Claiming the joy is a movement.  It is rising up one more time to meet the joy.  It’s taking the responsibility to create the joy in what you are doing. – John Morton

This article is taken from a previously published article that appeared in the New Day Herald in February 2014.  It comes from a sharing John did in November 2013.

Over the years, John-Roger has said that we are to have joy and to have it more abundantly.  There is a reference in scripture, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11).  I see that like a law.  You could say, “It is my right to have joy because God said so.”

What is important in experiencing the joy is to ask, “Where is your faith and trust?”  Do you claim your joy?  If you do claim it, do you claim it in full or do you claim it only when you feel joy?  When you don’t feel joy, do you still claim the joy for yourself?”

Claiming the joy is a process that is part of our learning and how we can evaluate if we are keeping the faith.  Do you have the patience to trust and hold while you find the joy?  Joy is a spiritual promise.  It is our natural way of being from the Spirit.  This world has a way of knocking us for a loop every once in a while, or maybe quite a bit, depending on how your life flows.  That is just another way of saying we are going to be tested.  But the joy is still always present.

Consider what you are aware of in this moment.  What are you giving your awareness to?  Do you give it over to fear and doubt, things you don’t like or things that bother others?  Do you let those concerns be the focus of your awareness?  If you do, then where is the joy?  At times it may seem that joy is missing, asleep inside of us, taking a rest and waiting to come awake again.

The joy is never missing.  Joy is always present.  It’s up to us to awaken to it.  Have the intention of claiming your joy so it’s part of how you identify yourself.  “I am a joyful person.  I create joy.  I find joy in my life and circumstances.”  It is along the lines of St. Patrick’s prayer about the Christ being with us in every way.  Joy is in front of me, behind me, on my left, on my right, under my feet, behind my eyes.  Joy is always there.

Claiming the joy is a movement.  It is rising up one more time to meet the joy.  It’s taking the responsibility to create the joy in what you are doing.  John-Roger has said, “If you want to be happy, do happy things.”  It follows that if you want to be joyful, do joyful things.

To know yourself as a spiritual being, claim it!  Identify with it.  You are spiritual.  It is your heritage.  You can’t lose your spirituality.  You may displace it or forget about it.  You may act as if it isn’t yours, but it remains.  You are always a spiritual being.  We really can’t mess with who we are spiritually.  We may mess with ourselves, but who we are spiritually is held intact.  That divine treasure is not tarnished or broken.  If we act as if it is, that is when we are off.  And our life is going to reflect that we are off.

As John-Roger has said numerous times, we get sick and tired and then we get sick and tired of being sick and tired.  That is around the time we let it go.  Sometimes that is with a sense of desperation, “I give up because I don’t know what else to do.”  What may happen then is that at long last, you are open.  Amazingly, because you were desperate, you created openness.  Now you’re reachable and touchable.  Your focus can be directed into who you are, rather than what you or someone else thinks you are.

Would you like to shift your awareness from judgment to joy?  That’s fairly simple.  Just change what you are looking at.  Change your focus.  Releasing judgments would help you do that.  A dynamic of judgment is that something or someone should be different, including you.  You might judge that you should have more money, more things, or be more successful.  If you look carefully, you are going to find that you are the one who assigned those things to yourself.  You created an expectation about what you should be accomplishing in your life, particularly around the results.

The reality is that you are in conflict with the results in your life.  You assigned an expectation to yourself.  It could be an attachment.  Sometimes the attachment is to where things were in the past, like, “I used to have this.  I used to have this job.” The focus is on what occurred in the past.  That becomes a victim story rather than a story of learning, growth and ever-increasing joy.

Instead of focusing on what once was, connect to where you are in the moment.  Ask yourself, “How am I?”  Look at your life as it is, what you are wearing, where you live, where you are and what is present with you, here and now.  Take notice and claim the joy already present in your life.  Update yourself regularly so you are in tune with your life as it is now, rather than wishing it was different from the way it is.

Although it is common to judge ourselves, that is a source of dis-ease because you are out of alignment with who you are.  When we become aware and connected with who we truly are, we often find it’s a good story.  A story of success, abundance and prosperity.  There is a lot for us to be thankful for.  As you start the process of waking up your thankfulness, you will start feeling better because joy follows naturally.  Gratitude is a good attitude.  It lifts us.  If you want to experience more joy about your life, move into your thankfulness.

