When joy arises, become it
Enter joy and become one with it – any joy, any happiness.” On joyously seeing a long absent friend…”. A sudden joy grips you. But your attention will be on the friend, not on your joy. Then you are missing something, and this joy will be momentary. Your attention is focused on the friend and miss this joy, but concentrate on joy, feel it and become it., and remain centered in your feeling of happiness. This can be done in all situations.
The sun is rising, and suddenly you feel something rising within you. Then forget the sun; let it remain on the periphery. You be centered in your own feeling of rising energy. The moment you look at it, it will spread. It will become your whole body, your whole being. And do not just be an observer of it; merge into it. There are very few moments when you feel joy, happiness, bliss, but you go on missing them because you become object-centered but joy is always within you and the friend & sunrise has just become a situation
And this is not only with joy, but with everything: with anger, with sadness, with misery, with happiness, with everything, it is so. Others are only situations in which things that are hidden in you are expressed. Whatsoever is happening, is happening TO YOU. From the hidden sources it has become apparent, manifest. Whenever this happens remain centered in the inner feeling, and then you will have a different attitude about everything in life.
Awareness works differently in positive & negative. If it is a poisonous emotion, you are relieved of it through awareness. If it is good, blissful, ecstatic, you become one with it. Awareness deepens it. If something is deepened by your awareness, it is something good. If something is dissolved through awareness, it is something bad.
Use your awareness. It is just as if there is darkness and you bring in light. Just by bringing light in, the darkness is no more there. It was negative, just an absence of light. Just by bringing in light, these shelves, these books, these walls appear, in darkness they were not; you could not see them. If you bring light in, darkness will be no more there, but that which is real will be revealed. Through awareness all that is negative like darkness will dissolve – hatred, anger, sadness, violence. Then love, joy, ecstasy, will, for the first time, become revealed to you.