What is Joy?

Joy is not pleasure. It is not bodily based. Pleasure comes from five senses. A tastey food gives us pleasure. Similarly a soothing and warm touch creates a sense of pleasure. Because of its dependence on the five senses, we get bored by pleasure. We then yearn for something which is always fresh, alive and amazing. That thing comes only with joy. Unlike pleasure, joy is not caused by anthing. It has no physical dimension into it. It comes from something transcendental, something unknown and uncaused. We can control pleasure as it is very much in our hands. We can set the tune to the music to make it more melodious, add some flavour to the foods to make it more tasty but we cannot do so with joy. It is not in our hands. We can only be available to it. It has its own world. We have no authority over it. But it is always fresh. It never gets stale and we never get bored by it. We get thrilled by it. Life becomes meaningful when we come into its contact. It makes us to fall in love with life. Life becomes meaningful due to its presence. Without joy, life is full of burden. Joy removes all our sufferings and turmoils. It is due to joy that the poets have composed their poetry and the painters have sketched their paintings and the sculptors have sculptured their statues. It is the source of all creativity. Without it the artists feel empty where nothing artistic happens. Fights, wars and all cruel activities occur when people become joyless. It is the anecdote of all of our sufferings. Knowingly or unknowningly we all yearn for it. The amazing thing is that to feel joyful, one needs not to do anything; one needs not to earn anything; one needs not to be worthy of anything. The very nature of life is such that if one becomes available to it, if one surrender to it then the joy becomes the default of one’s nature. To be joyful is very much part of our nature. We are not here to suffer. Existence has not made us so. It is out of our ignorance that have turned this beautiful and joyful existence into suffering and turmoil. that’s the reason when we do not feel joyful we feel that we lack something. Of course we miss the natural component of our life. It is very natural that we then yearn to be joyful as to be joyful is our very nature. Unless we regain our lost part we are not going to be at rest.

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