Yoga and the Weather

There is a joke that old Floridians tell new Floridians- If you don't like the weather in Florida, stay around and it will change soon enough. Being attached to only one variation of countless weather conditions is a surefire recipe for suffering and if we just wait it out, the condition changes anyway.
The emotional states of the mind are like weather patterns- just as vast in their diversity and just as temporary. States of mind come and go. When we are attached to just experiencing one emotional state, like happiness, we are setting ourselves up for suffering. Yogis learn to appreciate and embrace the diversity of the life experience- the full spectrum of emotion. Life on planet Earth is happiness and sadness, pleasure and pain, gain and loss. This is part of the maturing of the soul, to understand that our time here will include a taste of all the worldly dharmas and to not expect that or to try to avoid that is a path to certain suffering. A beam of light is more radiant in a dark room......along the way we discover that happiness is sweeter when we have also tasted sadness.
See yourself as larger than the temporary conditions of emotions. You are a vast expanse of Pure Awareness. You have always been and You will always be. Immortal. Timeless. Boundless. Emotions are like meteorites that come and go in this vast expanse. There is a part of you which is unaffected by the changing weather patterns of mental states. In Yoga, it is called Nirlipta. The Cave of the Heart in Tantra. The part of us which is steady in the midst of change, beyond pain and beyond suffering. The wise Yogi seeks out that refuge in each practice.

If I am unhappy, but do not care that I am unhappy, am I really unhappy?
Swami Vivekananda