Awaken in the Now

I’ve been doing so much inner work lately that not only can it feel overwhelming but it can get pretty depressing at times even though confronting and integrating inner darkness and pain is necessary for healing and freedom. However I can get lost in the darkness and unconsciousness which is a risk in doing inner work and represents going to an extreme and becoming invested in the darkness that one is trying to illuminate and heal. At this point we can become cut off from the very element which will heal the darkness, Joy. I want to distinguish here between happiness and joy. I consider happiness to mean a good mood, basically feeling good usually in relation to pleasant conditions whether within or without. Happiness from this perspective is a temporary surface mind state. Joy on the other hand is much deeper than happiness, it is a blissful state that emanates from the core of our being, a reflection of our true nature. Joy is not dependent on conditions because it emerges from a place beyond conditions or the details of our life situation. Therefore joy is always accessible even when happiness is not. It is a profound sense of empowerment, calm and ok-ness even in the midst of chaos and turmoil.

For me, cultivating joy requires being in a state of presence because joy exists only in the present moment, the now. Being in a state of presence requires surrender because it is impossible to be fully in the now if you are resisting it at the same time. If you try to be present but at the same time don’t want what is happening in the present moment maybe because it is unpleasant you create a state of inner conflict with what is. Surrendering says, I may not like what is happening but I accept that it is whats happening. By surrendering and entering a state of presence joy becomes accessible. What can be an obstacle for many including myself is that when you surrender and become fully present you may experience pain before you can get to joy. The pain may be emotion, trauma or unpleasant physical sensations that are just under the surface and have been subtly (or not so subtly) repressed or avoided. So presence requires a willingness to feel whatever is there with openness, a truly open heart, without trying to make it stop or go away. This is freeing because we don’t have to fix our pain we just need to openly witness it and allow it to be there. Most of us have been conditioned to avoid unpleasant feelings and to do whatever is necessary to avoid them which not only creates trauma and sickness as the unpleasant feelings build and become entrenched but it cuts us off from the source of healing, our true nature, joy.

Joy is a reflection of pure consciousness or life force and when we get in touch with it we can channel it into our lives in powerful ways. Joy can infuse everything we do, every relationship and every word. We then become conduits for love and joy to flow into the collective helping others access it within themselves, joy is contagious. You could consider joy a perspective and when you are in a state of joy the world looks different. Life somehow seems magical, synchronicity is everywhere, people and opportunities are drawn to you magnetically. The feeling of joy is really more of an energy, a power and that power can be creatively channeled into whatever you do so that your actions produce results that are much greater than you could have imagined. The power of joy is the power of living fully connected to the present moment and to life itself, being in a surrendered empowered flow. In my view this is the greatest thing we can do for ourselves and the greatest gift we can offer the world. When one person touches joy it ripples through the hearts of every living being. So lets cultivate joy together and free ourselves completely, right now!

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 24th, 2010 at 1:21 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.