Joy and Entertainment : ) x

Ordinarily what we think is joy is not joy; at the most it is entertainment. It is just a way to avoid oneself. It is a way to intoxicate yourself, it is a way to be drowned in something so you can forget your misery, your worry, your anguish, your anxiety

So all kinds of entertainments are thought to be joy – they are not! Anything that comes from the outside is not, and cannot be, a joy. Joy arises Out of your very core. It is absolutely independent of any outer circumstances. Joy arises only when you come home. Because you are joyless you seek entertainment. It happened that one of the great Russian novelists, Maxim Gorky, visited America. He was shown all kinds of things that Americans have devised to entertain themselves, to get lost in. The man who was directing his tour was hoping that he would be very happy. But the more Maxim Gorky was shown around, the more unhappy and sad he looked. The guide asked him “What is the matter? Can’t you understand?” Maxim Gorky said. “ I can understand – that’s why I am feeling sad. This country must be joyless; otherwise there is no need for so many entertainments.” Only a joyless person needs entertainment. The more joyless the world becomes, the more we need the TV, Films, tinsel town and a thousand and one things. We need alcohol more and more, we need new kinds of drugs more and more – just to avoid the misery that we are, just not to face the anguish that we are, just somehow to forget it all. But by forgetting it nothing is achieved.

So joy is to enter into your own self. In the beginning it is difficult, arduous. In the beginning you will have to face misery; the path is very mountainous. But the deeper you enter into it, the greater the reward.

Once you have learned how to face your misery, you start becoming joyful, because in the process of facing it the misery starts disappearing and you start becoming more and more integrated.

One day the misery is there and you are facing it suddenly the break: you can see the misery as separate from you and you are separate from it. You have always been separate; it was just an illusion, an identification that you got into. Now you know you are not this, and then there is an outburst of joy, an explosion of joy.