The Kingdom of Joy

Pure joy.  Pure ecstasy.  Pure goodness.  Pure being without an object or an opposite.  This is Who We Are.  But we are so intent on change and changing that we ignore the bliss of what is always effortlessly present.  We are so intent on trying to get what we think we don't have that we ignore the Wholeness of Being that has never lacked anything.  The Holy Instant when we make this re-discovery is not in the future.  It's not something we experienced before and want to have again.  The Kingdom of Joy is now, and is only experienced NOW.

In India they call the constant seeking of the conditioned mind Samsara, which translates roughly to the wheel of suffering.  Although we know our seeking has never brought us happiness, we continue to seek, continue to 'believe' that we will find what we want.  When Jesus said to seek and ye shall find, he didn't say what you'd find.  He simply urged us to continue to seek until we discover the Kingdom of Joy that is always here, and is always our reality. Because we have raised beliefs to cover the face of what IS, we will continue to compulsively seek until we let go of all beliefs.  Beliefs are conceptual getting mechanisms, tools of the ego.  Not one of them is true.

It's funny how angry and puffed up our minds can get when we don't find what we think we want.  The smokescreen of anger is the hardest smokescreen to see through.  It's hard to accept that our compulsive anger is simply the fear of the Love and Joy that we really are.  Somehow the belief that personal limits and rules and beliefs define me and keep me safe has seemed to obscure the Joy of my limitless Reality.  Somehow my compulsive habits of thought and rituals of body and mind have become my gods, the idols I pretend will give me what I want.  How silly of me.

Thankfully the Kingdom of Joy remains ever-present, untouched by my imaginings.  Joy and Love surround and enfold the entirety of the Kingdom, and Its Being has no end.  Ever-new Joy, continually expanding Bliss and Love, and a Peace so profound and all-encompassing it cannot be conceived by the conditioned mind.  All conditioning has to be laid aside, like last years toys.  All beliefs, all concepts, all wanting can be simply and lovingly released and seen to be nothing. The thought of something can be released, so I can again remember the Everything that I Am.

This New Years Day my prayer is simply the complete release of all the 'somethings' that appear to lurk in consciousness, like the clutter in the kitchen that needs to be cleared before the feast is prepared.  The Feast is the fullness of the Kingdom of Joy.