How To Invoke The Magical Power Of Joy

What I'd like to talk about today is the power of joy as a transformative principle. A lot of people go to church or they believe in deities that they must supplicate to or praise or sacrifice to in order to get favors, in order for things to work out well for themselves. That's not at all the place that I come from.

I don't believe in any external deity. I don't believe in any external god or goddess. All of that is part of me.

I see it as being part of each of us and we are all one, we are all joined. And the problem that we do have is that we have accepted a belief there is separation. We aren't joined together, we aren't one with our Creator, and that's where we get a lot of these ideas that we have to somehow coerce this powerful deity to give us favors.

One thing that you hear, especially in Christian churches, is to praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. What that usually means is that everybody gets very excited, very pumped up, and they get a lot of adrenaline going, and they raise their hands in the air, and they say, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, and they have a moment of ecstasy.

The Lord simply means the source of your good, which is within you. You don't give a tangible recognition as to what's good in your life. What are you praising? Some abstract principle? Something that's going to help you when you die? Something that's up in the heavens? What are you praising, and why are you praising it? We're taught these myths that there's some power outside of ourselves, that if we praise it, it will help us.

And that's a type of projection, because from that perspective, if there is such a Lord, it must have a big ego, and that ego needs to be stroked. And if we stroke the ego enough, then we'll get what we want. Basically, God is a narcissist.

None of that makes sense at all to me. What does make sense to me is that joy itself is a transformative principle, and that joy is one of the godliest experiences that we can summon within ourselves. To praise God simply means to enjoy what is ours to enjoy.

Remember that enjoy means to give joy to. So what is good? What is good? What we tend to do as human beings is we say, this is a little bit good. This is really good.

It's a little bit bad. That's really bad. We quantify everything from one to 10.

How good is this from one to 10? How bad is this? And that's how we experience things. It's a little bit this way. It's a lot that way.

The infinite doesn't see things that way. The infinite is all love. There's no degree of love.

There's no degree of joy. The infinite's part of us in that it extends itself as us. Since we are an extension of the infinite, we don't have degrees either, except for in our minds.

In that egoic thought system, we have accepted and then adopted. We were trained to. That's what everybody does here.

And so it's almost impossible for a young child to not learn the ways of the ego because that's how we all do things. We learn at a very young age that there are degrees. There are levels of joy.

There are levels of pain. The infinite doesn't share that opinion that there are degrees of things. There is no desire on the infinite's part for us to have anything other than joy.

The effects of joy are maximal to make things right again, to transform things. We take for granted the fact that we can take a breath, fill ourselves with energy, fill ourselves with life force. We take for granted that.

Now, if for some reason we weren't able to take the breath, all of a sudden that would go up to a 10 on the importance scale. But since we don't usually have to go without oxygen, most of us take it for granted. This thing that's got the capacity of bringing us maximal joy in every moment we take for granted.

No, I'm not saying that you have to go around every day being vitally aware of oxygen, but just understanding that the ego mind has relegated something so important to being, whatever. But if you were to take five minutes and just think right here and now, today, right where you are, what's good? The fact that you have opposable thumbs and you can make your fingers move. Therefore, you can type, you can knit, you can cook, you can wash dishes, you can put on your makeup, you can get dressed, you can wrap presents, all of those things that you can do because you have fingers and thumbs that move.

That's worth your consideration as being something good. Praise that. Enjoy that.

Enjoyment is the way you praise, to bring joy to your experience, understanding how wonderful it is that you have those hands. Maybe you were able to have some breakfast today. Think of all the people that don't have the ability to eat in this world.

Now, I'm not saying that in order for you to have joy that you need to compare yourself to others, but sometimes it is helpful for us to think along those terms for a moment in order to not take for granted something like food. And it also, when we don't take for granted something like food and that we enjoy our food, it gives us more of a motivation to be of help and assistance to those who can't have food because we're no longer taking it for granted. But the joy that we get from eating and nourishing our body to enjoy that.

Most of us don't enjoy eating. We just get right through it. We eat while we're doing something else just because we have to because we're hungry, but we don't enjoy it.

We don't just sit down and enjoy a meal. Sometimes we do. But if we can just think in terms of how much joy can I get out of eating food? How much joy can that bring me? And how much joy am I depriving myself of every day when I don't do that, when I just take it for granted? You probably have clothes.

I'm assuming you can afford clothes of some sort. You have some clothes that you've bought that you can use to protect yourself from the elements. That is something to enjoy, to rejoice in, to bring joy to your life.

The fact that you have any kind of wardrobe. If you go through your clothes in your closet, you could even place your hands on your clothes. We've talked about this in the lecture on how to charm something.

But you could place your hands on your clothes and just feel the vibration of those clothes and you and the joy that you have for having those clothes. And then when you put on those clothes, those clothes then become a talisman. You have joy emanating from you as a result of the fact that you remember how much good you have in your life.

