The Source of Joy

"The Christ in you is very still. He looks on what He loves, and knows it as Himself. And thus does He rejoice at what He sees, because He knows that it is One with Him and with His Father. Specialness, too, takes joy in what it sees, although it is not true. Yet what you seek for is a source of joy as you conceive it. What you wish is true for you. Nor is it possible that you can wish for something and lack faith that it is so. Wishing makes real, as surely as does will create. The power of a wish upholds illusions as strongly as does love extend itself. Except that one deludes; the other heals." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 24, Section V, 1:1-10

"There is no dream of specialness, however hidden or disguised the form, however lovely it may seem to be, however much it delicately offers the hope of peace and the escape from pain, in which you suffer not your condemnation,. In dreams effect and cause are interchanged, for here the maker of the dream believes that what he made is happening to him. He does not realize he picked a thread from here, a scrap from there, and wove a picture out of nothing." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 24, Section V, 2:1-3

Joy and happiness are not topics that people discuss everyday, although we think they are our motivation for doing what we do. Who does not profess to wanting to be happy? Who in their right mind would run away from joy? Well, most of us are usually not in our right mind, so that explains it!

What a conundrum! We say we want joy and happiness, but we continually make decisions in life based on fear. Fear that we might not find a better job. Fear that the pain of this relationship might just be my fault, or that I might be making a mistake. Fear that we might lose what we're 'supposed' to have. Fear that without this or that, we can never be happy or complete. Fear that joy only comes from... fill in the blank.

Fear is not Joy. Fear is not Happiness. Fear is not Love. And joy, happiness, and love can never come from fear. They can only come from Love ItSelf, which is the only Source of everything. The thing is, we can and do generate illusions based on fear, and keep ourselves deluded. As the above quotes tell us, we can and do take joy in our illusions... but it is not Joy. It is a counterfeit, a sleight-of-hand, and sooner or later we suffer. Illusions do, after all, always go up in a puff of smoke, sooner or later.

In our dreams, what we want to be true is true for us. In our dreams, we weave a world and populate it. In our dreams, it all comes to pass... literally. All things pass. God never changes. What is REAL never changes... It is the Ground of our Being and our True Joy.

We suffer not because we are wrong or bad... we suffer because we cannot keep the specialness of the dreams we have created. We are like small children who weep and throw tantrums when our toys grow old and break or fall apart. Specialness deludes not because it is anything at all... but because it is the means by which we stay asleep and dreaming, always hoping for a better dream.

The Source of All Joy and Happiness is not out there. It lives and moves and has Its Being in YOU. Join me today, and make time to be still, to listen, and to remember Who You Are. The Source of Joy is the Allness and Oneness of the Self that we share. The Source of Joy is constant and free. The Source of Joy can never be lost. The Source of all Joy is HERE, NOW.

"The Christ in you is very still. He knows where you are going, and He leads you there in gentleness and blessing all the way." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 24, Section V, 6:1-2