JOY
Joy is one of those elusive words that is really hard to describe or even define. For if we were joyful all the time, the world would look different. What causes us to be joyful one moment and not the next? What people or environments create joy in us and our surroundings? With whom do we share joy?
Can joy be held onto and carried with us or does it need to be regenerated with every breath we take in and let out. Priest, professor, writer and theologian Henri Nouwen (1932-1996) suggested that joy is something we need to achieve and be awake to on a regular basis, maybe even minute to minute:
“Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.”
David R. Hawkins (1927-2012) considered joy a state of consciousness. He developed The Map of Consciousness which covers a spectrum of feelings and emotions and ranks them from 20-1000 with joy ranking 540 just under peace and enlightenment. From a psychiatric and medical viewpoint he proposes that joy might be something to strive for, but its not an end in itself. Joy is a life process that requires engagement and active living. Given our fluctuating moods and uncomfortable interactions with others, sometimes it seems that this quality can only be achieved by saints or monks in a monastery.
This may cause us to accept a reality in which we think that when we have joy it will just as quickly disappear. It is something that comes over us for no reason it seems and then it dissipates just as quickly. Assigning attachment to joy will surely put it outside our grasp. We can recognize it, but we can’t explain it.
I’ve experienced joy while watching a beautifully choreographed and exquisitely danced ballet performance or listening to the music of Ludovico Einaudi’s, “Life.” And nature has always presented me with awe that manifests into joy, the most recent full moon would be an example. Just from those three samples, and there are many more, I would refer to joy as an energy. When I’m at that higher frequency it seems as if I could move mountains, and indeed some amazing moments happen in those states of pure essence. Joy is an attraction that attracts others to it.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) is an author whom I highly respect and who has influenced my thinking regarding living life at its fullest, from the soul level and my relationship with the natural world. From a deeply intellectual, philosophical and scientific standpoint, joy is really indescribable because it comes from something beyond us. This is how Teilhard deChardin describes it:
“Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God.”
That probably is the simplest and most profound description that I can relate to for it speaks to me of the ineffable essence of joy. It can come out of no where and everywhere; last a moment or hours. We may very well be surrounded by joy 24/7 and just not be aware of the frequency, but it is there under all the activity of living. Something we know but cannot really define or touch.
What experiences have you had that filled you with joy? At what frequency were you functioning to invoke joy?