These kinds of feelings allow the blackness of the cloud
to engulf them. In bringing light to this picture of bleakness we can choose
to treat others as we would like to be treated. Light and morality go hand in
hand. The moment someone feels a sense of being treated fairly , the black
cloud seems to lift. I recall Mother T eresa’ s characterization of what she did at her mission. “Every day I see Jesus Christ in all of his distressing disguises.” She could
see the perfection in the derelict on the streets, and she would bring a kind
of morality and light to the person. That alone would help to lift the veil of
darkness that shrouded the homeless person. And so it is with each of us. When you can stop and think how you would like to be treated in this same
situation, you are bringing morality , an ingredient of light, to bear on
someone’ s darkness. Even having heard the golden rule all your life, you
know that it is wonderful advice. I ur ge you to give serious consideration to
this way of sending darkness out of your life, and bringing light to those
who feel mistreated. You can also begin to treat yourself in this way whenever you feel an
absence of light in your life. If you feel hurt or betrayed because of the
mistreatment of others and darkness has descended on you, ask yourself
how you would prefer to have been treated. Then see that kind of light and
moral treatment as descending on you from God. For give and for get the
person you are angry toward and know that you are in God’ s moral light
right in this moment. In this way you always have access to the light. Thinking how you want to be treated helps you also to extend the golden
rule to others. My young son and I were standing in line at a water park recently , and
overheard a woman in the adjacent line order three soft drinks, and then
discover that she was short of money to pay for them. She was obviously
upset over not having the few coins that she needed and the clerk was
showing no sympathy for her plight. My immediate response in such
situations is to of fer the coins, which I did. But first I asked myself how I
would like to be treated if I was in that situation. The old golden rule.This works for me also after ar guments with my wife or family members. As I sit alone in my frustration, I ask myself how I want to be treated right
now. Then I proceed to act the way I want to be treated, by breaking the
silence or apologizing. The problem is diminished in the light that the
golden rule has cast on the darkness. 3. Truth. James Russell Lowell once said, “Light is the symbol of truth.”
And I would add that “Darkness is the symbol of deceit.” Y ou can hide the
truth in the dark while in the light there are no mysteries, no hidden things,
everything is revealed. Thus, darkness conceals while light reveals. When
you bring light to darkness as Saint Francis requests in this line from the
prayer , you are bringing an attitude of openness that does not allow truth to
be fearful or hidden. In David Hawkins’ s powerful book Power V ersus
Force he of fers us this wisdom, “In the process of examining our everyday
lives we can find that all our fears have been based on falsehood. The
displacement of the false by the true is the essence of the healing of all
things visible and invisible.”
Many years ago I wrote an article titled “Who Do Y ou Trust?” for a
counseling journal. The central theme of this article was that we tend to
believe the people who are willing to tell us the truth, even though we may
not like that truth. The people who tell us exactly what we want to hear ,
while it may be comforting in the moment, are not the people we trust. When you need advice or help from someone, whose opinion do you trust? The one who is only interested in having you feel good, or the one who will
tell you the truth irrespective of how you might react to what they are
telling you? You will truly grow to understand the biblical reminder , “The truth shall set
you free,” as you practice being a bringer of truth to problem situations. From the perspective of truth only , you shine the light of truth on all
problems and they literally fade away under the intense scrutiny of that
light. Nothing is hidden, nothing is concealed. I recall walking with a chronically overweight woman who was never able
to shed those excess pounds despite trying every fad diet that existed. She
swore to me that she didn’ t overeat and that a metabolism problem was thesource of her obesity . I encouraged her to take an honest “truth-only”
approach to her problem and to bring this truth to her daily activities. I told
her to record everything that she ate, or drank, and to keep an honest log of
exercise, twenty-four hours a day for a week. At the end of one week she
was stunned by what the truth revealed about her daily regimen. The one
criterion I insisted upon was truth. She discovered that without realizing it,
she had been deceiving herself. She “for got” the many times throughout the
day when she put food in her mouth, she seldom exercised, she drank
almost no water , but consumed soft drinks and alcohol in much lar ger
amounts than she had admitted to herself. Most of her “cheating” was done
when she was alone, out of sight of others, in the dark, so to speak. It was
the truth that ultimately set her free. As she brought a new light to her
condition she was able to see the problem dissolve. Most addictions are supported and maintained by denial, which is the
monster hiding in the darkness afraid to be seen in the light. Eating
disorders are almost always practiced in the safety of the darkness, behind
closed doors. Denial is a way of life, and the problem continues on its
downward slide until that person finally allows the truth, the light, to shine
in. Severe drug addicts and alcoholics often must face what is called an
intervention before they finally make the decision to become free. An
intervention is a direct confrontation by family and friends in which the
addict is forced to hear the truth. The light shines with no room for escape
into darkness, and ultimately the addicted person goes to a place where no
deception, duplicity or misrepresentation is allowed. The light shines
brightly . The darkness and the problem dissolve if the person decides to
stay in the light. As you seek a spiritual solution to problems, the essence of truth as a vital
component of light becomes obvious. Be a person who is willing to look
honestly at the low ener gies of the darkness in your own life, and make a
commitment to shine a truthful light in those places. Then, bring that
truthful light to any and all darkness that you experience. Y ou will radiate
outward an ener gy that will help to dissolve deception or subtle fraudulence
just by the presence of your light.4. Clarity . When you live in the light and you bring this light to shine on
darkness, you are bringing an unambiguous knowing to the problem. I call
this aspect of light, clarity . It is a knowing within yourself that you are
connected to God free of any doubt. This kind of clarity is the exact
opposite of what occurs in the darkness. In darkness you grope around for
something to hang onto and will grab the first thing that you touch. There is
no clarity , and consequently there is no light. Imagine shining the brightest light you can on a diamond. What you will
see is a sparkling clear brightness. In contrast, look at the same diamond in
a low-lit, semidark place. The clarity is gone. This metaphor illustrates the
value of clarity in the face of problems; yours or those of others. If you are
not perfectly clear about your spiritual connection, you will bring this
muddled doubt to the problem, and the problem will continue and seem to
be an inexplicable riddle. Bringing light to darkness is bringing your own
clear vision of your capacity to nullify the problem with your light. No
fuzziness in the picture, no contaminants, only a bright light that is devoid
of any and all obstructions. While researching and writing about many of the great masters and their
teachings for Wisdom of the Ages; Sixty Days to Enlightenment , I noticed
the one thing that all these ancestral masters shared was a clarity of purpose
about their lives. Michelangelo and DaV inci were clear about their vision
and they brought that bright clear light to everything they created. Thoreau
knew with complete clarity what he had to do, and marched to that
drumbeat regardless of the outcome. Elizabeth Barrett Browning had a clear
