Ode
to Joy
Delivered by
David Webb, September 4, 2005
At the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, New Bern, NC
In his preface to Energy Psychology in Psychotherapy, Fred Gallo, Ph.D. writes: “Perhaps as many as five millennia have passed since the idea emerged throughout the globe, but especially in India and China, that our bodies possess energy systems of utmost relevance to our health and consciousness. We can only speculate as to how these inspirations arose, but increasing evidence abounds that the ancients were correct. This and related understandings gave birth to meridian and chakra therapies, yoga, and more.” He then proceeds to cite Donna Eden and David Feinstein’s Radiant Circuits: The Energies of Joy. Eden and Feinstein contend that an energy system is associated with feelings of joy, the awakening of psychic abilities, and the channeling of healing energy. Distinct from meridians, chakras, or biofields, their appearance is described by people who see energy as having a radiant quality. And they, in fact, bring a radiant, joyful, uplifting vibration to all they touch. The radiant energies are a limited, precious resource, and it is the body's design that, like hyperlinks, they jump to wherever they are most needed. Recognizing their unusual characteristics, the ancient Chinese physicians called them the
strange flows or extraordinary vessels. They are significant for working with psychological issues because a person cannot feel joy if the radiant energies are not flowing and cannot move through life in an integrated manner if the radiant energies are not connecting and harmonizing the other energy systems.
To have joy is to have love and courage. To lack joy is to lack the same.
The world’s religions all endeavor to lead humans to states of joy. Note this Buddhist approach and compare it to the approach of other religions with which you may be familiar:
Knowing Your Higher Self
Like everyone, you want joy, happiness and life purpose.
But the problem is, most people are looking in all the wrong places. Career. Money. Relationships. Power. Yet, esoteric teachings claim all answers lie within you. They describe a secret jewel inside within the heart. The treasure of infinite value. The divine essence called... The Higher
Self.
Knowing You Are Competent and Capable
Being inwardly happy (knowing you are competent and capable) automatically improves levels of quality and excellence in your work. Understand that inner happiness only comes about via Self esteem + Self respect + Personal Pride. Get these ingredients right and with careful written planning the rest will simply fall into place…
Do What You Love and Share With Others
If you wish to be happy, you have to be less involved in your own happiness and more involved in the happiness of other beings.
Make others happy and you become happy as a result. Involve yourself totally, throw yourself into what you are doing in life, and happiness will result. If you are compromising, i.e. doing something you hate as a means to an end so that good will result one fine day, STOP! Begin to do more of what you love NOW and let that grow until it fills your life. Then happiness will be yours, and you will be better able to bring happiness to the
world.
Optimistic Thinking
Changing your perspective is the key to finding success in seeming failure.
Optimistic thinking has sometimes gotten a bad rap as being unrealistic, but research has found that we can indeed live happier, healthier, and more successful lives if we can learn to discover opportunities in
problems. Due to optimistic thinking, problems will become merely challenging opportunities that you can turn to your advantage. They provide opportunities for personal growth and can stimulate your creativity for finding better ways to live.
Buddhism about Happiness
Everyone wants to be happy and no one wants to suffer, but very few people understand the real causes of happiness and suffering. We tend to look for happiness outside ourselves, thinking that if we had the right house, the right car, the right job, and the right friends we would be truly happy. We spend almost all our time adjusting the external world, trying to make it conform to our wishes. All our life we have tried to surround ourselves with people and things that make us feel comfortable, secure, or stimulated, yet still we have not found pure and lasting happiness.
It is time we sought happiness from a different source. Happiness is a state of mind, so the real source of happiness must lie within the mind, not in external conditions. If our mind is pure and peaceful we shall be happy, regardless of our external circumstances, but if it is impure and unpeaceful we can never be truly happy, no matter how hard we try to change our external conditions. We could change our home or our partner countless times, but until we change our restless, discontented mind we shall never find true happiness.
Case in Point: The Dalai Lama's Approach
Dalai Lama believes that happiness can be achieved through compassion and training the mind.
From his perspective there is an inextricable link between one's own personal happiness and kindness and caring and compassion towards others. It's not only from the Dalai Lama's perspective – from his particular view of life and Buddhist philosophy – but also from the scientific standpoint that shows that happy people are much more likely to show compassion. What's remarkable is this amazing link between happiness and kindness towards others. Happier people are more likely to help the other person. But the Dalai Lama feels that it works the other way around as well. That the deliberate cultivation of kindness and compassion and caring and tolerance and forgiveness and these type of things will make one a happier person.
Dalai Lama's approach to achieving happiness begins with distinguishing between spirituality and religion. To have a spiritual dimension in your life, you should appreciate your potential as a human being and recognize the importance of inner transformation through a process of mental development.
The art of happiness has many components. It begins with developing an understanding of what are the truest sources of happiness and setting your priorities in life based on the cultivation of those sources.
It involves an inner discipline, a gradual process of rooting out destructive mental states and replacing them with positive, constructive states of mind, such as kindness, tolerance, and
forgiveness. Balance is a key element of a happy life.
* * *
But enough of the esoteric. How do we see joy become manifest? In the laughter which sings to us. In the music which soothes or inspires us. In the love which civilizes us. Please share some moments of joy…
FEEDBACK from
Congregation
In closing, wait, I can’t close yet, for I’ve forgotten perhaps the best manifestation of joy. From the Bible we can read in Ecclesiastes:
1. To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
2. A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
3. A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
We also read in Psalms: “Praise him with the timbrel and dance…”
We need joy in our lives. It is, indeed, a good thing. We need laughter, and song, and companionship, and dance. Won’t you join me in a time of dance?
MUSIC CUE—“Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow”
NOTES
Music prelude—The Trotter Trio “Comedy Tonight”
“Sermon finale”—“Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow”
Music postlude—“Joy to the World” (3 Dog Night)
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