On joy

To Spirit:

Spirit,

Please help me. I am feeling joy, and I notice the ways ego tries to tempt me away from this feeling. I notice that it will try to deny that I should feel joy while simultaneously trying to use my joy for its own separation purpose. On one hand it tells me I am not deserving of joy and that I should not be feeling it because of what I’ve done, but on the other hand it likes to excitedly use the joy as proof that I can be happy in its dream world it thinks it made. I see the contradiction and confusion. I’d prefer your interpretation instead.

Spirit, please help me.

From Spirit:

Joyful one,

Peace, love, and joy are your inheritance. It is only the ego who would try to convince you otherwise. You’ve done well in noticing it by its contradiction and confusion, and bringing it to me instead. Let me help you now.

Remember that there is only one problem and one solution. To the ego, however, there are many problems and many proposed solutions. The ego even sees problems with its own solutions. How confusing indeed!

Who could find a problem with joy but a truly sick part of the mind? Notice how it is never happy, even when it gets what it supposedly wants. The ego has promised you it has a way for you to feel joy in a truly joyless state of separation, but then it chastises you when you seek or seem to find it. It uses the same tool to both tempt you and to beat you down. And in this way it keeps you seemingly stuck, as this is the only way to prolong its illusory existence.

Who could find joy in a joyless place other than by recognizing they are not truly there? It is this realization that is bringing joy into your awareness, and it is this realization that is existentially threatening to the ego. The part of you who desires to be separate will never feel the joy of this realization. It will fight it with everything it thinks it has.

Remember you need not join it in its fight. Your one task remains the same: notice it, remember it is not you, and bring it to me instead. In refusing to fight it do you remind yourself it is not real. And in refusing to fight it do you allow the awareness of joy to remain.