vision of her need to leave behind the darkness of a father ’s fears and
intractable nature and flee to a foreign land to fulfill her mission. These and
the others I wrote about had a clarity of purpose that would not be clouded
by any doubt or darkness in their lives. You too have the option to bring this kind of clear vision to your life and the
lives of others. When you let yourself trust the clear light to shine on any
problem, you raise your ener gy level and access divine guidance. And make
no mistake about this; divine guidance is a clear , unambiguous, pollution-
free light.Here are some suggestions for bringing light to bear on the experiences of
darkness in your life. SUGGESTIONS FOR BRINGING LIGHT T O DARKNESS
Practice being an appr eciator of beauty . Make the choice to notice the
beauty which graces your day . Throughout the day stop to gaze and feel
gratitude for moments of beauty in your life. This may take ef fort when you
are experiencing dark times but it will help develop the habit of leaving the
darkness behind. Beauty appreciation is the result of a habitual way of
thinking light as often as possible. Find something for which you can feel
gratitude rather than resentment. When this becomes your habit, you will
automatically bring this sense of beauty appreciation to all life
circumstances. Harriet Beecher Stowe once observed, “In all ranks of life the human heart
yearns for the beautiful.” Y es, in all ranks of life, which includes any
problems or dark situations as well. If only once in a day , stop in the midst
of a dark moment and look for the beauty nearby . Do this once a day and
gradually it will evolve to twice and before long, this will be your habitual
way of responding to darkness. Do not pretend or fake happiness when darkness is present. Instead,
cultivate an internal sense of awe about yourself and your place in the
world. Think of the magnificence of every breath you take. Be in awe of the
immensity of our universe. Know that behind all dark clouds the sun shines,
and behind all appearance of darkness there is an eternal light that you can
access which will defuse darkness. People who are described as self-
actualized are able to see beauty everywhere, and they source their life from
their awareness. It only takes a moment’ s pause to lighten darkness with a
thought of appreciating beauty . My favorite observation by Rumi is: “Sell
your cleverness and purchase bewilderment.”
Become familiar with the literatur e of inspiration about those who have
overcome darkness in their lives. When I read about someone who has
transcended darkness, such as Helen Keller , I feel a strong sense of beingable to bring that kind of enthusiasm and light to any problem I might face. Stories about overcoming hardships always lift my spirits. Lance Armstrong overcame a diagnosis of terminal cancer , and survived
major sur gery to remove a cancerous testicle and tumors in his lungs,
stomach, and brain. Then he went on to eventually win the most grueling
test of physical endurance, the T our de France, racing his bicycle over
twenty-six hundred miles in the midst of summer , through the mountains. As if to punctuate his accomplishment he won the same race again the
following year . Lance was the two-time winner among the most elite
cyclists in the world. His story astounds me. It illustrates to me that we can
find light in the darkest of moments, and deliver that light to every obstacle
that crops up. Watching Lance ride, reading his story , It’s Not About the Bike,  and
listening to his interviews, gives me the courage to challenge myself to ride
to new heights. Those heights are not necessarily physical challenges. They
are the higher/faster frequencies of light and spirit that I can access and then
bring to those who live in the shadows where darkness looms. Send out white light and bathe others in it. Remember , everything is ener gy. Solid, sound, light, thoughts, spirit are movements, waves that vibrate to a
certain frequency . You can be an emissary of light and help others to
eradicate darkness in their lives. Think light and also practice meditating
and visualizing the white, clear , pure light enveloping anyone you choose. If you doubt your ability to accomplish this, or if you feel that sending light
through your thoughts and meditation is impossible then that will be your
experience. Shift your inner consciousness to the thought that no one knows
enough to be a pessimist. Then you will be able to transmit the light at the
highest/fastest vibrations where anything is possible. I practice sending white light, as does my wife, on a regular basis. If any of
our children are out late, we remind each other to bathe them in light and
send them the ener gy of spirit which is love, and to let that loving light
energy sweep over them. W e then have a picture in our mind of light rather
than darkness and danger .I have also studied auras, which are light ener gies that surround us much
like an electrical ener gy field. These auras can be read and altered by the
ways in which we practice spirituality . In fact, Kirlian photography shows
an aura of light surrounding living things, usually unseen by the naked eye. If this light is there, and we can alter it with our thoughts and emotions,
then why not realize that we can use our thoughts to send this pure light to
help protect anyone from the darkness. T ry it, with a mind that is open to
everything, and attached to nothing. Keep your thoughts center ed on light and what you want, rather than on
dark and what you don’ t want. Practice seeing the light within you. Bring
light thoughts to every circumstance of darkness. It is so common to do
precisely the opposite. When you do, you attract more of the illusions of the
dark. For example, if your thoughts are on how bad a situation is, how terrible
everything seems to be going, and all you can visualize is things getting
worse, you are literally attracting darkness into your life. Similarly , if you
approach someone, who is experiencing a dark episode, with thoughts of
fear, and anguish for them, what you are doing is identifying with the
darkness. It may seem to be proper to comfort those in darkness by
emulating their shadow thoughts, but you will help to eliminate that
darkness altogether by bringing light to the present moment. Empathy is a wonderful high ener gy quality and I encourage you to extend
thoughts of compassion and love to those who are experiencing darkness. However , I encourage you not to confuse empathy with reinforcing
darkness. Think thoughts of light and love and enter the darkness with that
energy. Your light ener gy will lighten the darkness. Y ou can emanate light
when you know that the darkness is an illusion since God’ s light is always
shining, and that thoughts of despair and anguish are what create the
illusion of darkness. Extend compassion and know that all is for good. As
I’ve said many times in this book, we cannot go where God is not, and
where God is, all is well. Get outside into the light when thoughts of darkness overtake you. Whenever you find yourself thinking morbid thoughts it is imperative thatyou physically get up and let in some light. Then notice how much better
you feel with the presence of light. Letting in the light literally allows you
to erase the dark thoughts. I also suggest that you reexamine fearful thoughts in bright sunlight. Thoughts that seem so terrifying in bed at night never seem to be as
troublesome when you review them in daylight. I recall being a young boy
living in a foster home thinking about how much I missed my mother and
becoming fearful that something might happen to her and I wouldn’ t see her
again. My mind would wander into all sorts of dark happenings and my
anxiousness would increase until finally I would become frightened and
truly scared. The next morning in the safety of the light those fears
disappeared and I wondered how I could have been so frightened. Somehow the light not only decreases the darkness of a room, but it also
makes questions and feelings of dread fade into nothingness. The light is a
faster ener gy and its presence is a symbol of the fact that God is the way ,
the truth and the light. Invite the light in the next time you experience
morbid thoughts and notice the dif ference. Practice purification in all ar eas of your life. The light is pure. The dark is
contaminated. Attempt to remove contaminants from your life which dim
