God is Sat-Chit-Ananda, ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new Bliss. We, as soul, are individualized Sat-Chit-Ananda. “From Joy we have come, in Joy we live and have our being, and in that sacred Joy we will one day melt again.” [Taittiriya Upanishad 3-6-1.]
Joy expresses itself under certain conditions, but it is not created by those conditions. Thus, when someone receives a thousand dollars and exclaims, “Oh, how happy I am!” the condition of having received a thousand dollars has merely served as a pickax, releasing a fountain of joy from the hidden reservoir of bliss within. So, in human experience, certain events are usually required to bring forth joy, but the joy itself is the perennial native state of the soul.
So do not seek fulfillment through material mediums, or through desires born of such contact. Seek the unconditioned, indestructible pure Bliss within yourself, and you will have found the ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new Joy-God. Unlike material pleasures, this joy is not an abstract quality of mind; it is the conscious, self-born, self-expressing quality of Spirit. Seek it and be comforted forever.
Let no one tell you that anything else is better than God's joy. All men seek happiness, but do they find it? Meditation, long and deep, is the way to attain true joy. Nothing else can compare to meditation.
When you sit in the silence of deep meditation, joy bubbles up from within, roused by no outer stimulus. The joy of meditation is overwhelming.
For more of Paramahansa Yogananda’s “how-to-live” wisdom on the deeper purpose of life, we invite you to visit the “The Purpose of Life” page on the SRF website.
To learn more about the science of meditation, we invite you to enroll for the Self-Realization Fellowship Lessons. The core of Paramahansa Yogananda’s teachings, the SRF Lessons provide powerful methods for awakening higher spiritual consciousness and the inner bliss of divine realization — including the highest meditation technique of Kriya Yoga.
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