As you become more aware of your judgments, you can change your focus.  You may think, “I should have more money.  I should have nicer things.  I should have a job I enjoy more.”  You can change that from “I should have it” to “I can have it.”  Your life isn’t over. It is still being created and you are a co-creator with God.

As you choose into the joy that is present, there is a practical aspect that has to do with manifestation.  Consider what you want to create in this world.  What do you want to make your life become?  What results are you looking for?  Energy follows thought.  The more you can be specific, the better.  If energy follows you with some vague, general concept, then the results will match with unclear results.

Even if you were in a garbage dump, you could be happy, content and at peace.  That is possible.  You might not even want to change that situation.  But if you are aware, “I want to change it.  I want nice house and car.  I want a job that is interesting to me,” then energy starts to follow your lead.  There is a responsibility to bring it forward.

I suggest putting your intentions in writing because that has a way of concretizing it.  If it is difficult to put what you are envisioning into words, it can be done with pictures.  You can envision an ideal scene, cut out pictures from magazines and create a collage of what you want to manifest in this world.  Put it in a place where you can look at it and focus upon it.

Perhaps you have an ideal scene from a long time ago.  Is your current vision the same?  If it hasn’t materialized as of yet, you might need to update it.  Maybe it needs to be re-done and re-energized, so it matches your intentions here and now.  The most important part of envisioning what you want is your energy.  If you don’t have energy on what you want to create, then you’re adrift.  You are at the mercy of whatever winds are blowing.  Those tend to be karmic.  If you want to set a new course and change the karma, ask yourself, “What do I want to focus upon?  Where am I in relation to where I want to go?”

When we are faced with distractions or things that annoy us, we can choose to increase our awareness.  It may be a toothache, headache, jackhammer, noisy store, or any number of things such that you register, “I don’t like that!”  It may be more like, “I don’t really seem to have the opportunity or willingness to change it.” So now what?  You can overcome distractions through observation and the willingness to embrace, rather than resist, whatever it is.  That is a key – over and over again – for all of us in this level.

Can you embrace whatever it is, rather than move into some form of resistance where you are contracting?  Can you let go of protesting and judging?  It is a choice point to accept or reject whatever is distracting you.  Rejecting and dismissing the annoyance tends to add to its persistence and increase its magnitude.  Acceptance starts creating a lesser annoyance and allowing for greater enjoyment.

We always have the opportunity to take distractions on as a kind of puzzle or riddle that is already solved.  God already solved it.  God loves the annoyance, so you can also love it.  You can even enjoy it.  Let’s consider God knows that.  God says, “Your turn.  Your move.”  If you know that you can solve the puzzle because it has already been solved by God, you can move to the loving and joy of whatever is in that experience.

Because of our intention, we can find a way to find the good, the joy and the upliftment in any distraction.  It may take our patience and willingness to endure.  I encourage you to have that willingness to “hang in there.”  Use everything as a process for upliftment and learning.

Baruch Bashan

Greatest Blessing Ever 

Lord, we ask for Your strength, Your ability,

Your willingness that is Your will,

eternally for all of Your creation, that it’s in full.

That we are partaking fully,

we are expressing fully in all of Your greatest blessings, what it is becomes one blessing

that is eternally present for all of us, that every moment is a new opportunity into the greater blessings

and that is no contradiction. That’s how it’s always been.

That this is a movement of greater blessing.

And so, we are in the creation that transcends where we are now in this world.

We are transitioning, we are transforming,

we are going ever higher in the consciousness of

Your creation.

That’s been called the heart of God.

That we know those keys are safe and secure always in

spirit, and always awaiting as we choose freely as we are now,

that each one of us is being counted

that we are extending our affirmation, our confirmation.

That we speak to the great I am as the I am.

We are resonating with the Great Master, that consciousness of the Beloved that is a friend,

so we can see eye to eye, that we embrace fully

and we also extend into this world

so what we are calling forward spiritually can be made manifest in this world.

And it would be any one of us

for all of us are being delivered with this key.

We know through our beloved Traveler, anointed as

the Christ,

standing in what is prepared as that place in spirit that is sacred, being revealed to each one,

in that way that is playful and joyful.

So we are fully in our child nature, innocent, pure, and we hear Your laughter and our laughter.

So it is a chorus of laughter, a chorus of joy. It’s a great

vision of what has already become.

That as we can in any way behold this

and see this as the great vision that’s always been true, we can express in this world even for just one brief moment.

And in that moment is the eternal truth that Your love is always with us. That everything is just fine.

Baruch Bashan