Joy of Being

The joy of being is where all happiness originates. Through peeling back the layers of the everyday, you will see that the having and the doing that we think makes us happy is not the happiness itself, it only points to it.

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The Joy of Being

So all human joy is rooted in the spiritual, in the joy of being that is felt or known by the spirit, not sensed by the body-mind. Though material objects and personal experience may be catalysts that aid to bring these feelings or knowings of the soul to light, they are not the joy, but open the door to it. Yes that means that if you are happy or joyful, you are more spiritual than one who is unhappy. This makes the experiencer of the joy the consciousness that underlies the mind. This conciousness/spirit is apparently encapsulated in the body-mind. The experiencing entity that feels the joy of being is not the body-mind or of the body-mind. Remember, YOU, the conciousness are just borrowing the atoms that make up your body.

So when you feel joy, and I say feel not in a physical sense, that which causes the joy is not the joy itself, the external circumstance that seems to cause the joy merely exposes mini glimpses of the joy that is already there--the joy of being.

All feelings of joy are knowings--mini aha moments that uncover the realization that "I am." They are fleeting because the outer world demands thought and physical action for survival, and you cannot feel joy and think at the same time. Spirituality can even be likened to a lack of thought, or a feeling or knowing that requires the absence of thought.

The joy of being is the only joy that can be felt. And when we say feel, this is not in reference to the body or its five senses, but it refers to the spiritual you and your ability to know and feel that "I am." The joy of being is not something that can be described with words, but I can attempt to help you access it through description because that is only means humans have to communicate. If one could project a feeling to another the same way a word is spoken, heard, and understood, then perhaps words would become obsolete, but for now, words are my only tools to help you understand and experience more joy and happiness.

And so when one experiences joy, it might be described as a freeing of the soul or spirit, the recognition of the knowing that you are not just a body, but something that can only inadequately be described. It is not the clinically awake consciousness but the one that never sleeps or disappears, the one that knows "I am." It is the same consciousness that "awakens" during a dream and says "I've been right here the whole time--why didn't I know that 2 seconds ago?" To awaken in a dream is your consciousness watching the show that your mind creates just as though you the body were watching a TV show created by Hollywood.

To live in a constant state of the joy of being is called enlightenment, nirvana, and salvation by some religions. It cannot be taught like a skill. You cannot learn enlightenment, becoming more and more learned until one day you have learned enough and can now call yourself enlightened. You are either enlightened or you are not. And if you are enlightened in this particular second, it doesn't mean you will be in the next. But through the study of the joy of being or enlightenment, you may be able to catch glimpses of it and you will know it has happened when you feel joy and this is the joy of being.

Perhaps your spirit, before coming to the physical world, chose to come because it wanted to feel what it's like to occupy a form, and wanted to know suffering whereby it could better appreciate the joy of being that it was created into. In other words, to know and appreciate the true joy of being, a paradox dictates that one cannot know joy without knowing suffering and likewise it cannot know suffering without knowing joy. This is the "Equilibrium of the Universe", a term I just made up.

To put this equilibrium in human terms, all things that happen on earth are centered or neutral on a scale with "good" on one end and "bad" on the other. In reality, all things are neutral. They are what they are. They are the truth, and it is the mind that arranges them on the scale. For every "good", there must be an equal amount of "bad" in order to maintain the equilibrium. It may not be exactly one for one, and time is not a factor, but in essence, all things are neutral and if they are looked on any other way, the equilibrium will eventually right itself.

The shallowness of thought and form

Because you are a human form, you cannot exist purely in a spiritual state. But as a human form with a spiritual essence, you can enjoy both. Happiness is the manifestation of the joy of being into form. It is the way a human feels the joy of being. When a human returns to total consciousness, or sheds the physical body, you will be in a constant state of enlightenment without the possibility of knowing happiness. For this reason, as a form and as a spirit at the same time, you can know more types of positive energy than just being a form or just being a spirit.

The more human you are, the more suffering you will create in yourself and others, because all your energy will be focused on thought and form. The more conscious of your spirit you are, the happier you will be, and the more likely you will create happiness in others as they catch glimpses of their non physical selves when they are around you.

One way to balance form and spirit is to live in the moment. That means you don't dwell in possible future events, good or bad, or to dwell in past events, good or bad. That means to live in this second, now, without judging where it came from or what might come of it. The future moments that people fear are always worse in the imagination beforehand than if the actual thing that is feared does happen.

Humans can live in the moment by consciously recognizing this moment and knowing that no matter how bad the shallowness of society interprets it, that you are first and foremost a spiritual and never-ending being. All form comes to an end. Your body will, your planet will, even your galaxy will collide with its neighbor with biblical results. There will be a time when the most important thing in your life right now will have faded to a fuzzy memory, no more clear than a vague dream remembered from last night. If you are going through something labeled "terrible" by the shallowness of society, why be stressed when you know that there will be a time when this most "important" thing or you will be gone. Problem? What problem?

I'm not into poetry brcause of the corniness the word conjures and because of the poetic wierdness I've read that was supposed to be profound yet went over my head. This bit of corniness came to me in today's early morning mist:

The eagle soars in search of food. The cheetah runs in hot pursuit. The marlin torpedoes through a school of bait. The monkey climbs for a banana bunch. The human lives that he may survive.

Could an eagle fly for the joy of flight? A man can and does

Could the cheetah run for the joy of speed?

A man can and does

Could a marlin swim for the joy of swimming?

A man can and does

Could a monkey climb for the thrill of height?

A man can and does

Of all the things a man can do, why is it that only the rarest of men can live for the joy of living? Joy of being to MEANING OF LIFE