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Delight of Being

Knowledge Base

by Roy Posner and MSS

Happiness vs. Joy, Delight of Being

Happiness vs. Delight
Happiness is felt when life's conditions are favorable. Delight is there under all conditions, positive or negative because the reference is deeper within beyond contradictions.

Delight and Joy vs. Happiness
Delight and joy of being is inner; happiness is outer. The former comes from connection to the depths of our being down to the personal evolving soul; the latter from the ups and downs of life.

Outer vs. Inner-Based (True) Happiness
Happiness is based on outer circumstances. Inner happiness (i.e Joy, Delight of Being) is based on one's higher inner conditions, no matter what the outer presents.

Happiness of the Surface vs. Joy and Delight of the Inner
Happiness is of the surface consciousness; joy and delight are of the inner consciousness.

Spiritual Happiness
Spiritual happiness: calm and smiling, nothing can disturb it. (The Mother)

Human Happiness
Happiness is Delight of being (Ananda) experienced at the human level of the vital. It is less than Delight.

Happiness vs True Happiness (Joy, Delight)
Ordinary happiness comes and goes. It is our reaction to the inputs of life that come from the outside. It is up and down. True happiness is Joy of Being, which comes from within, unencumbered by the exigencies of life around us.

Human Joy vs. Divine Joy
The character of human joy is that it has a counterpart of sorrow. The divine Joy is unalloyed, unsullied. It is Self-existent. It does not need the balancing factor of its opposite sorrow. Our enjoyment comes out of the satisfaction of our desire. The divine Bliss cannot be matched by any enjoyment man knows. (MSS, reorganized)

Happiness vs. Joy/Delight of Being
Happiness is human. It can turn into its opposite. Joy and delight of being is spiritual. There are no opposites of these.

Satisfactions vs. Happiness. vs. Fullness
We know satisfaction that is the opposite of frustration, and happiness the opposite of sorrow. Satisfaction comes out of reaching what we aim at. Happiness is given by success. All these are positive, negative emotions of life, actually lower life from the point of view of the Spirit. Spirit, when it emerges, gives a FULLNESS. It is an inner fullness.

Not Seeking Repetition Enables Delight
If you can look at all things - at a face, a bird, or anything that gives delight - if you can look at it without wanting the experience to be repeated, then there will be no pain, no fear, and therefore tremendous joy. (MSS)

Inner Happiness
Inner happiness (i.e Joy, Delight of Being) is based on one's higher inner conditions, no matter what the outer presents.

Delight of Being is Spiritual
-Delight and joy of being is inner. Inner is spiritual.

-The divine Joy is unalloyed, unsullied. It is Self-existent. It does not need the balancing factor of its opposite sorrow. (some MSS)

Happiness in the Divine
Let us seek our happiness only in the Divine. (The Mother)

Spiritual Happiness
Spiritual happiness: calm and smiling, nothing can disturb it. (The Mother)

Joy, Delight of Being and Discovery
Joy and delight is really the delight of discovery in life, discovery of something new, of something you did not know or experience before.

Discovering Our Higher Nature Brings Delight of Being
Rediscovering the lost Delight of the Supreme Being in our lives -- by connecting to our higher nature -- brings Delight of being.

Spiritual Joy
Success makes for happiness; failure gives us sorrow. Sri Aurobindo says success and happiness are sought after by lower human emotions. Pious people do their duty regardless of success or failure. They are invariably happy, rather filled with a sense of contentment. There are other people who are always found filled with JOY. They spread joy around. Such people are found at all levels of life. Inner Joy, permanently established, is one symptom of a realised Soul. We do not hear of pensive Saints or other religious people who are depressed. Invariably they are happy. Some of them have a characteristic sweet smile.

Inner joy includes all the higher attributes of life, e.g. power, health, money, status, wealth, etc. The JOY that I speak of is spiritual JOY. I said it is inclusive of all human needs, comforts and affluence. Invoking the spirit, one attains to INNER JOY. If he is not entirely successful, at the next level he attains material Prosperity.

There is one more dimension to this. I rarely speak of it. It is called Spiritual Prosperity, generally difficult to attain. It is attained by a Spiritual discipline. The only such discipline here is NOT to take egoistic initiative. No initiative of ours is free from ego. (MSS, somewhat modified)

The Overwhelming Experience of the Soul at Various Planes
There is a phenomenon of the SOUL overcoming our human goodness as well as human smallness, coming out of its shell, charging our being with intense joy of an extraordinary nature.
 
