I've Got Joy, Joy, Joy

"Please remember there is no place for disappointment or dejection in Sant Mat. It is a path of joy and hope." — Maharaj Charan Singh

"When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy." — Jalal ad-Din Rumi

"I have found the priceless jewel of the Lord's Name." — Mirabai

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Yesterday I drove six hours round trip to spend the day with my two oldest and dearest girlfriends. One flew in from Sweden to spend time with her siblings as they care for their aging parents. The other lives in Silver Spring, where she and her siblings are caring for their mother, who has dementia. We met in Frederick, Maryland for lunch, wandered through a few shops, and took a walk along the river.

We've known each other since we were nine years old - fifty-three years. We were children together in Bethesda, Maryland, long before any of us had careers, husbands, children, illnesses, losses, or all the responsibilities life eventually brought. Back then our biggest concerns were riding our bikes until the streetlights came on and deciding whose house we'd sleep at that weekend.

We spent the day catching up on the last several years. We talked about family, work, health, growing older, and all the ordinary things that somehow become extraordinary when you're talking with people who've known you almost your entire life. We remembered people who are no longer here. We laughed over stories we've each heard at least a hundred times, and somehow, they were every bit as funny as they were when we were teenagers.

Driving home, I realized I couldn't stop smiling. Nothing in my life had changed. Every responsibility I left behind was still waiting for me when I got home, but something inside me felt lighter. It made me think about joy, not happiness that comes because everything is finally going our way or the excitement of something new, but something real that reaches deeper than our circumstances.

Sometimes I think we forget how often the mystics speak about joy. We can become so determined to meditate better, serve better, and become better disciples that we unintentionally make spirituality feel far more serious than it was ever meant to be. Yet Maharaj Ji Charan Singh reminded us there is no place for disappointment or dejection in Sant Mat. It is a path of joy and hope.

When I first came to the path, two women lovingly guided me to Kathy. One of them was Sally. The funny part is that Sally introduced me to Kathy over the phone before Sally and I had ever actually met face to face. Looking back, it still amazes me how naturally the Master arranges these connections.

One day I mentioned to Sally that an old children's song had been stuck in my head for years.

"I've got joy, joy, joy, down in my heart..."

When my children were little, we practically lived in our van. There were cassette tapes scattered everywhere, and we sang constantly as I drove them to school, tee-ball games, dance lessons, birthday parties, and everywhere else life took us. That song was one of our favorites. I honestly couldn't tell you how many times the four of us sang it together.

After I told Sally that story, she made it our song. Every time she came to visit Kathy at the Parsonage, where Kathy lived at The Highlands in northeastern Pennsylvania, she'd walk through the front door, look at me with that beautiful smile, throw up her jazz hands, and start singing, "I've got joy, joy, joy..." Without missing a beat, I'd join right in. Before long we'd be standing around the kitchen island, laughing and singing together like two little girls instead of grown women. It became our thing. Even now, years later, I can see Sally's smiling face when thinking of that song.

Not long ago I was sitting in a cafe with another dear friend. At one point she laughed and said she sometimes feels as though she's the entertainer because everyone around her always ends up laughing. Within minutes we were laughing hard ourselves. Driving home afterward, I found myself thinking about that, too. Our lives hadn't changed in those two hours. We still had the same responsibilities, the same concerns, and the same unfinished business waiting at home. But laughter had changed us, at least for a little while.

Kathy used to remind us that we were all babies in the Kingdom of God, even she was. I loved hearing her say that because she really believed it. She never outgrew wonder. She loved teasing people. She delighted in small things. She laughed easily.

Christ told us to become like little children. Maybe this is part of what he meant. Children don't have to work at being joyful. It just comes naturally. Somewhere along the way many of us begin to think that becoming more spiritual means becoming more solemn. I've fallen victim to this belief myself, at times. Every Master whose writings I've ever read, laughed. Kathy certainly did. David, Kathy’s husband and successor, does too.

Anyone who knows David knows exactly what I mean. He is one of the kindest, most generous people I've ever known, and he's also a complete prankster. He loves making people laugh. Somehow that has never seemed separate from his spirituality. If anything, it feels like an extension of it.

Over the past several months I've been blessed to spend time with several dear friends, and I've realized something. My soul needed laughter - real laughter. The kind where you can't catch your breath, where tears roll down your face, and you completely forget yourself for a few precious moments. Those moments have become a reminder that perhaps the soul hungers for joy every bit as much as it hungers for peace.

Of course, afternoons with lifelong friends come to an end. Everyone hugs goodbye. The drive home begins. Life waits patiently for all of us. Meditation offers something different. The repetition of the holy Names slowly turns our attention inward toward the source of the joy we've been catching little glimpses of all along.

The saints tell us that our true nature is soul. Soul is love. Soul is peace. Soul is joy. Maybe that's why those moments of deep laughter feel so familiar. For a little while the mind stops running the show. The worries loosen their grip. Planning gives way to simply being in that joyous moment. Meditation invites us into that place every single day, only more deeply than anything this world can offer.

I've noticed that almost everything I write eventually circles back to the same place. Meditate. Yesterday reminded me why. No friendship, no beautiful afternoon, no memory reaching all the way back to childhood in Bethesda can compare with discovering the joy that already lives within us. Those outward moments are gifts. They remind us of what's real. Meditation takes us to the source.

I hope I never become so serious about spirituality that I forget to laugh. I hope I never overlook the holiness of an afternoon spent with old friends, remembering where we've been, laughing until our stomachs hurt, and thanking the Lord for every one of those moments.

And then, the next morning, I always remember to close my eyes, repeat the holy Names with love, and return to the One from whom every joy has always come.