the incandescence of your spiritual light. Begin with your own body . Drink
more pure water and less cloudy liquids such as soda pop, alcohol, and
coffee. Eight to ten glasses a day of pure water flushes out many of the
toxins that lower your ener gy levels and cause the ener getic harmony of
your body to be out of balance. Y ou will feel lighter , think lighter , and
experience more spiritual ener gy by simply purifying your system with
large quantities of pure water every single day . I began my water purification process fourteen years ago when my wife
encouraged me to give up diet soda as my staple drink. I used to drink eight
to ten twelve-ounce cans a day . Slowly but surely I replaced that
contaminated brown water with pure nonsparkly water . It has now been
almost fifteen years since I have touched any kind of soda pop, and I drink
at least one gallon of pure water every day .Allow the purification process to extend to your food intake as well. Y ou
know what is pure and what is toxic to your body . Eat at least three pieces
of fruit a day and have fresh or ganic vegetables at least twice a day . Send
the toxins out of your diet and notice how you feel. To complete the purification process, work on keeping your thoughts pure. Train yourself to not be judgmental and angry . Catch yourself when you are
having impure or judgmental thoughts. Use a mental image of shining a
bright light on your contaminated thoughts and notice how the light
removes those dark thoughts. When you are feeling frustrated and helpless
in the face of a “problem” allow the light in for just a second and note how
your inner feelings change. Recall that there really are no problems other
than a belief that we are separate from God. The problem itself resides in
our minds. By purifying your body , your thoughts, your language, you are purifying all
your behaviors and ultimately bringing in one of the central ingredients of
light to shine on any and all darkness that you may have created as a
shadow on your life. Repeat to yourself one of the most important passages for bringing light to
darkness: “The truth shall set you fr ee.” Stay in truth. T ruly you will come
to see the freedom of the light when you stay in truth, and bring that truth to
all you encounter . When you practice deception of any kind, you invite a contaminant into
your system. Y ou cloud up the light and invite movement toward the
darkness. Others may complain that you do not tell them what they want to
hear, nevertheless be full of resolve when it comes to what you bring to
anyone else’ s darkness. When others know that you will not sugar coat your
responses in times of dif ficulty they will want to hear from you. I have appeared on many television talk shows over the past twenty-six
years and I have seen firsthand how many major entertainment personalities
travel with an entourage whose primary responsibility seems to be to tell
the “star” what he or she wants to hear . Their paid staf fs of hangers-on tell
them how brilliantly they performed even if they were dull, witless, andself-indulgent on the set. I’m certain that in times of dif ficulty the stars will
go to someone in their lives whom they know they can trust for an honest
response. It was people such as my wife who told me point-blank at various times in
my life that I was drinking the wrong liquids, eating the wrong foods,
gaining some weight, being too aggressive or self-indulgent, being too
focused on my money , or losing sight of my purpose. These truth-tellers
brought the light back into my life where shadows were slowly creeping in. The truth is the light. Practice this truth when helping others and always be
totally truthful with yourself. Y ou may not immediately send out all
darkness from your life such as immoral or toxic behaviors. But if you are
totally honest with yourself, and admit your frailties despite your outer
persona, gradually and surely , you will make the changes toward a
faster/higher spiritual ener gy in which those shadows cannot survive. No
one said it better than W illiam Shakespeare: “T o thine own self be true.”
The request of Saint Francis to bring light to darkness is a powerful way of
enhancing a spiritual solution to every problem. Light is pure, moral, clear ,
and without deception. W alk this path and watch darkness dissolve. There is
no other choice. Darkness cannot survive for even one second when light is
introduced. OceanofPDF .com13
WHERE THERE IS SADNESS,  
JOY
’Tis easy enough to be pleasant, 
When life flows along like a song; 
But the man worthwhile is the one who will smile 
When everything goes dead wrong. —ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
The one sure sign that you have moved into the slower/lower frequencies
and left spirit behind is that you are experiencing less cheerfulness, less joy . If you are not radiant with joy and friendliness, if you have a long pouting
face and a chip on your shoulder , if you find it dif ficult to smile and a
burden to be genial, and if you are not overflowing with love and goodwill
for every creature and every being, then one thing is certain—you do not
know God. In this request of Saint Francis to sow joy where there is
sadness, he is asking to bring God to the presence of any sadness, and in so
doing, he will be removing the illusion of woe which is a thought created by
a mind that does not know God. WHY WE A VOID JOYSadness is an attitude that is habituated over a lifetime of focusing on what
is wrong and missing in our lives. I love the writing of Anthony DeMello,
particularly this astute observation, “There’ s only one reason why you’re
not experiencing bliss at this present moment, and it’ s because you’re
thinking or focusing on what you don’ t have.” Sadness is a habit of
processing the world from a perspective of lack by constantly thinking
about not having enough of what you feel entitled to such as, money , health,
love, friends, or even free time. On and on go the thoughts, which create a
feeling of sadness. Joy, on the other hand, is a way of processing the world from the
perspective of what you have and what is right. Joyful people rejoice in
their strengths, talents, and powers and do not compare themselves to
anyone. They are not intimidated by the strengths, possessions and powers
of anyone else. Joy comes from rejoicing in all that you are, all that you
have, all that you can be and from knowing that you are divine, a piece of
God. Sadness derives from a scarcity consciousness that can be dissolved by
tuning into the abundance that is yours for the taking. As I’ve quoted earlier
from the scriptures, “ ‘My son,’ the Father said, ‘you are always with me,
and everything I have is yours’” (Luke 15:31). Now , what does everything I
have leave out? Nothing! The antidote to sadness is to bring the abundance
of this world in the form of your own joyful appreciation of all that you
have and all that you can have to the presence of the mistaken belief that
you are lacking something, and the illusion will dissolve. CULTIVATING AN A TTITUDE OF JOY
I once heard Leo Buscaglia tell a story about the ancient Egyptians who
believed that upon death their answers to two questions would determine
whether they continued their journey in the afterlife. The first question was
“Did you find joy?” The second was “Did you bring joy?” Finding joy
means consciously deciding to process your life in ways that focus on
gratefulness for what you have. Y ou can cultivate this attitude by refusing to
allow yourself to think in terms of scarcity . Being joyful means thinking
joyful thoughts even when you are tempted otherwise.The habit of thinking in sorrowful ways is a result of your training. Y ou
learned that joy was possible only when life was going the way you thought
it should. Consequently , you developed a habit of abandoning a joyful
appreciative thought in favor of sadness when life wasn’ t as you thought it
should be, and you were encouraged to believe that your sorrow was only
natural! But it is not natural. It is an error in thinking, an illusion like all the
other illusions described in this book. The error of sadness thinking is
corrected when you bring joy to it. Remember , the world has no sadness in
it, only people thinking sad thoughts. “God saw all that he had made, and it
was very good” (Genesis 1:31). T o me, very good means joyful, or as Peace
Pilgrim once asked rhetorically , “How could one know God and not be
joyous?”