It has the capacity to fill and saturate the nervous system with that joy.
 
Should it reach the Mind, the Mind becomes light, shedding its usual weight, and grows bright, taking us to the occasion of what is usually described as mental joy. Such persons are blessed.
 
It has a further dimension too. The body of flesh which usually lives in darkness is sometimes capable of opening to this invasion of a heavenly vibration. At its touch, there is a thrill.
 
It is the thrill of spiritual gratitude the whole Being feels to the Divine. At its peak, people find that human individual in ecstasy. One can usher himself into this condition of beatitude. (MSS)

True Knowing and Delight
To truly know something enables one to experience Delight of being.

Delight and Energy Creation
Joy and delight of discovery releases in turn a great energy in ourselves; mental energy in our minds, vital energy in our emotions, and physical energy in our bodies. This new found energy can then be channeled and utilized to take us to even higher vistas in life.

The Heart that Always Opens to the Joy that is Spirit in Essence
However ossified the heart is, it readily opens to a touch of JOY. For the heart Joy is the Spirit in essence. (MSS) [Example: all those who were hardened opened to the cheerfulness and joy brought by Pollyanna.]

What Will Maximize Delight of Existence

The delight of existence we feel now is far from perfect and it has been severely degraded due to counteracting influences. If such influences and factors are removed, it will add a lot more to the intensity of delight. We see cleanliness improves to the extent dirt is removed. That is, a positive attribute is enhanced by the removal of a negative attribute. Cleanliness itself is defined only negatively as the absence of dirt. By extension we can also say that delight will be enhanced to the extent opposing influences and factors are removed. Let us see now what are all the ways in which delight of existence can be increased.

• Poverty, violence, warfare and disease should all go and instead universal prosperity, peace and health should establish themselves.

• Ignorance should be abolished and universal knowledge should prevail.

• Ego should vacate its place and that vacated place should be occupied by the Soul which is now submerged under the domination of ego. If the soul becomes the dominant influence in the personality, its natural joy will become a permanent feature of our daily life.

• Mother says that Supramental plasticity will make the human body so flexible that nothing can injure it as the elastic nature of the body will absorb the incoming impact and thus injury will be avoided. Freedom from the pain of injury which supramental plasticity provides can vastly enhance our delight of existence.

• Disease causing germs such as viruses and bacteria and disease spreading insects should also disappear and this will guarantee virtual elimination of infectious diseases which will immensely improve our physical health and thereby increase delight at the level of the body.

• Superstions , irrational impulsive behaviour, vital greed, mental narrowness and physical inertia all of which cause immense misery at the physical level should go.

• Goodwill. self-giving, a broad mental outlook that appreciates the other person’s point of view should all increase their presence in our human nature and submission of the mental, vital and physical personality complex to the authority of the soul should take place. All this will vastly increase delight of existence.

• Money, power and vital craving for satisfying its desires should lose their grip on human nature and in their place the psychic aspiration for the higher spiritual existence should become active and humanity should seek such things as divine love, joy, peace and harmony as intensely as it seeks egoistic satisfaction now.

• Man-woman relationship which is the cause of so much misery as it is based on egoistic desire for domination should become refined and turn into one of mutual self-giving and exchange of love and affection etc.

• The entire hostile world containing the Asuras, Rakshashas and demons of the lower vital world such as பிசாசு should all get dissolved and allow positive beings such as angels and the forces of Truth to be active.

• Religious dogmatism which is the cause of so much falsehood should give way to spiritual truths and the ensuing enlightenment will add a great deal more delight to our existence.

• The tendency of currently established forces to fight incoming new spiritual progress should get dissolved and all resistance to the increasing activity of the supramental forces should disappear.

If all the aforesaid changes take place on earth, our lives will become very different than what it is now. Nature does not seem to be in a hurry to evolve and liberate itself from the clutches of evil, ignorance, suffering and death etc. It lives in a grand scale measuring time in millions of years while poor humanity counts its life span in decades. That seems to be the main problem. Man’s impatience to escape evil and enjoy delight is not supported by Nature which has chosen to evolve at its own leisurely pace. It is left to man to quicken nature’s pace of evolution by intensifying his power of aspiration. That way nature’s million years can get abridged into a few centuries or a few millenniums by which at least our succeeding generations can have a life that is vastly more delightful than what we are having now.  (MSS)

Delight of Being Fulfills Purpose in Creation

Finding Our Higher Nature Fulfills Our Purpose, Brings Delight
Humans fulfill the purpose of creation when we find our higher nature; when we perceive spirit in our lives, fulfilling the purpose for which the Divine manifest a universe -- delight of being. 

