There is a general notion amongst people that a serious mind is an unhappy mind and perhaps that is why many Masons do not take the Masonic rituals seriously. Only when we .take our rituals seriously, our
mind can get tuned properly and can become capable of receiving the message the ritual wants to convey. Whenthe mind is tuned properly it can receive and understand the way the ritual should be understood. Once we understand the ritual the way they ought to. be understood, then the very understanding will bririg about a transformation inus. . The understanding of the ritual will be feast to the mind bringing happiness of a superior quality and that happiness will be lasting. That is why in the second degree closing the junior warden says

"Happy have we met,
Happy may we part,
And happy meet again"

If happiness had come to us because of our meeting with one another, then that happiness should disappear, once we part. It is not so. According to this saying there is happiness when wemeet and when we part. Jdence the cause of happiness should be from something else. As specuiative Masons, we meet within the temple and what we perform is , the ritual: Hence the source of our happiness must be-from the ritual for we do nothing else in the temple. When .the rituals are performed neatly and correctly, it is a pleasure for the does as well as the seen The happiness is manifold when the rituals are understood and received in the right manner.

According to the great philosopher J. Krishnamurthi, a serious mind is the happy mind and not the mind that goes after entertainment and amusement for its happiness. A serious mind is happy by itself. Hence,
we Masons should take the rituals seriously, participate in them, try to understand them and get enriched with the wisdom it gives. It is that genuine knowledge about truth that brings the lasting happiness indicated in the saying mentioned above.

-By W.Bro.V.Prithviraman-Lodge Jyothi No.253

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