Cultivating an attitude of joy is, in a very real sense, bringing the spirit or
energy of God to everything you encounter by changing your mind. This is
what Albert Einstein probably meant when he suggested that you can’ t
solve a problem with the same mind that created it. Sadness is experienced
in your mind by processing and evaluating your life from a perspective of
not having. Change your mind by moving up to a higher/faster ener gy. JOY AS SPIRITUAL ENERGY
Consider how time seems to pass when you are joyful, versus the passage
of time when you are in a state of grief or sadness. When you are inspired
and involved joyfully in a project, time seems to fly . This is true for me
when I am giving a talk or deeply involved in my writing. Hours pass and I
am stunned that time has moved so quickly . This appearance of time as fast
or slow happens because time is really an illusion. W e have invented time to
carve up the oneness, which is in indivisible. T ime cannot exist when all is
now. As you move into joy , the experience of time melts into the oneness of
spirit, and time disappears. Consequently , living on purpose and feeling the
joy of that purpose brings you into the faster ener gy pattern of spirit. This is
the fastest/highest ener gy you can have. Being on purpose is being in the
joyous present where time cannot exist.Now consider the reverse experience. Think about how slow time appears
to move when you are sad. The more deeply you enter the ener gy patterns
of grief, sorrow , melancholy , distress and sadness the slower time appears to
move. Moments of grief seem interminable. Y ou look at the clock and find
it impossible to believe that only fifteen minutes has passed. Albert Einstein
wittily described time’ s passage when he discussed relativity . “When a man
sits with a pretty girl for an hour , it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a
hot stove for a minute and its longer than any hour . That’ s relativity .”
Joy speeds up the illusion of time while sadness appears to slow it down. Faster ener gy is spirit. Joy is spirit, and it is this fast spiritual ener gy that
will nullify the slower ener gy of sadness. Most of us tend to be drawn to
those who have a positive, joyous outlook. Y ou acquire that attitude by
becoming conscious of the many blessings life has given you. Be a person
with a joyous attitude and you will become someone who radiates this
faster positive joyous ener gy which will dispel sadness everywhere you are. Before you can send joy where there is sadness, you must first work on
your personal ener gy patterns. Resolve to live in the faster ener gy of joy
with yourself. This is accomplished most readily by feeling purposeful in
all that you do as frequently as possible. MOVING T O PURPOSE
Moving toward purpose in your life is like bathing yourself in joy . It is a
simple way to move up to the faster frequencies of spirit. Abraham Maslow
described the ladder of self-actualization as moving up from the basic needs
for food, drink, and shelter to a sense of belonging and beauty appreciation. At the top of the self-actualization pyramid is a deep sense of purpose and
meaning in your life. This is where spiritual joy is experienced. T ime
disappears and you are in communion with the highest aspect of yourself, or
what I call God consciousness. Here at the apex of the pyramid, joy is your
constant companion. This state of bliss depends exclusively on the quality of your thoughts. It
means letting go of your concerns about how you are being perceived by
those around you, it means detaching from the results you produce and,instead, immersing your entire being into the activities of your life. It means
refusing to pursue  happiness and instead bringing  happiness to all that you
undertake. In short, perfect joy is found in the absence of striving for it, and
instead realizing it is within you. A sense of purpose is not about what you do or about going on your ideal
vacation. It is not realized by anything or anyone external to you. Purpose is
found by being willing to suspend your ego, knowing that you are eternally
connected to God, and surrendering the little mind to the big mind. The true
joy of living is in allowing the higher ener gies of spirit to guide your life. In
this state of awareness you never have to ask what your purpose is or how
to find it. Instead, you feel purposeful in everything that you do, and you
bring that kind of joy to all that you encounter . It will not matter whether
you are weeding your garden, reading a novel, shoveling snow , creating
your own symphony , driving through traf fic, or meditating in the silence of
your bedroom. Y ou will be the bringer of joy because you are in harmony
rather than in conflict with God. And the irony is that you will find that the
surest way to get to that state of inner joyful purpose is by giving it all
away . FINDING JOY BY GIVING IT A WAY
Perhaps the surest way to find happiness and joy for yourself is to devote
your ener gies toward making someone else happy . If you make an ef fort to
search for joy you will find it elusive, lar gely because you will become
engaged in the search itself. Y our life will be about striving and your life
experience could be expressed in the sardonic saying that “Life is what
happens while you are making other plans.” However , if you try to bring
happiness to someone else then joy will come to you. You come into this life with nothing and you leave with nothing. The only
thing you can do with your life is give it away . This is the true essence of
feeling purposeful. This is the way to have joy in the face of sadness. Y ou
experience joy when you attempt to bring it to others. This is what Saint
Francis understood to be the goal of life.The entire second part of the prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi is a testament
to the truth that we find joy by giving it away . And in order to give it away ,
we must possess it ourselves. . . . grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love;  
And he concludes:  
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life. I have found that most of the times that I am engrossed in sadness due to a
problem it is because of something that someone else has said or done, or
failed to do. So this is the “problem.” I am sad because of the actions or
inactions of others. Now , of course, this is an illusion; something that I have
created in my thoughts. It is in my mind that I am experiencing the
“problem.” So, what is the spiritual solution? It is always so simple that I
often conk myself on the head for not realizing sooner . The spiritual solution is to attempt to bring some joy to someone else, and
my sadness disappears instantly . And then it reappears in my thoughts again
as I go through the mental dialogue of agonizing over someone else’ s
conduct, and back I go to providing some joy to someone, and the cycle
repeats itself until I finally get the real answer . Send some joy to the people
whom I per ceive to be the sour ce of my sadness. But that seems so dif ficult. After all, my ego reminds me, they are wrong and I am right and my ego
would much rather be right than happy . But I tame my ego, and change the thoughts I have of being wronged to
thoughts of joy for those who I perceived have annoyed me. Instantly and
permanently my sadness dissolves like magic. By sending joyful lovingthoughts to others, particularly to those whom I have perceived to be the
source of my sadness, I end the problem, which only existed in my mind to
begin with. As you get better at finding joy by giving it away you will find that another
shift takes place. First you were working with your thoughts only , which is
where you experience sadness. As you transform those thoughts of sadness
into joy , your emotions will follow . You will experience a shift in your
sense of physical well-being and begin to feel better . You will feel lighter ,
more comfortable, and healthier . Your feelings of despair , anger and
depression will begin to dissolve, and then your behavior will change to
