Hello dear friends! It’s me again! Can you even believe it? I know I just posted/newslettered yesterday, but I decided this morning, after a lush, aquatic meditation, a meditation that seemingly took place in an octopus’ garden, that I wanted to offer a New Year’s Day blog post about joy.

I could talk about the cozy joy of one of our cats, Tiberius the Mysterious, purring in my lap as I meditate every morning and evening. Or about the silly joy of doing yoga everyday with my wife, best friend, comrade-in-arms, fiendish co-conspirator, and all-around sex pal, Carolyn – that yoga performed while listening to dorky, quasi-Indian, yoga music for which, if our young, cool, hipster selves could see us now, they would leap out of a 10-story building and plunge to their deaths, just to stop it from ever happening.  

Or I could talk about the creative joy of writing in my snuggly little office (the one that used to be my Rolfing office, pre-dumbass COVID-19) while listening to the tragically underrated New Wave band XTC, and DEVO’s critically-hated-but-actually-masterful second album, Duty Now for the Future, and the voluptuous, impish genius of Kate Bush. 

But instead I’m going to focus on these two really interesting meditations I had last week, and on how their unjoyousness was, paradoxically, what made them joyous. 

Y’see, I have this stubborn tendency to view meditation as a stiff martini, in the sense that it’s supposed to make my bodymind happy. I want it to transport me into deep ecstatic peace, vast silence, devotional bliss, stuff like that. In our way, this is the exact opposite of how you’re supposed to relate to meditation. It’s basically the approach of a junkie – self-focused, craven, seeking. All of which my head knows but my emotional self not so much.

Anyhoo, quite often, and despite my wrong-headed orientation, my Guru actually does somehow drag me out of painful emotional states (PTSD flashbacks, whatevs) and into all sorts of love-drenched, chest-melting, face-opening states. Sometimes tears, tidal waves of gratitude, all of that. For which I’m plenty grateful, don’t get me wrong.

But the two meditations last week were, for me, a whole new kind of goodness. Both times, as I sat down to begin meditating, I was in low, hurting moods. And the secretly-hoped-for-shift into overt shiny peace, silence, ecstasy, and fullness didn’t happen. Like, at all.

At some point though, in both meditations, a shift took place. Some part of me decided to not be concerned about my low, hurting mood and to just allow the sweetness of devotion to my Guru to be there anyway, simultaneously. Yes, the bodymind may feel shitty and hopeless, but really, who cares? What does that have to do with anything? I’m going to practice devotion to the Spiritual radiance that shines through my Guru anyway, at the same time. It was very simple and ordinary. 

These two meditations were in many ways different from each other. Each had its own unique qualities. But they could both be described in these basic terms. And in both cases I noticed that “behind” (so to speak) and all around the heavy, complicated joylessness of my bodymind there was a gentle glow of joy. My joylessness was still there, but it was arising in a boundless field of soft, silent joy. 

In a sense, I am more grateful for these tastes of the Happiness that Transcends the bodymind, than I am for the times when my bodymind is, itself, God-Smacked out of painful memory states into ostentatious bliss states. My intention for this new year is to be wide open to this joy that Transcends but also includes and embraces everything. Nom, nom.

Here is what I feel is a fine, fitting excerpt of Adi Da’s words for our new year. (NOTE: If you are unfamiliar with Gurus, Avatars, Siddhas and the like, you might be put off by His saying stuff like “turn to Me” as synonymous with “turn to God.” To us Westerners this sounds outrageous and frighteningly messianic. But God Realized beings have always spoken in these ways (e.g. the God Realizer Jesus said, “I am the Way. None shall enter the Kingdom of God but through Me.” So don’t worry. It’s all good.) Please enjoy. And may you have a blessed and joyous new year unfolding before you, day by day. 

“The Heart is Paradise, regardless of the signs of the times…It is a Divine Happiness, a Heart-Happiness – to be made concrete in your relations with one another…It is a disposition to be manifested in all of your life…As the ‘world’ takes on the color of death, you must more and more take on the color of the Heart…If you look to the ‘world’ instead of to Me, you will have more and more reasons to be depressed and ‘dark’ yourself, more and more reasons to be ego-possessed…[Instead] take God seriously, take the holy life seriously, in spite of the signs of the times.”

“…be converted, like the Scrooge, from Dickens’ Christmas Carol. Convert your life….You must be Happier than the ‘world’. You must be at the center of the ‘world ‘ – ‘knowing’ the ‘world’ as it is – and forget about it, and live for love…

“Never submit to the ‘world’, and never submit to separate ‘self’. Instead, turn to Me, commune with Me, and forget about the ‘world’. That is the life of Joy. And it is the law that must be manifested in every moment of your life, for all the years you live. Understand, then – and do this, for real…Make your life out of Joy…forget the ‘world’, and forget yourself. Love Me, and love one another. Be full of love. Be full of the Happiness That Transcends the ‘world’.”

                                                                        —Adi Da Samraj