You want to praise the Lord or praise the Lady, praise God, praise Goddess. That's how you do it. You praise what's good.

We don't need to praise the ego of a deity because that doesn't exist. That's something we made up. Let's think of a couple of other things before we move on.

Maybe you're like me and you love coffee. You just love coffee. If I have my coffee in the morning and I'm not enjoying it, I'm robbing myself.

I'm robbing myself of a transformative power that can carry me through the day longer than the caffeine will. The caffeine will wear off long before the joy that I invoked as a result of enjoying that coffee, enjoying the people in my life, enjoying my home, enjoying my dogs, enjoying my car. I know these are just things, but everything in our life is a symbol.

Every single thing in our life is a symbol. And if you understand that it's a symbol, then you are rejoicing the power behind that thing. So there is no such thing as a mundane item.

If it's bringing you joy, it's wonderful. Now, if you have things in your life that don't bring you joy, there are many ways to deal with that. One way is to find the joy that you're ignoring in it.

For instance, jobs. There are many jobs that come with annoyances, but also are enjoyable on other levels. So if you're working in a job that you're complaining about, you're robbing yourself of the transformative quality of joy.

One way to figure that out is to ask yourself, is there a way that I can enjoy this job? Is there a way that I can focus on the joy that this job brings me, and that joy will help me to overcome or transform the aspects of it that aren't so wonderful? Or maybe it's time for me to find a new job that brings me the joy. When push comes to shove, if I know that joy is the transformative principle, I can enjoy something no matter where I am, even the DMV. I enjoy the DMV sometimes just because it's great people watching.

It's just so fascinating. Instead of sitting there upset that I'm waiting and waiting in this god-awful taupe-colored room, I can start looking around and watch the people and watch their interactions and be highly entertained and really find great joy in it. You can find joy if you want to anywhere, but it's important, I think, that we start out with what is already good in our lives, going through the obvious ones and the not so obvious ones, just taking time.

And if you took maybe 10 minutes a day to go through and just ask yourself, what's good? What's good? And then committed to enjoying each of those things. You could even write it down on a piece of paper so you don't forget, I noticed these 10 good things in my life. So I'm committed to enjoying each and every one of them.

Finding joy, bringing joy. When you do that, you are immersed in a power that can overcome any challenge or difficulty. In addition to feeling good, you are plugging yourself into a magical power of transformation.

And the good news about this is you don't need to direct it. You just need to plug into it and be willing for it to heal. Be willing for it to rearrange things in your life.

It's an intelligent force. Joy is an intelligent force. It knows exactly what to do.

It knows what's going to bring you more joy and what's not going to bring you more joy. If you give it permission to, it will seep through all of the little nooks and crannies of your life and start to tweak them for you. Your job isn't to direct it.

Your job is to enjoy. Your job is to enjoy. How much enjoyment do we refuse to have throughout the day? How many times do we get kind of excited when somebody's life is falling apart a little bit? We don't want to admit it usually.

We usually don't want to admit that. But that's the ego at work when we see that, oh, their relationship ended. Isn't that too bad? But we have a little bit of twinge of enjoyment in that.

That's not true joy. That's not true joy. What that is, is a way that the ego tries to give you a counterfeit for true joy.

The ego's substitute for joy is when we are experiencing things like schadenfreude, especially the people that we think really deserve it. Something bad happens to them. Yay! And we think that's joy.

It's not joy. That's more like a stimulant, you know, like cocaine or something like that. It feels good for a minute, but then the comedown is huge.

You know what joy is because it brings only good. It brings only healing. It brings only love.

It's understandable when we rejoice in the downfall of people that we feel are bad. It's understandable, but do understand that it's not joy. When we understand that the true joy in our lives is something that we tend to suppress, it becomes very important for us to make it into a discipline.

I'm going to enjoy these things today. I'm going to stop putting off and procrastinating my joy for another day. That decision to enjoy is the most powerful tool that you have for healing, correction, and transformation.

I remember when I started to think along these lines a while back, it was so hard for me at first because I wasn't used to it. I thought I was pretty happy. I thought I was really positive.

But when I gave myself the assignment to enjoy the day, my mind went right to, oh, well, in order for me to enjoy the day, these things need to happen. Now, there's nothing wrong with having preferences and goals. Of course you can.

Joy is not dependent on those circumstances. And I had to get to the point where I understood no matter what's going on, whether it follows my plan or not, I can still invoke that joy. I can still enjoy my day no matter what.

Even if something appears to be not going my way, I can, if I have to, excuse myself and go into the restroom and close my eyes and relax, take a few deep breaths and ask myself, what's good? What's good right now? What is good right now? And if I can connect with what's good, and I can start that feeling of enjoyment of recognizing what's good, that empowers my ability to meet the circumstances that seem not so good, I'm much better equipped to deal with the situation coming my way that is seeming to threaten my joy if I'm unwilling to stop enjoying my day. If I'm unwilling to stop the flow of joy in my experience, meeting those circumstances is a snap, especially compared to the way I would normally meet those circumstances. It's a very powerful way of looking at things that most of us don't do.

