Body Consciousness And Joy

By Bart Sharp

There is a big difference between joy and happiness, do not get the two confused as the same concept. This is a generally happy society doing the things in life that keep them busy in satisfying tasks. Yet when some of those same people stop and feel what is occurring inside of them the happiness of the world they created does not feel fulfilling and quite empty. Accomplishments temporarily give us a feeling of accomplished when happiness is the level of awareness we possess. Something of a deeper sense of self is missing, joy.

By definition according to the gospel of John Bradshaw joy is a temporary state when all of us feels whole, a sense of self that all is complete. It is a temporary state the perception of joy occurs when the emotional aspects of us are perceived as realized by our self. Each time we complete a part of out limited emotional make-up, learn valuable inner lessons and/or see an important part of ourselves actualize we raise our vibration to a place of grace. We reach a peak experience of some kind and all is well in our world at a soul level. It feels an internal light is turned up for a short time to help is remember what beauty this life holds for us.

Happiness can be extremely fun, filled with amusement and laughter. It is an important part of living. However once the activity is completed the internal satisfaction diminishes, sometimes quite quickly. Happiness is created in the intellectual perspective, it is something that is more defined, our preferences performed. It is like watching a basketball game and enjoying your team win, you maybe happy for them and excited by the victory but it is not your personal accomplishment. If you were on the team and learned from the discipline of sports to become greater within yourself the victory may ratified what you had been working to become, a champion. The joy is seeing yourself step up to another level, winning is the test to confirm it.

Each level you rise in your platitudes of joy it becomes more intense and the peak appears more fulfilling. Joy based accomplishments always have an element that is internal. If we are an athlete the satisfaction of know our body is at a specific level and at that specific time we can rise no higher builds a confident power within. After experiencing years of painting the artist completes a piece that they personally feel is a pinnacle for their skills and soul to express. Something about the piece is a accumulation of all of their other pieces. Though Da Vinci had many amazing artworks the Mona Lisa possessed an expression beyond anything he had ever done. It brought the artist great joy to accomplish it.

In the spiritual and interpersonal growth journey joy is felt when specific issues are perceived as complete. If we finally feel the relationship with our father in a place of resolve after spending our lives in conflict with the man a sense of grace may be with us. In those moments that we are grateful for us and our dad, it is joy that we completed such an important aspect of our life. In some senses it feels ecstatic because it feels so good. It is something of a visceral sensation like a child who has spent the winter enclosed much of the time and the first hot day of springs comes and he is allowed to play in a sprinkler under the heat of the sun, happily absorbing the warm water on his skin while running in his underwear. He is absorbing the delightful sensations on his skin and his heart sings in a joy of happy to be alive. Nothing but the moment of delight matters, it is not an intellectual process that playing in the water is fun but the joy of being in the moment in something that makes his heart sings.

In the interpersonal journey of uncovering deeper feelings to find joy within ourselves each level we uncover the joy becomes greater. When we evolve beyond our biggest limitations such as resolving our biggest issues with anger we reach a critical mass and pass through a lower level of awareness to a higher one. All parts of our life seem different, we love people different and see the world in a more positive place. We for the first time feel complete. During the peak experience of dynamic change ecstatic feelings of joy can last for several days with all parts of life feeling complete. It does not matter what challenges appear in our life the joy is always bigger. Eventually the mind influences bring the person down from the peak but once the person experiences such an extreme crossover they never return back to a defect of joy. Somewhere joy is solidified in their lives to some degree.

In a similar path, those who practice surrender to a higher power experience similar levels of ecstasy in their journey. Their practice leads to them to wholeness, once again it is more of a visceral, body sensation and less of an intellectual one. Few may find this kind of joy with a steady diet of reading spiritual texts but in the practice of the meditations, prayers and emotional healing techniques, something transforms in them.

There is somewhere in this path to inner excellence that we never go back to the slumps that we once experienced before our peak experiences of joy. Even if we are challenged our growth, skills and or relationship with a higher power helps us maintain a center of joy power. We may feel sad, fearful, angry of other emotions but we still have our rudder of feeling whole within to stabilize us. Being turned onto a higher vibration of life always has the internal power of joy as its light.