PART 4, Section 3: An End to All Drama
Henry David Thoreau once said, “Surely joy is the condition of life.”
Joy is fundamentally different from the practice so many of us have of "cheering ourselves up."
That’s because whenever we attempt to cheer ourselves up, life is guaranteed to provide us with an opportunity for drama that will instantly wreck our cheerfulness.
When we aren't in touch with our innate joy, we humans have a proclivity for drama.
In fact the norm in many lives is drama. It’s the way many of us put a little zip in our day, spice things up. It breaks the monotony of the mundane, the mediocrity of everyday existence.
Though for a time drama gives us a shot of excitement to alleviate the dull dreariness in which so many of us exist, it makes us miserable afterwards. We are left with an icky sensation.
The good news is that there is purpose to this drama and the misery it produces.
When our drama finally causes us to collapse in on ourselves so that we no longer have what it takes to cheer ourselves up, there remains only one viable way forward: We become open to the possibility that life can be lived above the hazy norm of most of society.
We discover the truth of Thoreau’s assertion that joy is the bedrock state of our being.
We realize that it’s possible to enjoy a life so free of all the inner pain we’ve been loaded down with that it breaks through the sound barrier of the norm.
The usual way to think of life isn’t in terms of joy. The drama is so dense in many of our lives that joy rarely gets a look in—which is why we are always trying to cheer ourselves up, doing something to try to make ourselves happy.
Joy and cheering ourselves up are incomparably different. We either live according to the norm, which is mediocrity punctuated with drama and then an attempt to cheer up, or we live way beyond the norm in the realm of joy.
Emerson explained, “Our first mistake is the belief that the circumstance gives the joy which we give to the circumstance.”
Emerson's insight is such a reversal of the usual way of thinking. We don’t need to cheer ourselves up, but to bring our inherent joy to all of our circumstances.
Emerson recalls a bitter cold day—the sort of weather that many of us would have complained about, turning it into an experience of drama. Says Emerson, “Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear.”
Perfect exhilaration—glad to the bring of fear! In other words, so filled with joy you can hardly stand it.
It scares us to be this joyous, so accustomed are we to the story we tell ourselves of the drama of the other shoe falling.
The ultimately real isn’t our drama. There’s no true aliveness in drama, just a transitory semblance of aliveness. The ultimately real is gladness—joy.
What is so obviously right for us as humans is a sublime state. We are made for gladness, ecstasy, rapture—without any suggestion that ultimate reality is sad. The temporary elevation of excitement we get from creating drama is a poor substitute for the joy that comes spontaneously from within when our thoughts and emotions are still.
With this realization, the usual round of happiness alternating with sadness, good fortune with bad fortune, unravels. In discovering joy as our basic state, we lose all need to generate drama. We no longer plod through our days haunted by a suspicion that something is about to go wrong.
When we are in our right mind instead of beside ourselves with drama, we find ourselves opening to the infinite. This means there’s no end to our joy, and therefore never again a need for drama.
Life isn’t ultimately sad, requiring drama to spice it up, but ultimately rapturous. All need to cheer ourselves up evaporates as we realize that we were never made for anything other than to be glad.
Opportunity for Self-inquiry and Sharing:
A. Have you experienced in your own life the vast difference between the "happiness" achieved by cheering yourself up and the joy that arises spontaneously from within when you become still in your mind and emotions?
B. Are you seeing a lessening of drama and an increase in your ability to be present, simply experiencing the gladness that is the nature of being?
This ends Section 3 of Part 4
Section 4 will be posted on Monday, September 6
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yep when i find that drama occurs, i know that it's time for me to meditate. usually if i meditate more often, i experience less drama in my life; almost to the point where i find nothing wrong & am happy. Then its like nothing traumatic could even occur because it doesn't affect me as before.
these are enlightened words; beautiful; so clear and authentic; no flowering prose, just plain as day; i love this
A question for the author - If we humans are made for gladness, rapture etc, and have somehow moved away from that state, how to come back to it? Getting rid of pain body (drama) seems to be one method suggested here that should help. In my experience removal of pain body does not seem sufficient to bring us back to the ever joyous state. So please tell us what else is needed to bring that state about.
This is a wonderful question and will be answered next Monday. Thank you for asking it.
The joy in me has risen! Today, I feel joyous. Not because my emotional charge has passed/integrated, just because. I remember when I was a young boy in upstate NY. The weather was always hit or miss, so always we had a plan for activities inside until the weather changed so we could go outside and play. I remember though, it didn't matter what the weather was like outside because we always were together and playing inside with toys, cards, all the kids just being with no concern or wishing anything different. We just accepted "what is". I remember experiencing ever present joy. I feel like I am returning to that! What an incredible feeling. Several years ago, while stationed in a remote place in New Mexico with the Air Force, I put out an intention, request to the Universe, Source, God, Existence, Whatever ;-) I wanted to be at a place where I could play Ultimate Frisbee any time I want, run, swim, play basketball, have enough money to travel and have a hot girlfriend. That was 23 years ago. Well 10 years ago I came here to Tampa not realizing my life was unfolding into my, what I thought was an abandoned request. I am now just fully awakening to my fulfilled (and then some) request. I am in awe. Sure, I am almost 5o, but I have more energy than I had when I was in my 20s. I appreciate and am grateful more than ever. I am discovering that inherent joy that I hear about so often in the articles, retreats, and spiritual gatherings I attend. How blessed I am. I can no longer express my gratitude in mere words. ...Peace, Dan
Thank you for sharing this beautiful testimony to your experience Dan. This is what it is all about. Much gratitude to you.
I just joined! Thank you for suggesting joining this Journey in today's Namaste Blog. Right now, I am on the 3rd time going through The Presence Process. The first with the Revised Edition. I absolutely love it! I tell ya though, I am going through a perceptual hell though. For the first time I actiually wrote out my intention as the book suggests. I will share it with you... "My overall intent for this journey through The Presence Process is to make a change in the qulity of my life experience and to neutralize all my unintegrated emotional charges." All I can tell you right now is "holy $*#&" I had no idea. I am actually on the 3rd session. I woke up this morning after a night of really painful emotional signatures that I thought (my mind's enabling eye) I had integrated. Then I began to look deeper and trace the emotional signature back. OMG! I realized this morning that I am 49 and every 7 years back I was experiencing an emotional signature from my first year. I am integrating now and letting the experience in. I am about to meditate now and really feel this emotional signature/imprint, emotional charge. More later, Yikes!! ;-)
This is a marvelous testimony to what The Presence Process does in a person's life. We so appreciate that you shared this. As you go deeper into the Process, you will realize even more of its power. By the third time through the Process, many find they are forever changed, their life so deeply enriched. This Journey to Higher Consciousness works wonderfully in conjunction with The Presence Process.