JOY AND HAPPINESS                                                                         SUFFERING, SORROW AND GRIEF

 “A truly wise person is always joyful. The best way to live joyfully is to believe that life was given for joy. When joy disappears, look for your mistake.” Tolstoy

 “Let your life dance lightly on the edges of time like dew on the top of a leaf.” Tagore

Karmically, we will be accountable to the extent we omitted joy or happiness in our lives. Happiness is also a requirement of karma just as is destiny and the other factors previously described. 

 

 “Joy is not incidental to your spiritual quest, it is vital.”

Rev. Nachman

 

“Everyone will be called to account for all the legitimate pleasures which he or she has failed to enjoy.” Talmud

 

“There is a Chassidic commitment to joy in the world. Joy is not earned its given and does not require effort, only consent.”

 

Ancient wisdoms teach that we are looking for happiness in the wrong places and that spiritual tools are the route to true happiness. There are many words to describe happiness; 

equanimity, balance, harmony, serenity, security, inner peace, well-being … 

Ancient scriptures also confirm that having meaning in one’s life is key to well-being as are relationships and giving back. Having meaning is also a part of being happy.  

“Don’t ask yourself what the world need. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” H. Thurman

 

In positive psychology – Martin Seligman and Carol Ryff – emphasize how having meaning is crucial to well-being. They stress the power of experiencing positive emotions and a sense of flow when we engage with our core or signature strengths. Moreover, that we need to serve something bigger than ourselves in our relationships with others. These are also the guiding principles of the incorporation phase of the hero’s journey after one integrates our core strength or our own unique archetype into our work.

“When you find your place where you are, practice begins.” Roshi

 

“… do your work and step back the only way to serenity.”

Tao Te Ching

 

Our destiny archetype is the gift we have been given by the Creator to help heal the planet and correct injustice. The Hero/ines journey is a quest to find that “grail” so we can return to the tribe or the community and give back. Unless we are in service to others, we will not endure happiness and the more we focus on ourselves the more miserable we become. This is not an ethical judgment, but a fact of life that is fixed as a default into the fabric of the soul. 

 

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”  Victor Frankl

 

Victor Frankl in his book Mans’ Quest for Meaning describes how he was able to overcome the catastrophic effects of being incarcerated in a Nazi death camp. Frankl also emphasizes how finding meaning in life is the primary, most powerful motivating force in humans. Nelson Mandela, Gandhi and many others remained committed to the profound meaning of their missions even under severe adverse circumstances, abuse and even torture. 

“Once what you are living and what you are doing has for you meaning, it is irrelevant whether you are happy or unhappy. You are content, you are not alone in your spirit, you belong.”
         L. Van der Post 

The safety needs of some of those in the camps may have been severely threatened but they retained “meaning” and purpose against all odds. The way a prisoner could imagine his/her future seemed to be the determining factor that counted most. Some imagined seeing a loved one again or being able to complete some mission such as writing a book. Others devoted themselves to helping the inmates. They tended not necessarily to be the physically strongest of those interned but they maintained an attitude of optimism rather than a head down, hopeless, helpless demeanor. They managed to temper anxiety, apathy, depression, detachment, desperation and dejection. 

 

”He who has a why to live for, can bear almost any how.”

 Friedrich Nietzsche

 

Daniel Kahneman, Nobel prize winner, in describing happiness, defines two Selves; the Experiencing Self and the Remembering Self. Joy has a different energy than happiness and is an exuberant, in the moment, sensory feeling of the Experiencing Self. He describes the Remembering Self being about our story and how we keep score. Since it is not an in the moment exuberance like that of joy attained by the Experiencing Self he calls it Synthetic Happiness. He adds that this is part of our psychological “immune” system. 

“Serenity is not a passive condition but an undisturbed peace of mind, active and aware which can be 

quiet joy, sometimes ecstatic joy, 

always deep within spirit and light of heart.” 

Father Toomy

This system has a reset point. How the experience ends, will determine the effect – happy or not. If not, he maintains that with redeeming or reframing a negative emotion into a positive one we can end up with a positive feeling. For instance; having a conversation with a close friend, a walk on the beach, enjoying a funny movie, etc. One bad aspect of an experience can ruin a satisfactory encounter because that is what is remembered rather than the good parts. The sooner it is redeemed the better. There is wisdom in the statements; never go to bed angry, when you fall off your horse get back on immediately.

 

Find joy and gratitude in hidden places.

 

Ecstasy goes a step above joy and is a spiritual experience best described in ancient wisdoms as Samadhi, Nirvana or Sartori. This oneness experience or unity consciousness occurs when the Knower, the Known and the process of Knowing fuse and become one thing. For most of us usually this comes only through grace. To satisfy those with scientific minds who are disinclined to believe in anything that cannot be proven, such as Kundalini energy, certain "acceptable" labels have been invented for these kinds of mystical experience, such as; coherence, physiological arousal, cathartic conversion experience, congruence, and the distant mental influence on biological systems ... Maslow would have called it a Peak Experience but indigenous wisdoms and Eastern mysticism have these energy pathways well delineated.