follow the path of joy . You will reach out to those who have “wronged
you,” with for giveness and extend a helping hand to those who used to be
classified as your enemies. From thoughts to feelings to behaviors, your entire life shifts away from
problems when you find your purpose by giving joy away . You may be wondering, at this point, if I am suggesting that you should
never allow yourself to feel sad, which would be a form of denial. Of
course you will experience sadness, and I do not advise you to pretend to be
happy and joyful when you are not. So, how do you resolve the obvious
paradox? HANDLING YOUR OWN SADNESS AND THE SADNESS OF
OTHERS
There is a powerful quote from A Course in Miracles  that addresses the
issue of sadness or negative emotions such as despair , darkness, hatred,
injury , and doubt, which have been the subject matter of this book. Nothing real can be threatened
Nothing unreal exists,
Herein lies the peace of God. Yes, you will feel sad at various times in your life. No, you should not deny
those feelings and pretend to be joyful. Y es, it is healthy to express these
feelings, to honor them and not to feel guilty when you do experience them. But go back to this idea that I have been hammering at from the opening
pages. If it is not of God it is not real, and everything is of God, and all that
is of God is good. W e can all agree that sadness, despair , disease, and hatred
are not good. It cannot exist if it is not real, yet you do feel the existence of
the sadness. But it is only a thought created by a mind that feels separate
from God, therefore it is an illusion. When you understand the nature of your sadness you can acknowledge it,
accept it, honor it, and do anything else with it that you choose, including
paying homage to it and building a shrine to it. But in the end, when you
want to dissolve it, bring in the faster/higher ener gy of joy and you can give
it a big, wet kiss good-bye as it floats out of your life. Sadness simply
cannot survive simultaneously with the ener gy of joy . Why? Because it is
unreal, and therefore cannot exist except in your ego-mind’ s eye. God’ s
love is real. Joy is God’ s love. And joy can never be threatened. When you understand this fundamental truth about sadness, that it is unreal
and an illusory product of your mind you will no longer feel such a strong
need to defend your right to be sad. Y ou’ll realize that when you ar gue for
your right to be sad and depressed the only thing you’ll get for your ef fort is
more sadness. Begin to opt for the higher spiritual ener gy of joy . Ultimately
this ener gy will be your natural state. When you study the lives of sages and
saints you discover that they are joyful, free, and feel a profound love for
every living creature. Sadness is not a part of their repertoire. Nisar gadatta Maharaj responded with this stunning response to an inquiry
about his not feeling sad in the face of circumstances that drive most people
to despair , such as war , poverty , and the like. “In my world, nothing ever
goes wrong.” He was saying that he lived in the world of spirit, and the rest
is illusion. Get outside your body and all its concerns and possessions and
view everything as an observer . From that perspective, sadness is
impossible. Those whom we call realized beings are most often in a state of
cheerful, joyful bliss. Y ou may not see yourself as a realized being just yet,
but my guess is that you are an aspirant if you read books such as this. If so,then aspire to send joy to sadness; it is a great way to be. What follows are a
few suggestions for doing just that. SUGGESTIONS FOR SENDING JOY IN THE F ACE OF SADNESS
Acknowledge your sadness, understand it is unr eal, and then let it go. Don’ t
attempt to fake happiness in the face of sadness. Instead, identify yourself
as being aware of sadness as it occurs, then ask yourself if you wish to stay
in this emotional state. If the answer is no, then move toward a mental
understanding of the sadness by recognizing that feeling sad is the result of
how you are choosing to think. Sadness is purely and totally located in your
mind; it does not exist in the world. Once you acknowledge your absolute right to be sad, decide how long you
want to stay in that state, understand that it is the result of your thoughts
and lowered ener gy, and then you can let it go. This is accomplished by
bringing joyful thoughts into your present moment and watching the
sadness fly away . This little mental technique of being able to acknowledge, understand, and
disperse can be accomplished in a few seconds, or you can make it last for
weeks if you so choose. The point is that by bringing awareness to sadness
while you are feeling it, you give yourself the option of replacing it with
joy, which is the spiritual solution to the error of sadness. Radiate the ener gy of joy to others who appear to be experiencing sadness. Listen to the painful and sad tales of others with empathy and with a
commitment to living in joy . You are then contributing a higher ener gy to
the situation. Sadness cannot survive in the faster ener gy of spirit. This is
similar to attempting to pick a fight with someone who refuses to fight. Eventually the antagonist will either disappear or abandon their pugilistic
ways. And so it is with those who are determined to stay in sadness. They
sense that you are refusing to join them in their lower ener gy patterns. They
will either seek out a more willing soul to burden, or your presence and
your unyielding commitment to contribute joy will dissolve the sadness.My responses to people who insist on being glum are usually on the order
of: “Things will improve if you decide you will be happy regardless of all
these events,” or “Y ou are feeling sad now , but I’m certain you will get past
these things and someday you’ll look back on them with a smile on your
face.” I try to maintain a sense of my own commitment to happiness in the
face of obstacles when I encounter people who are struggling with hurdles
in life. In this way I can radiate out that ener gy and help to eradicate the
energy of sadness. Aristotle put it like this: “Happiness is the meaning and
the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” This is
good advice to recall when you face your own thoughts of sadness or
encounter those of others. Look for the benefit in those who ar e delivering sadness to you. Yes, there is
a benefit that accrues to you when you encounter any ener gy that is lower
than the ener gy of spirit. These people are your greatest teachers! They
remind you that you have not yet mastered yourself and they provide you
with the here and now opportunity to choose joy and the peace that comes
with it. W ith their expression of sadness you learn how to transcend that
energy and use it as a guide. There is a story about G. I. Gurdjief f, who led a spiritual community in
France, that illustrates the value of having lower ener gy people in your life. John Marks T empleton tells the story in his book, Worldwide Laws of Life . There lived an old man who was the personification of dif ficulty—
irritable, messy , fighting with everyone, and unwilling to clean up or
help in any manner . No one was able to get along with him. Finally ,
after many frustrating months of trying to stay with the group, the old
man left for Paris. Gurdjief f followed him and tried to convince him to
return, but it had been too hard, and the man said, “No.” Finally ,
Gurdjief f offered the man a very big monthly stipend if he would
return to the community . How could the man refuse? When the old man returned everyone was aghast. Upon hearing that
he was being paid (while they were being char ged a fair sum to be
there), the community was up in arms. Gurdjief f called everyone
together for a meeting and after hearing their complaints, he laughed
and explained: “This old man is like yeast for bread. W ithout him hereyou would never really learn about anger , irritability , patience and
compassion. That is why you pay me and I hire him.”
