Working with Oneness by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Author:Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee [Vaughan-Lee, Llewellyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Golden Sufi Center
Published: 2002-05-01T04:00:00+00:00

Joy

“I have no name:

I am but two days old.”

What shall I call thee?

“I happy am,

Joy is my name.”

Sweet joy befall thee!

William Blake 1

THE NATURAL JOY OF LIFE

Joy is present in every atom of creation, waiting to be activated by God’s love in His world. Joy is a living remembrance of God, an affirmation of His oneness in the midst of life. Without joy life remains mundane and colorless, defined only by its battles for survival and dominance. Joy is like a sip of the wine of remembrance that intoxicates the soul with the awareness of His presence, a presence that is not separate from life but is the core of every activity, every passing moment.

The idea that God is other than life abandons the world to His absence. Then we are left alone, and the world holds only the pursuits of pleasure, the shadows of our real need for Him. But the lover knows how the awakening of love brings joy to life, makes every leaf radiant with color. She has experienced how every moment can carry a quality of intoxication. The world comes alive in love and gives us a glimpse of another dimension in which the heart always sings and the real colors of creation are visible.

Life has so many colors, just as it has so many hidden meanings. Awakening to love, we awaken to life in a different way; we see, smell, taste, and touch its hidden promise. Love lifts the veils that separate us from our Beloved, and reveals the wonder and glory of His world. For the lover even time loses its fixed quality; its boundaries dissolve as a moment lasts forever, as a kiss intoxicates us with the bliss that belongs to the soul.

Yes, we return from these moments into a harsher world, where lovers part and love’s taste becomes bitter. The bleak lines of the world break through again, and we feel the abandonment of a world without our lover’s presence, without his touch or smell. And yet, once we have sipped this wine, we know somewhere what is waiting. Our days may become dull again, and with the mechanical motions of life we pass the time, but we can never fully forget when love touched us and its sweet joy was present.

We cannot quantify joy. It slips through our fingers and runs down the street laughing at us. Unexpectedly it may come to us, like a jester, joking at our seriousness. It makes fun of the way we look to the future for fulfillment, because it knows that only the moment is real. Joy has no ladder to climb, no advancement to pursue. It has no prospects, and it is not given or taken away. It does not care for our well-being because it is our well-being.

Sometimes, in our dreams, we are able to slip past the guardians of common sense and allow ourself a taste of joy. Within a dream’s endless moment we are again in this landscape of promise. Our dreams open this door and offer us what we long for.

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