Real joy comes from within

Joy is not happiness, because happiness is always mixed with unhappiness. It is never found in purity, it is always polluted. It always has a long shadow of misery behind it. Just as day is followed by night, happiness is followed by unhappiness.

Joy is a state of transcendence

Then what is joy? Joy is a state of transcendence. One is neither happy nor unhappy, but utterly peaceful, quiet, in absolute equilibrium; so silent and so alive that his silence is a song, that his song is nothing but his silence. Joy is forever; happiness is momentary. Happiness is caused by the outside, hence can be taken away from the outside — you have to depend on others. And any dependence is ugly, any dependence is a bondage. Joy arises within, it has nothing to do with the outside. It is not caused by others, it is not caused at all.

Joy is the spontaneous flow of your own energy

If your energy is stagnant there is no joy. If your energy becomes a flow, a movement, a river, there is great joy — for no other reason, just because you become more fluid, more flowing, more alive. A song is born in your heart, a great ecstasy arises.

It is a surprise when it arises, because you cannot find any cause for it. It is the most mysterious experience in life: something uncaused, something beyond the law of cause and effect. It need not be caused because it is your intrinsic nature, you are born with it. It is you in your totality, flowing.

The flow is always towards the ocean

Whenever you are flowing, you are flowing towards the ocean. That is the joy: the dance of the river moving towards the ocean to meet the ultimate beloved. When your life is a stagnant pool you are simply dying. But when you are flowing, the ocean is coming closer every moment, and the closer the river comes, the more dance there is, the more ecstasy there is.

Your consciousness is a river

It is a continuity, an eternal continuity, an eternal flow. Buddha has never thought about you and your being as something static. In his vision, the word "being" is not right. According to him, being is nothing but becoming. He denies being; he accepts becoming, because being gives you a static idea of something inside you like a rock. Becoming gives you a totally different idea: like a river, like a lotus opening, like a sunrise. Something is constantly happening. You are not sitting there like a rock, you are growing.