Every experience of sadness provides valuable lessons to learn and doors to
open to higher spiritual awareness. Therefore, give thanks when such
opportunities surface. Go to your purpose and know the joy that comes fr om being ther e. If you
have ever said, “I don’ t really know what my purpose is,” I suggest that you
remember that the only thing you can do with your life is to give it away . In
any moment when you are reaching outside your own self-indulgence and
attempting to serve others, you are on purpose. Whenever you feel out of touch, sad, or like you are floundering, just stop
in that moment and ask, “How may I serve?” Then reach out in any small
serving capacity and notice how purposeful you feel. This is joy . This is the
bringing of joy to sadness. It all revolves around reaching those higher
rungs on the ladder of self-realization. Feeling purposeful is one of the very
highest of those rungs. A simple act of comforting another person is an act
of purpose. Helping someone across a street or going out of your way to
hold a door open for a stranger are acts of purpose. Even a kind greeting or
sending a greeting card are purposeful acts. They bring you joy and they
erode sadness that might exist in others or in yourself. Settle disputes and shar e your truth. Make a list of the people you would
call if you knew that you only had one more day to live. Imagine what you
would say to them. Then ask yourself what you are waiting for . The fact is
that tomorrow is promised to no one. T ell people whom you love exactly
how you feel about them and why . Ask any whom you have of fended or
violated in any way to for give you. If there are lingering hurts in your life,
make an ef fort today to replace them with joy . Send flowers, make a phone
call, write a letter . In a style that gives you joy , communicate that you want
sadness deleted. When you do this, you are living at a higher/faster
frequency and bringing a spiritual solution to sadness, allowing it to
disintegrate in the powerful spiritual force of joy .Remind yourself that joy is found in stillness. I often relate the line from the
Old T estament, “Be still and know that I am God.” The two key words here
are still and know . To know  as I’ve written about extensively in earlier
chapters is to make conscious contact; to have a direct experience. Still
refers to the silence of meditation in which you know the one that is
indivisible and that silence cannot be divided, nor can God. And now refer
to the New T estament: “Joy is the fruit of the spirit.” By being still, you
know God, and joy is the fruit of God. I recommend that you practice being still, particularly when you seem to be
surrounded by sadness. Recently , my wife had been through a very rough
two-day ordeal with one of our children. She had almost no sleep and a
mountain of dif ficulties to handle. When I said, “Honey , you must be
saddened and so exhausted with all that you’ve been through,” she
responded without hesitating, “Not really , my meditation keeps me centered
and joyful even when everything around me is in turmoil.” She finds her
antidote to sadness in meditation. I recommend meditation as a daily
practice for bringing joy to sadness. Study the lives of the saints and sages. This is always a great way to bring
the higher spiritual ener gies to the lower ener gies of the senses and the
material world. Those whom we admire are not morose and depressed. They are purposeful, full of determination and passion, afire with a burning
desire to live out their own strong sense of purpose, and filled with joy . For myself, I have found that I never seem to have enough time to do all
that I want to do, and consequently I have no time to waste on being
melancholy or feeling self-pity . Certainly , I get hurt and feel sad on
occasion. However , my sense of awe at everything around me, combined
with my burning desire to fulfill my own destiny leaves precious little time
for being sad. Strive to emulate all the great spiritual teachers you’ve admired and the
ones you’ve become acquainted with. They live in bliss, they laugh, and
they find joy in the seemingly most inconspicuous things. A grasshopper , a
seashell, the shape and silhouette of a tree against a dark sky , even a piece
of candy can make them overflow with joy . Read about these divine souls.Go to their places of worship, talk to their devotees, immerse yourself in
their ener gy and you’ll discover people who always manage to bring joy to
sadness, because they themselves are joy personified. Feel supr emely happy . Here is what John T empleton suggests in his
marvelous book, Worldwide Laws of Life :
There are three simple words that almost seem to have magical
properties for developing a positive attitude in our life. Feel supr emely
happy ! When you let yourself feel supremely happy—regardless of
outer appearances—your whole body changes. Y our thoughts, your
facial expressions, your health, your attitudes, in fact, everything about
you changes for the better . I have tried this technique on many occasions since I read John T empleton’ s
book. I simply say to myself, “At this moment, regardless of anything else
going on around me, I am going to feel supr emely happy .” And almost by
magic I am transported to a more mystical divine ener gy of joy . I use this
suggestion and also the metaphor of unplugging myself from the outlet of
the physical world and plugging into God. When I get that thought and
picture in my head, I say to myself, “I feel supremely happy .” Try it. Y ou’ll
be delighted at how quickly you can move from sadness to joy . This concludes the seven requests Saint Francis of Assisi made in his
prayer . They symbolize a spiritual solution to every problem. If you can
learn to sow 1) peace, 2) love, 3) pardon, 4) faith, 5) hope, 6) light, and 7)
joy, you will eradicate virtually every perceived problem that you
encounter . These seven elements of spiritual problem solving will blot out
the illusion of 1) turmoil, 2) hatred, 3) injury , 4) doubt, 5) despair , 6)
darkness, and 7) sadness. As you set about to find the place that is your mind, hunting for the
boundaries and the material substance, you ultimately will discover the
truth. There is no place called your mind. Then the illusion is permanently
dissolved by the good that is God, which can know no iniquity .I am ending this book with a powerful passage from a quotation based upon
the holy book known as the Bhagavad-Gita. In this ancient classic tale, the
warrior Arjuna is talking to Krishna (God) and asking who is the illumined
man? I am of fering my comments on God’ s responses and encouraging you
to savor the ideas that Arjuna is receiving. (This is from a translation by
Eknath Easwaran.) It sums up beautifully the messages of this book. Arjuna:  Tell me of those who live always in wisdom, ever awar e of the Self,
O Krishna; how do they talk, how sit, how move about? Sri Krishna:  They live in wisdom who see themselves in all and all in them,
whose love for the Lor d of Love has consumed every selfish desir e and
sense craving tormenting the heart. The illumined person understands the one power and knows that they are
always connected to that spiritual essence. There is never a question of
being separate from God. Love of spirit is so strong it has become a
knowing. Y ou can turn to that knowing to end the problems that Krishna
tells Arjuna are the sense cravings of a tormented heart. The love for the
“Lord of Love” is a wonderful description of spiritual ener gy. Sri Krishna:  Not agitated by grief or hankering after pleasur e, they live
free from lust and fear and anger . The illumined person is free because they have transcended the lower
