It is by that brightness that truth is revealed.

~Deng Ming-Dao, in 365 Daily Meditations