You are invited to join the
Southwest Intenders Circle
Tuesday, January 25th
6:30-8:30 PM
11283 West Rice Place, Littleton
Please use visitor parking or driveway (HOA does not allow street parking)

Our topic for discussion is Joy/Happiness

"It is sometimes called well-being.  It is sometimes called contentment. A Gallop poll referred to it as life satisfaction.  Psychologists call it Positive Psychology.  You and I use a colloquialism, it's childhood nickname: Happiness.  Happiness is not a blissed-out state of only buoyant emotions." Taken in part from an article by Taffy Brodesser-Akner in Spirit Magazine (Southwest Airlines publication)  

"There are two kinds of people who don't experience painful emotions such as disappointments or anger or envy or sadness or anxiety: psychopaths and the dead." ~ psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar author of Being Happy: You do not have to be Perfect to lead a Richer Happier life.
 
"Happiness is not an emotion at all, according to psychologist. It is a position."  "Happiness is a combination of meaning and pleasure."  ~Taken in part from an article by Taffy Brodesser-Akner in Spirit Magazine (Southwest Airlines publication)  


 "What we are looking for in everything is joy, ecstasy. But ecstasy is within you. Look for it in your own heart."
~Indian guru


The following, in parts, is taken from an article found in Yoga Journal,
written by Sally Kempton and titled "The Joy Story"  

Sally Kempton, also known as Durgananda, is an author, a meditation teacher, and the founder of the Dharana Institute. For more information, visit http://www.sallykempton.com/. 


  "Yoga teaches us that happiness is always available to us, no matter what our circumstances. Here's a hint for how to tap into it: Look within."  ~  

"Joy is within you". Even if you hear it in purely psychophysical terms, if you really hear it, it's going to help you recognize one of the most empowering truths there is: It is actually possible to feel happy regardless of how the world is treating you, or how horrible your childhood was, or the fact that all of your friends are more successful than you are. You can even, this teaching implies, be happy when you’re failing at something or when you're sick.

But as with all the great truths, your understanding of what "Joy is inside you" means is crucial. If you don't understand it deeply, you're likely to mistake superficial good feeling for joy. You might also attach your joy to the circumstances (or possessions) that triggered it. Then you become addicted to those particular actions, (things), people, or situations. Or you might make the mistake I made for years and become a sort of bliss fascist, expecting yourself to be in a "good" state all the time and subtly beating yourself up when you aren't.

Ordinary happiness is the happiness we feel when we're firmly inside our comfort zone. That particular form of happiness is less likely to be present when a person is out of their comfort zone. The point, as every inner tradition will tell you, is that joy experienced as pleasure, is basically unreliable.

Any state that depends on things going our way can disappear in an eye blink. 

Ordinary happiness is inseparably linked with its opposite: "suffering." This pain-pleasure dichotomy is one of the basic pairs of opposites that plague our lives as long as we live out of duality consciousness, the feeling of being separate from others and the world. Like hot and cold, birth and death, and praise and blame, ordinary happiness and suffering inevitably follow each other, simply because when our well-being depends on external conditions, it will always come and go.

The simple antidote to this problem—the endless chase after the mirage of permanent pleasure—is to go to the next level and begin to cultivate "contentment." This practice is essential, because it is the fastest way to still the agitation that comes from frustration, discomfort, and unsatisfied desire.

Practicing calming the mind, allows a good chance at the next level of happiness - "spiritual happiness" to come through.  Contentment, the kind that comes from out of nowhere, like a message from our deeper self, and has the power to change our state in an instant. It can give rise to a whole host of feelings, such as gratitude, exaltation, equanimity, and the capacity to see beauty even in things we don't ordinarily find beautiful, like sidewalk litter or fast-food hamburgers.

When contentment deepens until it becomes our entire field of experience, we find ourselves in touch with the next level of profound joy: "bliss" - ecstasy, rapture, a joy that wells up on its own from the very depths of the universe and connects us instantly to the vastness of pure being. Bliss, is divine power in the form of happiness. When you touch it, you know it—and you also know that you've touched the deepest level of reality.

According to the great nondualist philosophers of the Upanishads and the Shaiva and Shakta Tantras, Bliss is actually God. That's why cultivating joy is such a direct path to inner experience: It is not only a means, it is the goal itself.

Joy is actually present, inherent in you and in the world around you. Look for the practices and attitudes that can help you open yourself up to it. Joy can arrive on your doorstep spontaneously. But it can also be approached step-by-step, through a combination of practice and self-inquiry. 

"OK, I'm choosing to believe that I've got joy inside. But I don't feel it right now. So what can I do about that? What part of my attitude do I need to change? What practice can I do that might help trigger that joy?" 

Remembering to be grateful to ourselves and others for every little boon and even for difficulties, consciously letting go of grudges—all of these help displace the sludge that builds up around the heart and keeps joy away. Even more important is the practice of noticing the stories you tell yourself, monitoring your thoughts when they create painful inner states, and using the creative power of your own mind to create inner states that are conducive to joy.

So, taking it step-by-step, the process of cultivating joy could look something like this. It begins with the simple understanding that joy is real, and then continues with the decision to tune your mind and heart so they are open enough to feel it. Depending on your state, you might need to practice some form of noticing the thoughts and feelings, the anxieties or desires, that are currently agitating my body and mind, and then doing what I can to let go of whatever resistance to my current reality is causing the agitation.

Close your eyes and remember a time when you felt really happy. Then take yourself into that moment. See if you can get a feeling-sense of yourself in the situation. Perhaps you'll do this visually—by remembering where you were, what you wore, who was present. Perhaps you'll do it by invoking the feeling, asking yourself, "What did that happiness feel like?" and then waiting until the feeling-sense begins to make itself present in your body. Stick with it until you actually feel the happiness—even if only a little.

Then remove the memory of the scene or situation and just feel the feeling. Find the place in your body where the feeling is centered, then let it expand until it fills you. If you're very visual, it might help if you give the feeling a color—a warm one, like gold or pink. Or you might work with the breath, breathing into the feeling and letting it expand on the exhalation.

Sit with this feeling of happiness. See if you can hold it. See if, for this moment, you can let the happiness become your primary feeling. This is a glimpse, however small, of your true reality.

See you tomorrow? 
Nancy