energies such as lust, fear , and anger and brought their opposites to dissolve
such delusions. Sri Krishna:  Fetter ed no mor e by selfish attachments, they ar e not elated by
good fortune or depr essed by bad. Such ar e the seers. The illumined person does not identify happiness or success by the material
world events that are called good and bad. They are unattached to these
things and their detachment is what gives them a problem-free life. Sri Krishna:  Even as a tortoise draws in its limbs, the wise can draw in
their senses at will.The illumined person lives by higher spiritual faculties of love, creativity ,
intuition, kindness, for giveness, surrender , and cheerfulness, and is not a
slave to their senses. They can ignore the cravings of their senses and
therefore avoid the problems that go with those sensory demands. Sri Krishna:  Though aspirants abstain fr om sense pleasur es, they will still
crave for them. These cravings all disappear when they see the Lor d of
Love. The illumined person comes to know that all “problems” are the result of
feeling separate from God, and they disappear when they make conscious
contact with God. Hence they know the truth that there is a spiritual
solution to every problem. Sri Krishna:  For even of those who tr ead the path, the stormy senses can
sweep off the mind. But they live in wisdom who subdue them, and keep
their minds ever absorbed in Me. By taming the ego and moving into the higher ener gy of spirit, the storms
created by our attachments and material world identifications dissolve. Sri Krishna:  When you keep thinking about sense objects, attachment
comes. Attachment br eeds desir e, the lust of possession which, when
thwarted, burns to anger . Anger clouds the judgment; you can no longer
learn fr om past mistakes. Lost is the power to choose between the wise and
unwise, and your life is utter waste. But when you move amidst the world of
sense fr om both attachment and aversion fr eed, ther e comes the peace in
which all sorr ows end and you live in the wisdom of the Self. An attachment to anything leads ultimately to a world of problems. By
letting go and surrendering we can then bring the peace and love of spirit to
bear on all that we were previously attached to. This ends the possibility of
anger , despair , doubt, darkness, and hatred. This higher ener gy allows us to
always be free to live in the wisdom and peace of the Lord of Love, i.e.,
God. Sri Krishna:  The disunited mind is far fr om wise; how can it meditate? How be at peace? When you know no peace, how can you know joy?By reconnecting to God we move up to a higher/faster spiritual vibration. This is accomplished by going to the indivisible place of silence. In silent
meditation we also come to the place of unity—oneness. That which is
indivisible. Here is where peace and joy are experienced. Here is the
solution to any and all problems that arise from a disunited mind. Sri Krishna:  Use all your power to set the senses fr ee from attachment and
aversion alike, and live in the full wisdom of the Self. Such a sage awakes to
light in the night of all cr eatur es. That which the world calls day is the night
of ignorance to the wise. Darkness disappears when you come to know the light that always shines. The light of the sun, and the light of God never go out, despite what your
senses and attachments might tell you. Sri Krishna:  As the rivers flow into the ocean but cannot make the vast
ocean overflow , so flow the magic str eams of the sense-world into the sea of
peace that is the sage. God’ s abundance is unlimited. Y ou can drink from the inexhaustible source
of love, light, joy , and harmony at will, and when you do, you will come to
know perfect peace. Sri Krishna:  They ar e forever fr ee who br eak away fr om the ego-cage of I,
me and mine to be united with the Lor d of Love. This is the supr eme state. Attain to this and pass fr om death to immortality . This says it all. When you move into the ener gy field of God you will never
again doubt the knowing that there truly is a spiritual solution to every
problem. OceanofPDF .comI wish to acknowledge
Francesco di Pietro di Bernardone (1 181–1226),
aka Saint Francis of Assisi. Your spirit is always with me,
and was particularly evident
in the creation of this book. —W AYNE W. D YER
OceanofPDF .comAbout the Author
Wayne Dyer is the best-selling author of twenty books, and has a doctorate
in counseling psychology . He lectures across the country to groups
numbering in the thousands, and appears regularly on radio and television. He lives with his family in southern Florida. Discover great authors, exclusive of fers, and more at hc.com . OceanofPDF .comBooks by W ayne W . Dyer
Your Err oneous Zones
Pulling Y our Own Strings
The Sky's the Limit
Gifts fr om Eykis
What Do Y ou Really W ant for Y our Childr en? No Mor e Holiday Blues
You'll See It When Y ou Believe It
Manifest Y our Destiny
Wisdom of the Ages
Your Sacr ed Self
There's a Spiritual Solution to Every Pr oblem
Real Magic
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© 1975; reprinted by permission of Nilgiri Press, Tomales, California, www.nilgiri.org. The Poems of W. B. Yeats: A New Edition, adapted with the permission of Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., edited by
Richard J. Finneran. Copyright 1933 by Macmillan Publishing Company; copyright renewed © 1961 by Bertha Georgie Yeats. THERE’S A SPIRITUAL SOLUTION TO EVERY PROBLEM. Copyright © 2001 by Wayne W. Dyer. All rights reserved under International and
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        These kinds of feelings allow the blackness of the cloud
to engulf them. In bringing light to this picture of bleakness we can choose
to treat others as we would like to be treated. Light and morality go hand in
hand. The moment someone feels a sense of being treated fairly, the black
cloud seems to lift. I recall Mother T eresa’ s characterization of what she did at her mission. “Every day I see Jesus Christ in all of his distressing disguises. ” She could
see the perfection in the derelict on the streets, and she would bring a kind
of morality and light to the person. That alone would help to lift the veil of
darkness that shrouded the homeless person. And so it is with each of us. When you can stop and think how you would like to be treated in this same
situation, you are bringing morality, an ingredient of light, to bear on
someone’ s darkness. Even having heard the golden rule all your life, you
know that it is wonderful advice. I ur ge you to give serious consideration to
this way of sending darkness out of your life, and bringing light to those
who feel mistreated. You can also begin to treat yourself in this way whenever you feel an
absence of light in your life. If you feel hurt or betrayed because of the
mistreatment of others and darkness has descended on you, ask yourself
how you would prefer to have been treated. Then see that kind of light and
moral treatment as descending on you from God. For give and for get the
person you are angry toward and know that you are in God’ s moral light
right in this moment. In this way you always have access to the light. Thinking how you want to be treated helps you also to extend the golden
rule to others. My young son and I were standing in line at a water park recently, and
overheard a woman in the adjacent line order three soft drinks, and then
discover that she was short of money to pay for them. She was obviously
upset over not having the few coins that she needed and the clerk was
showing no sympathy for her plight. My immediate response in such
