Punctuate life with Joy
Enjoying vs Joy
Two types of "joy" exist: one hinges on objects, one lives in the heart. Explore the distinction between the one that pulls you out and the one that shines within. Both are worth exploring, as Patanjali tells us that all enjoyables are there for further bondage or for liberation.
Enjoyment, the most familiar, requires a subject that we can sensorily attach to to derive pleasure. It might be a drink, a smoke, a vacay destination, peonies, a device, the sunset, a fancy car, a person, a show, a meal…basically, all of that which we generally and specifically lean on to induce fleeting happiness. Clearly, this is an essential part of life. In order to eat meals, go out recreationally, open up to (and sustain) relationships with friends and lovers and find motivation, attraction and derive fulfillment
Even concepts, like peace, love, light, health, prosperity and spirituality can entangle us in the web of pleasure and pain. We’re uplifted when they are accessible and down when they’re not.
In essence, objects of our desire require desire itself, a klesa, an obstacle in the mind, to be activated. The wisdom is, how activated is it? For example, our upcoming retreat will dose you with the pleasure of warm Hampton summer sea breezes, friendly conversations, delicious lunch and accessible Yoga. Microdoses of fun and enjoyment can motivate us, provide positive energy and inspire us to keep going, offering just enough of a taste of joy to support positive transformation. We are only offering three of these, so you’ll likely not get addicted, although you may feel like doing it more frequently, and we’ll accommodate you, within balanced limits.
If desire increases without our ability to feel in control of it, if we are overindulging, being consumed by in the process of consuming, it’s too activated. And the flip side of desire is hatred. We wind up turned off to the thing, and likely to ourselves, as deep down, we don’t love being owned by anything.
It’s a false dichotomy to say it’s either one or the other, as it’s the repeated barking up the same tree of pleasure that shows us we need to find an eternal flame that doesn’t extinguish when the winds pick up. Enough experience of feeling the ups and downs of the cycle of pleasure and pain, its opposite, and we gain motivation to withdraw from that cycle and our attachment to external pleasure seeking. With Yoga’s tools, we also cultivate the ability to self soothe rather than substance or sensory soothe. That way, we don’t need to reach out any time we feel flooded, uncomfortable or triggered. We train ourselves to reach in.