Just over a year ago, my husband and I travelled to the US to spend a week with my terminally ill brother and his family. He had been struggling for some time, and was still grieving the loss of his beloved wife a few years previously. We called in to see him on our way back to the airport. We all knew this was the last time we’d see each other in this life. This really was goodbye, in the earthly sense, no point in pretending otherwise. During our last hug, our eyes met. There was a depth to that moment I’ll never forget. We smiled through our sadness, grateful for our connection and for having had this time together. Sadness tinged with Joy, or Joy tinged with sadness? Why not both together?
Joy and Happiness
This memory has come back to me when contemplating Joy, especially in connection with happiness. These terms are often used interchangeably. And of course when anyone uses these (or similar) terms it’s good to understand how they interpret them rather than assuming we’re talking about the same thing. The same goes for words like love, God, Source, truth and the like
For the purpose of this post, however, I’m approaching happiness as a more fleeting state than Joy. I can be happy that the sun is shining or that I’ve had a wonderful conversation with a friend. Nothing wrong with that. But if my happiness disappears when it rains or the conversation didn’t go well, it is dependent on life circumstances, on something “out there” meeting my needs or wishes. Happiness is often how we evaluate the world, how we evaluate our life in terms of whether or not it is meeting our expectations.
Joy, on the other hand, as I’ve begun to sense it over the last few years, is akin to a profound peace and appreciation. It is not a denial of the pain of life. Far from it. The capacity for Joy develops in tandem with the willingness to experience the wholeness of life.
Peace and Gratitude
How could I not be sad that my brother has died? I still miss being able to ring him and enjoy our conversations. I still feel sadness when seeing him in photographs. But underlying that, I also feel the Joy of gratitude at having known him, for his love and generosity, for the wonderful family he and his wife created.
This Joy expresses within me as a deep peace that it was his time to go and that death is simply a transition to another plane of existence. My final words to him were “see you on the other side.” Our eyes met and we both felt the Joy of that truth supporting and accompanying our natural human sadness.
Capacity for Joy
In his ground-breaking book, Power Versus Force, David Hawkins describes his system of calibrating levels of consciousness. His Map of Consciousness provides a useful overview of the cumulative steps of the spiritual journey. These levels range from shame at the lowest frequency/energy to enlightenment at the highest.
Joy calibrates at a very high level, implying that the capacity to fully embody spiritual Joy is a product of integrating qualities such as integrity, reason and love. Thus it is a growing product of spiritual maturity. By implication, therefore, the good news is that every step we take towards such maturity is also a step towards gradually reconnecting with that essence of Joy within our own being.
As Hawkins puts it: “As Love becomes more and more unconditional, it begins to be experienced as an inner Joy. This is not the sudden joy of a pleasurable turn of events. It is a constant accompaniment to all activities. Joy arises from within each moment of existence, rather than from any external source.”
This is not a joy which ignores or dismisses our own or others’ pain. Rather it is like a container or foundation which embraces and accepts all of life. Or like a deep bass note which supports the symphony of life, with all its apparent harmonies and disharmonies.
Joy and Sorrow
“Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.” Khalil Gibran
Ironically, we cannot access that Joy by avoiding pain or sorrow. Paradoxically, the more we can open to our pain and the pain in the world, the more we can also open to Joy and a sense of purpose. Our hearts may break at the loss of a loved one. At the same time we sense that we are supported by a base note of Joy, the cognition that ultimately all is well and that we have not truly lost anyone or anything.
When we try to numb ourselves to the the pain of life, our own or the world’s, we shut down. Unfortunately, this means that we also numb ourselves to Joy. We cannot close down pain and expect to stay open to Joy. Short term shutting down may be practical and necessary i.e. in emergencies. It’s how we survive. However, it doesn’t serve us to numb down in the long term.
Understandably, our instinct is often to hold onto the pain longer than to the Joy. But maybe it’s time to allow ourselves to feel and appreciate the Joy along with any discomfort.
Joy is Compassionate
Authentic Joy is born out of living life fully and is not threatened by our own or other people’s pain. We can be deeply compassionate when others around us are suffering without getting so immersed in their pain that we are not able to support them.
“The key to joy is unconditional kindness to all of life, including one’s own, which we refer to as compassion. Without compassion, little of any significance is ever accomplished in human endeavor.”: David Hawkins
This level of Joy is strong enough to withstand grief and sadness in ourselves and others. In contrast, if our sense of happiness is dependent on circumstances, we are likely to find it extremely difficult to be truly compassionate. We may interpret the pain of others as a threat to our sense of happiness. We might dismiss them with a “Cheer up” or avoid them because we don’t know what to say.
Living Joyfully
As Richard Rohr puts it, “Maturity is the ability to live joyfully in an imperfect world.”
Living joyfully doesn’t mean we’re always smiling or that we avoid pain. Rather, it is a growing realisation of the value of every aspect of life. A willingness to be open to the possibility that even the most tragic and difficult experiences are ultimately for our learning and highest good. That what seems imperfect on the human level may well be absolutely perfect in the grander scheme of things.
Or, to paraphrase the Desiderata poem by Max Ehrmann, whether or not it is clear to any of us from our human perspective, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
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“Maturity is the ability to live joyfully in an imperfect world”: Richard Rohr