I know we're taught, well, you should be grateful. So we make gratitude lists, which is good. We're taught that we should be grateful and all of those things.

But very rarely are we taught that our only job here is to enjoy ourselves. When was the last time somebody taught you that? Did you grow up being taught that? I didn't. I was taught that life is hard.

Money's hard. Life is hard. Relationships are hard.

Just deal with it. That's what I was taught. Nobody ever encouraged me to enjoy myself.

You can enjoy yourself on certain days. Christmas, Thanksgiving. Maybe if you go to Disneyland, you can enjoy yourself in those days.

But the rest of it? No, school's hard. Work's hard. Your chores are hard.

It's a hard life. But be grateful. Be grateful for your hard life.

What we're saying here is there's plenty for us to enjoy at any moment of time and point of space if we're willing to see it that way. If we're willing to orient to what is good. And if we really focus on what's good and enjoy it, then we are truly praising the Lord.

We are truly praising God. And when you do that, the power of that enables you to address any problem in a way that is efficient, effective, and expedient. There's two kinds of emotions.

There's a relaxed emotion, peaceful emotion, and there's a tense emotion. All of the emotions that are relaxed fall under the general heading of love. All the emotions that are tense fall under the general heading of fear.

Each has their own way of dealing with things. Joy is an instantaneous way of changing from the world of fear to the world of love in an instant. And it's already baked into you.

You know how to enjoy yourself. It's just that you don't. You've been taught to stop.

You've been taught not to. But you do know how to enjoy yourself. It's normal.

You can enjoy yourself just like you can breathe. But just like we're taught shallow breathing, we don't know that we're taught that, but we are. Most of us don't breathe very well.

We don't want to be too alive because it's scary if you're too alive, right? But just like we've been trained over time to have shallow breathing, we've been trained over time not to enjoy anything. The ego understands that if you enjoy things and you breathe too deeply, you'll disregard the ego. You'll relinquish it, and it won't be there anymore.

You won't need it. The whole world will change. Can't have that.

This idea of enjoying your life, enjoying your day, enjoying yourself, is not just something that's going to make time pass better. It is a transformative power that can overcome any difficulty when employed properly. People are always talking about, how do I connect with more power? I need more power.

That's how. Start enjoying yourself. You'll have more power than you'll know what to do with.

If you start enjoying yourself. And if you feel powerless, ask yourself what's good. Whether it's in regards to that thing or not.

Just what's good right here, right now. I'm going to enjoy that. You do that, and you have just plugged yourself into universal power that can overcome any situation.

But that's never, ever what we're taught to do. In fact, we're taught to do the opposite. We're taught to get really tense, furrow our brows and think hard.

And that's the worst thing you can do, is think hard and furrow your brow and get tense when you're trying to overcome a negative situation. You're becoming entrenched in the same thought system that created that negative situation in the first place. So if you want to be radical about your problem solving, learn how to enjoy yourself.

When you're in the throes of a problem, ask yourself what's good. I'm so glad that that's good. I'm going to enjoy that feeling of that being good right now.

There's a plethora of things that you can think of that are good in your life that you can just start enjoying right this second. And allow the power of that joy to be your reality. And then when you turn and face that situation plugged into that joy, watch things work themselves out.

You'll know what to do. You'll know how to respond. Because you're guided by the principle of joy rather than the principle of fear.

And the only thing we're taught to follow in this world is the principle of fear. We're never taught to follow the principle of joy. And we're never taught that the principle of joy can be invoked simply by enjoying ourselves.

Give that some deep consideration this week. Use this. Try this skill out for yourself.

And see if you can't solve some problems. Reorient yourself. And start allowing things in your life to work out better.

In your relationships to work out better. In your finances to work out better. In your general well-being.

Your health. All of that by finding the joy. By finding what's good and then committing to enjoying it.

Committing that you're going to enjoy yourself. You're going to enjoy your life. Regardless of what's going on around you.

In spite of it. In defiance of it. The rebellious spirit of enjoyment.

Joy puts you right in the present moment, doesn't it? If you're enjoying yourself, you're very present in the moment. The principle of joy is something that is usually talked about as being something good but not that powerful. And the reason why is because that's the way that we don't access the power.

But look at it differently. Choose to look at it differently. Choose to look at the power of joy as the most potent power you have at your disposal.

And it's always available to you. You don't have to learn anything. You don't have to go anywhere.

You don't have to do anything other than reorient your mind. You can start enjoying yourself right now. And then just watch.

Watch the power that you have to overcome problems. And to become more prosperous. And healthier.

And all of the things that you want in your life. Watch how they start unfolding. Just because you've made that choice to experience enjoyment.

Thank you so much for spending some time with me today. I so appreciate you. Until the next time.

Blessed Be.