by Eugene Pitout

Created on: May 18, 2009

To find joy I think its important that we know what it is. Most of us create some illusion or substitution for joy that can more accurately be described as comfort or pleasure.

Interesting the degrees of being. Joy is the spiritual quality of pleasure. Pleasure is short lived and quite limited. Pleasure and comfort seeking is the essence of greed. When you are greedy you can never be joyful.

We get the lowest pleasures namely food and sex. Ever wonder why people lose weight when they are in a new love/sexual relationship? They have found the joy and nurturing that they were seeking in pleasures like food.

From there we move up higher to mental and ego pleasures. These pleasures we get at the expense of others. Vanity and recognition, competition, being the best. Having more in order to trade some of that for pleasure. We want fame, even for a few minutes. Some people will kill for that fame. We want lots of money to continually buy more moments of pleasure. We want nice big homes for the pleasures they bring. Space, privacy, security, a place in the sun.

We are confusing the issue with mind. Joy is like love. Real love. It happens. We seek pleasure in the pursuit of joy, while joy is just something that happens. You cannot create joy because like enlightenment, joy is what you are. When you look for it you are looking away from it.

Truth consciousness and bliss is what Buddhists say is the way to be. The truth of your being. Living this awareness consciously causes bliss to reveal inside your being. This is the real joy we want.

The sin (The meaning of sin = missing the mark) The sin is in the fact that we seek joy from pleasure. We create great competition. We create the illusion of limited pleasure. Pleasure is limited and when we find it, it is short lived. Because it is limited we keep raising the price. We become slaves to pleasure. We compete for it. We slave our lives away to attain and secure pleasure. We work hard to play hard. Saving up for the next pleasure When you reveal your joy then everything has it's own pleasure. Then being alive is a pleasure.

Take sex for example. People who are sexually fulfilled are known to be bad competitors. That's why boxers and rugby players are advised not to have sex before a match. That is why a one-man business suffers a bit when the man falls in a love/sexual relationship. He loses the wish to compete for pleasure and comfort because he has enough for the moment.

Joy happens when one relaxes into life and allow life itself to do all the work. It is the time when we surrender to all that is and to allow our polarized five of life to fade. Then in the silence of your being with no present conflict you find a peculiar graceful presence that was always there. Joy of life itself. It does not matter what car you drive, what matters more is how you enjoy being alive.

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