Living in a state of joy (This is an excerpt from my book, The Intelligent Body, specifically, the introduction.)

INTRODUCTION

“The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.”

~ KAHLIL GIBRAN (1883–1931), LEBANESE POET

To live in joy is to live exactly as yourself. You feel alive and free no matter what happens in your life. The experience of constant joy is so completely who you are that how you feel doesn’t fluctuate. You say what you have to say, you feel what you feel, and you do what is important to you. This allows for steady living. What you feel and what you do are congruent. You can rely on yourself.

The first time I experienced constant joy was after the body- building competition, and it lasted for three months. From that moment on, everything that happened in my life felt like a bonus. Each moment of life was another experience. That I could keep having more experiences was a dizzying privilege. I had a constant feeling of perfection in whatever was happening. Life became a vivid display of non-stop perfect moments. All my faculties were enhanced. I couldn’t use any of my senses. They were all being utilized exactly as needed: I didn’t need to watch or read with my eyes, I saw what was essential. I knew that everything was here. There was nothing to do. Life was already complete. I was complete.

The assertion “I could die now” would have expressed how I felt, and the bonus was that I could keep living knowing this without the drama of needing to croak. I knew that this was the only way we are ever to feel. The “this” was later revealed to me.

Four years later, I read about my experience in a book, The Myth of Freedom and the Way of Meditation, by Chögyam Trungpa, one of North America’s Buddhist teachers. When I read his description of non-duality I practically stood up and cheered as someone under- stood what I had experienced and was describing it precisely. It was after reading this book that I understood the experience of constant joy to be a state of consciousness referred to as “non- duality.” I was twenty-five years old when I discovered this description of my uninterrupted joy. That book became a part of my wardrobe. It was always on my person. It became so worn and tattered that it fell into pieces. I would carry around a ten-page piece in a pocket and read it daily, wherever I was, in line at Loblaws, waiting for my nephew to wake up from a nap in the car, every- where I could get a glimpse. I felt this absolute resolve that if I could understand the state, then I would be a candidate to invite it back into my being. It seemed that if I could practise the disciplines of meditation and contemplation presented in the book, I might re-evoke the state.

Yet at the back of my mind, this felt like a lot of effort. Since I had not been “practising” any discipline when constant joy had taken over, why would I need to start now? That year I experienced it again when I gave birth to my daughter, Sarah. (Just to be ever so clear, childbirth lacks joy-filled sensations.) I recognized the pattern. It occurred when I brought myself to an edge and went further in my life. I sensed that if I stayed intentional and followed through with the goals in my heart, especially the biggies, I would experience joy constantly.

I experienced constant joy eight more times, which now equated to ten times. The first time at twenty-one lasted for three months(!), some of the times were for minutes, other times were for hours, and once, following a drunken evening in cottage country, for four days! Another time I was walking along Bloor Street in down- town Toronto, and, voilà, I randomly returned to non-duality for five blocks.

The confounding thing was that I was practising Ashtanga yoga only one of the times that I found myself in the “state” of non- duality, so that didn’t explain the other nine times. How could they qualify? I was certain I had to earn this lofty state since it was described as a level of supra-consciousness. Who was I to randomly enter it? Was I a random “non-dualist” and didn’t need to practise? That seemed arrogant to me, and I am terrified of being a big shot. Who did I think I was? Some kind of exception to the rules? And then it occurred to me: There are no rules in non-duality. There were no rules when I was in it, and there cannot be rules prescribing what I need to do to experience it again. I realized you don’t enter constant joy, it happens. It takes over and becomes you. It initializes instantly and feels anything but miraculous. It feels seamless and normal. It’s not a big deal at all. I don’t want to present this experience of constant joy as something that you aren’t already. It is who you are.

Let me back up. Living joy constantly is you—the you who is here in this moment. Non-stop joy is the innocent, curious you before all the careful conditioned thinking thinned you out and wore you out. That vibrancy living in you can be uninterrupted, no matter what is happening and no matter what you are feeling. Honest.

I don’t want to tell you how to reach this experience as this would be a disservice and just wrong. Since you are pure joy, then I don’t technically need to point out how to be it. If I outline what constant joy is, and you see it as a state of a highly functioning mind or, even worse, a spiritual aspiration, then I have misrepresented joy. My aspiration is that you will know how it feels to be you, which is what joy feels like. Simply, the experience of constant joy is to be exactly who you are no matter what is happening around you. That is what this book is about: ways to feel who you are.

Most people don’t think constant joy is possible. There is one reason for this: the need to feel in control. We keep trying to control how we feel. We are so resistant to our feelings and how they could interfere with our day that we don’t even trust them. What we don’t know is that the intelligence in the emotion unlocks our cellular genius. This genius reveals a dynamic stamina for adaptation that far supersedes trying to stay focused.

How can I teach you how to reach an experience of constant joy? I can’t. It’s not possible. Joy cannot be taught. Joy is not accessed through intentional thinking. This is not a remedial project. Joy is to live in harmony with the intelligence that blinks your eyes and beats your heart. Joy is within you. Since it is currently beating your heart, how do you touch down into this voluntary intelligence? Through the body’s wisdom of feelings. The intelligence of felt feelings and their accompanying inner promptings direct a life of joy.

I will outline the qualities of joy and how to keep it alive. Along- side this dissection you will see the ways that we mess joy up and how to stop that. When you can’t feel joy, you are viewing a moment in your life as good or bad. If you were late while standing and waiting for the bus and thought (or said out loud because you’re menopausal), “Where’s the bus?” with vehemence, which is a pretty way of saying pissed off, then joy got corrupted. If you’re late waiting for the bus and think, “When I get there it will be closer to lunchtime.” Then you are in joy.

I am so delighted you are here because I sense that by reading this book you will enhance who you are. You will understand what is important to you and feel the potent promptings that are your natural inspiration. Natural inspiration comes from feeling. I will reveal how you can trust your feelings. Trusting how you feel is messy, yet massively revealing and helps you see how capable you are of experiencing life directly. The best part is that drama will leave your building. You will feel how to be with “what is” happen- ing and lack the consciousness to call it difficult, even if it is—and you can prove it. Instead, you will experience effortful moments directly. That’s how joy works: You experience all of life’s moments directly and don’t need to notice the harsh, impossible moments because they help guide your actions as they are happening. Real life examples will follow. Now let us begin your real life.

“There is an efficiency inspired by love which goes far beyond and is much greater than the efficiency of ambition; and without love, which brings an integrated understanding of life, efficiency breeds ruthlessness.”

~ JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI (1895–1986), INDIAN PHILOSOPHER, SPEAKER, AND WRITER