A friend and I talk, and I speak what has been on my mind and heart for days, "I miss being with others and feeling the sense of that Holy." She says, regarding where I worshiped that morning, "I've never felt that there." that morning, I left the gathering as usual, having appreciated the kindness, but worship is about so much more than being kindly toward each other, worship is about receptivity and the Otherness of that mystery we live and breathe within and as.
Sun shines brightly, cold winter Saturday morning in Maine. Tributaries are covered with ice. Driving through town and to the swinging bridge overlooking the river. Now, waiting at a stoplight. Here, basking in the warm sunlight through the truck window to the left. A sudden joy from nowhere. These words, as I smile, "Odd, this. I shouldn't be feeling this way. But I am."
* * *
Why this response that you shouldn't be feeling joy?
Upset was present.
So, you had been upset?
Upset is a word of emotional negativity, if one wishes to call it that, but to speak of negative emotion does not feel right to me, separates us from feelings. We must be intimate with emotion, while not identifying with it, so, "Upset was present," not, "I was upset."
What do you mean that it arises from "nowhere"?
Just that, nowhere, and I do not use it as a figure of speech, as when persons say something came out of nowhere, meaning, suddenly, unexpectedly. That is why we call it joy, or bliss, rather than happiness. As I have said before, recall, happiness is based on happenings, joy arises free of what did, is, or may happen. Happiness, then, arises from outside the heart, joy arises with the heart. The heart contains all that happens, is not subject to any of them.
You've said before to avoid "shouldn't," yet you say you felt this?
I use "spontaneous" as free of both "should" and "shouldn't." "Should" or "shouldn't" may arise, then dissolves back into the heart. I like the Tibetan Buddhists speaking of Luminosity, that all arises and returns to this beingness, not being this or that, and free of distinction in qualities.
Again, I'm confused about nowhwere?
We have no language for the experience from nowhere, for it arises from nowhere.
Do you experience joy differently alone as contrasted with being with others?
The sense of intimacy, of the subtle of all qualities, feels enhanced but less intense apart from others, simply for there is more an inwardness in being alone. This is like inhalation and exhalation. Alone, feels like inhaling, with others, like exhalation, the sharing of what has been drawn to intimately in the solitariness.
Can one be sad and joyful at the same time?
Yes, one can be joyfully sad. Joy does not exclude sadness. Joy includes sadness in the heart. Do not identify with either joy or sadness, and the two will be in harmony, as though one quality, not two. Seek neither of the two, identify with neither of the two, see both as natural expressions of Life.
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*The theme of "Lotus of the Heart" is 'Living in Love beyond Beliefs.' This work is presented by Brian K. Wilcox, of Maine, USA. You can order Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, through major online booksellers.
