The Importance of Joy – The Divine Life Society

Sri Swami Chidananda

This article is a chapter from the book Seek The Beyond.

Worshipful homage to that great Reality, the eternal and the infinite, the timeless and the boundless–beyond human understanding, baffling human language to adequately describe Its imponderable, indescribable, transcendental glory. May Its divine grace ever be upon all of us!

Loving adorations to revered Holy Master Gurudev Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj who through his radiant personality, his effulgent countenance and his sparkling eyes gave us some little faint glimpse of that great glory in whose experience he was firmly established. He shone with a light that is Divinity. May his benedictions always be upon us all in this great journey beyond the beyond.

We have mentioned the thrill, the joy of the spiritual adventure, this journey to reach the great destination. We have mentioned that the joy, the thrill is not so much in reaching the destination but in the effort itself, in the onward and upward progress towards the goal. It is in the journey itself that the joy is there.

But then, this is not merely a manner of speaking, but it is a necessity also. It is also indispensable and very important. There is a necessity to this joy, there is an importance to this joy and an indispensable place. For if you do not have a real joy and happiness in any undertaking, you cannot engage in it with enthusiasm. If you do not have joy and great pleasure in some undertaking, you cannot give yourself fully, heart and mind to that undertaking. Your dedication to it, or your application to it, will be at best half-hearted.

If you do not get real joy and pleasure out of it, you will not ingather, gather together and concentrate the whole of your energy, your capacities, your abilities. So it will be part of your life, not the whole of your life. The totality of your being will not become diverted and fully applied to that great attainment. So, at best, it will be a part of you that is engaged in this great task, whereas another part of you is equally engaged in something else.

But, this is not merely a great task. It is too great a task to be undertaken by half of you. It is that one unique dimension of life which demands for its attainment the whole of your life, your entire life–all its potentials, all its time, energy, attention and application. If you give yourself totally to this quest, then you may be assured that God gives Himself totally to such a dedicated seeker, aspirant and devotee. This has been the experience of all the great ones. In various ways they have tried to bring home to us this truth.

And such total dedication with all your being, all your heart, mind and soul, is only possible if you get joy out of it. If it is a task that fills you with great elation, great rejoicing, great inner jubilation and happiness, then alone such total dedication–which is very, very necessary–is possible.

So this, therefore, is the necessity of joy. It is necessary to sustain us in this arduous task of the realisation of the Absolute, this arduous task of illumination and enlightenment, this arduous task of self-transcendence, to attain Self-experience. This is the truth. May the Supreme Being and Holy Master help us to perceive this truth and help us to succeed in this great attainment! God bless you all!