Divine Joy (Ananda)

People think that there is a special merit in suffering and that all enjoyment is a sort of sin; so they turn away from the joys of life and deliberately inflict misery and suffering upon themselves.

That is not our path. To us all suffering is due to ignorance and is a sign of imperfection. It is the Divine in us who tastes our joys, and it is on the Divine in us that we inflict all our sufferings. To seek then the true joys in life and avoid all sufferings is the secret of our sadhana. It is thus that we grow in love to the Divine Beloved seated within us and become one with the divine nature.

We want to make our work not dry and joyless, but full of delight and enthusiasm; we seek no egoistic satisfaction but the great joy that comes from the conscious service of the Divine. Our search for truth and knowledge is not a laborious effort of the reasoning mind, but a joyful expression of the divine light in and through us. We do not hanker after the sensuous pleasures of the body, but seek to make ourselves absolutely clean and pure, free from all nervous reactions, so that pure ananda may descend from above and seize even the material cells of our body.

Our sadhana is to offer the highest ananda to the Divine Lover who dwells within us and everywhere in the universe, and this is possible only by identifying ourselves completely with Thee, Mother Divine, through sincere love and devotion.

* * *

Every movement in Thee, Mother, is an expression of supreme Beauty; those only miss it who are blinded by their selfish ignorance and are confused by the clamour of the senses.

Through all things and events in the world Thou art eternally manifesting the Truth; the world is moving from light to light, from power to power, from joy to joy; in and through Thy play in the universe, the all-pervading Divine Being eternally enjoys His self-expression.

People miss the beauty and the joy in the universe, because they cut themselves off from the perennial flow by their ignorant egoism. Nothing is of interest to them that does not serve their selfish purpose; nothing brings joy to them unless it comes in the crude form of limited sense-enjoyment; they become miserable when the Divine Shakti seems to ignore their egoistic demands. Impelled by the vain desire to possess things for the sake of the ego, they put themselves into eternal conflict with the forces of the world.

Save me from this narrow selfish standpoint. Mother, let me identify myself with Thy movement of Truth, let me realise the infinite consciousness so that I may share with the Divine Purusha the infinite joy of Thy world-play.