Delight of Existence is Purpose of Life
The purpose of life, our lives, is to rediscover the power, the Force that created the universe in the first place, and to use that power in our lives to transform ourselves, fulfilling our and the universe's ultimate evolutionary purpose. That purpose is the Delight of existence.

Discovering Our Higher Nature Brings Delight of Being
Rediscovering the lost Delight of the Supreme Being in our lives - by connecting to our higher nature -- brings Delight of being.

Cosmic Reason for Delight
When one experiences delight of being, one is fulfilling the purpose for which the Divine created the universe, delight of being; i.e. for us to experience the delight through the discovery of our higher nature.

Making Our Purpose -- Delight -- Conscious, and Fulfilling It through Spirit
There is the subconscious or subliminal knowledge that the purpose of life is for Delight. We can make that a CONSCIOUS knowledge, and therefore seek it out. When we come to experience the Spirit, including its attributes of inner Peace, Love/self-givingness, deep Knowledge and Wisdom, and Creativity in our daily lives, we realize that Delight, that Bliss of living, which is the raison d'etre of our existence.

Rediscovering the Delight of Creation
The Spiritual Reality on the road to creating a universe of forms, divided into Existence, Consciousness-Force, and Delight. Delight which mirrors our potential Joy and Delight of Being was absorbed in creation. In order to create a multiplicity of forms wit the greatest variety, positive and negative was created, and there was loss of Consciousness and Delight for this purpose. Also, we emerged through evolution as divided beings, with happiness and pain, positive and negative circumstances in our lives.

However, when we find our True Selves within, we begin to connect to, become One with the universal plane -- i.e the environment and the people around us. There we shed ego, separateness, and engender connectedness. As we give to others, Joy springs forth. As we discover our True and higher self, our evolving soul within, Joy comes to us. As we shed our ego and negative propensities, Delight spreads throughout our Being. As we connect to the transcendent spiritual Reality, we experience ultimate joy  -- the Delight and Bliss of the Creator, once lost in creation, now rediscovered.

See Additional Thoughts on Delight of Being in Creation

Inner Fullness, and Richness

Inner Fullness
We know satisfaction that is the opposite of frustration, and happiness the opposite of sorrow. Satisfaction comes out of reaching what we aim at. Happiness is given by success. All these are positive, negative emotions of life, actually lower life from the point of view of the Spirit. Spirit, when it emerges, gives a FULLNESS. It is an inner fullness. When that inner fullness emerges, we find mind is incapable of thought, vital life is incapable of sorrow or worry. Just around us there is no failure to be witnessed. The successes we see give Joy, not happiness. JOY is a richer vital fullness, before which happiness pales into insignificance.

All the parts of our being - spirit, mind, life and body - are really of the Spirit because the whole world is made up by the Spirit. It is the beginning, it is the end and the middle. But that Spirit has the appearance of mind, life and body. When we say the Spirit emerges in us, it means the Original Spirit rises to the surface of the body, mind and life. Therefore the FULLNESS. When the fullness is inner, life is full of prosperity. When it is outer, Life becomes YOGA. (MSS)

Also See Delight of Being in Theory of Creation

TO BE CATEGORIZED

Joy, Delight

From Negative Emotions of the Part to the Integral Nature and Whole of Joy

It is easier to complain, to be frustrated, to be depressed than to be happy. All these are partial emotions which we can manage. Joy being a total sensation is more difficult to express. (Sri Karmayogi)

Comment: Yes, it is so very true. Each of these is a spontaneous expression of our unmastered, limited being. It is carried over from our animal nature. Joy requires a control from the mind, or a connection deep into the heart, or opening to the Spirit. It stems from an integral, inner spiritual accomplishment ("sadhana" in the East) that is very different from the spontaneous expressions from our lower emotions. Steady and deep Joy ("ananda" in Sanskrit) is a great achievement of Being over Non-Being. Karmayogi indicates the quickest way to such steady Joy and Bliss is constant self-offering of the details of our lives to the Divine Force (consecration), and unbridled Self-Givingness.

Happiness, Unhappiness

Happiness of the Unformed Personality

The energies of happiness are absorbed by the unformed personality for the purposes of formation. (MSS)