JOY
Joy is a special quality that comes from deep within us. It is a radiating light that uplifts human consciousness, bringing strength, love and compassion to others. It is described in the Agni Yoga writings as the manifestation of the Creator’s Power, illumining a world in darkness.1 And in Alice Bailey’s writings, we find advice to ponder on joy, happiness, gaiety and bliss, as these release the channels of the inner life and reach – in a wide circle – many others. They heal and cleanse the physical body and can help servers to do their work “with little effort, a proper sense of values and a detachment which is based on love and not isolation”.2
In spiritual terms, there is a distinction between happiness and joy. Happiness concerns the physical life with its desires, events and mental constructs. Happiness comes and goes; there is a constant ebb and flow. Joy is not worked up from below as an objective or goal but is a spontaneous manifestation of the love and light of the soul. It is a universal quality that transcends prejudices and man-made barriers. Joy is not dependent on worldly status or position, neither is it a reward for services rendered or for honours bestowed. Paradoxically, in the midst of personality distress and unhappiness, the joy of the soul may be known and felt.3 When the simplicity of the soul guides life and relationships in a spirit of self-forgetfulness, joy can emerge when least expected as an illuminating light revealing the good, the beautiful, and the true, which are so often veiled by illusion and glamour.
Joy uplifts the spirit, and we can tune into this special quality daily in so many ways. Not only might it be found in the sacred spaces of the world’s cathedrals, churches, mosques and temples, but it can also come to us through the arts and music, through the beauty of the natural world, in the mountains with their sparkling streams and in the ebb and flow of the oceans. It may be sensed in the innocence of children playing, in the relationships with loved ones or as we stand awestruck at the beauty and grandeur of the dark night sky, pondering the meaning of life and our place in the cosmos. In the silence and solitude of the inner worlds, joy is all around us.
"Joy settles as a bird within the heart
but has winged its way from the secret place within the head.
I am that bird of joy.
Therefore, with joy I serve." 4
- Leaves of Morya’s Garden, Book One, The Call, S.240
- Alice Bailey, Discipleship in the New Age, Vol.1, p.170
- Alice Bailey, A Treatise on WhiteMagic, p.370
- Alice Bailey, Discipleship in the New Age, Vol.1, p.158
Reach up to the heights of the soul and, having sought and found that pinnacle of peace and that altitude of joy whereon your soul immovably stands, then look into the world of living men—a threefold world in which all men, incarnate and discarnate are found. Find there that which your soul can and will recognise. The glamours of one's own distress, the maya of the past distorts one's point of view. Only the soul stands clear from illusion, and only the soul sees things as they are. Mount, therefore, to the soul.
A. Bailey, Discipleship in the New Age, Vol.1, p.463