situations is to of fer the coins, which I did. But first I asked myself how I
would like to be treated if I was in that situation. The old golden rule. This works for me also after ar guments with my wife or family members. As I sit alone in my frustration, I ask myself how I want to be treated right
now. Then I proceed to act the way I want to be treated, by breaking the
silence or apologizing. The problem is diminished in the light that the
golden rule has cast on the darkness. 3. Truth. James Russell Lowell once said, “Light is the symbol of truth. ”
And I would add that “Darkness is the symbol of deceit. ” Y ou can hide the
truth in the dark while in the light there are no mysteries, no hidden things,
everything is revealed. Thus, darkness conceals while light reveals. When
you bring light to darkness as Saint Francis requests in this line from the
prayer, you are bringing an attitude of openness that does not allow truth to
be fearful or hidden. In David Hawkins’ s powerful book Power V ersus
Force he of fers us this wisdom, “In the process of examining our everyday
lives we can find that all our fears have been based on falsehood. The
displacement of the false by the true is the essence of the healing of all
things visible and invisible. ”
Many years ago I wrote an article titled “Who Do Y ou Trust. ” for a
counseling journal. The central theme of this article was that we tend to
believe the people who are willing to tell us the truth, even though we may
not like that truth. The people who tell us exactly what we want to hear,
while it may be comforting in the moment, are not the people we trust. When you need advice or help from someone, whose opinion do you trust. The one who is only interested in having you feel good, or the one who will
tell you the truth irrespective of how you might react to what they are
telling you. You will truly grow to understand the biblical reminder, “The truth shall set
you free,” as you practice being a bringer of truth to problem situations. From the perspective of truth only, you shine the light of truth on all
problems and they literally fade away under the intense scrutiny of that
light. Nothing is hidden, nothing is concealed. I recall walking with a chronically overweight woman who was never able
to shed those excess pounds despite trying every fad diet that existed. She
swore to me that she didn’ t overeat and that a metabolism problem was thesource of her obesity. I encouraged her to take an honest “truth-only”
approach to her problem and to bring this truth to her daily activities. I told
her to record everything that she ate, or drank, and to keep an honest log of
exercise, twenty-four hours a day for a week. At the end of one week she
was stunned by what the truth revealed about her daily regimen. The one
criterion I insisted upon was truth. She discovered that without realizing it,
she had been deceiving herself. She “for got” the many times throughout the
day when she put food in her mouth, she seldom exercised, she drank
almost no water, but consumed soft drinks and alcohol in much lar ger
amounts than she had admitted to herself. Most of her “cheating” was done
when she was alone, out of sight of others, in the dark, so to speak. It was
the truth that ultimately set her free. As she brought a new light to her
condition she was able to see the problem dissolve. Most addictions are supported and maintained by denial, which is the
monster hiding in the darkness afraid to be seen in the light. Eating
disorders are almost always practiced in the safety of the darkness, behind
closed doors. Denial is a way of life, and the problem continues on its
downward slide until that person finally allows the truth, the light, to shine
in. Severe drug addicts and alcoholics often must face what is called an
intervention before they finally make the decision to become free. An
intervention is a direct confrontation by family and friends in which the
addict is forced to hear the truth. The light shines with no room for escape
into darkness, and ultimately the addicted person goes to a place where no
deception, duplicity or misrepresentation is allowed. The light shines
brightly. The darkness and the problem dissolve if the person decides to
stay in the light. As you seek a spiritual solution to problems, the essence of truth as a vital
component of light becomes obvious. Be a person who is willing to look
honestly at the low ener gies of the darkness in your own life, and make a
commitment to shine a truthful light in those places. Then, bring that
truthful light to any and all darkness that you experience. Y ou will radiate
outward an ener gy that will help to dissolve deception or subtle fraudulence
just by the presence of your light. 4. Clarity. When you live in the light and you bring this light to shine on
darkness, you are bringing an unambiguous knowing to the problem. I call
this aspect of light, clarity. It is a knowing within yourself that you are
connected to God free of any doubt. This kind of clarity is the exact
opposite of what occurs in the darkness. In darkness you grope around for
something to hang onto and will grab the first thing that you touch. There is
no clarity, and consequently there is no light. Imagine shining the brightest light you can on a diamond. What you will
see is a sparkling clear brightness. In contrast, look at the same diamond in
a low-lit, semidark place. The clarity is gone. This metaphor illustrates the
value of clarity in the face of problems; yours or those of others. If you are
not perfectly clear about your spiritual connection, you will bring this
muddled doubt to the problem, and the problem will continue and seem to
be an inexplicable riddle. Bringing light to darkness is bringing your own
clear vision of your capacity to nullify the problem with your light. No
fuzziness in the picture, no contaminants, only a bright light that is devoid
of any and all obstructions. While researching and writing about many of the great masters and their
teachings for Wisdom of the Ages; Sixty Days to Enlightenment, I noticed
the one thing that all these ancestral masters shared was a clarity of purpose
about their lives. Michelangelo and DaV inci were clear about their vision
and they brought that bright clear light to everything they created. Thoreau
knew with complete clarity what he had to do, and marched to that
drumbeat regardless of the outcome. Elizabeth Barrett Browning had a clear
vision of her need to leave behind the darkness of a father ’s fears and
intractable nature and flee to a foreign land to fulfill her mission. These and
the others I wrote about had a clarity of purpose that would not be clouded
by any doubt or darkness in their lives. You too have the option to bring this kind of clear vision to your life and the
lives of others. When you let yourself trust the clear light to shine on any
problem, you raise your ener gy level and access divine guidance. And make
no mistake about this; divine guidance is a clear, unambiguous, pollution-
free light. Here are some suggestions for bringing light to bear on the experiences of
darkness in your life. SUGGESTIONS FOR BRINGING LIGHT T O DARKNESS
Practice being an appr eciator of beauty. Make the choice to notice the
beauty which graces your day. Throughout the day stop to gaze and feel
gratitude for moments of beauty in your life. This may take ef fort when you
are experiencing dark times but it will help develop the habit of leaving the
darkness behind. Beauty appreciation is the result of a habitual way of
thinking light as often as possible. Find something for which you can feel
gratitude rather than resentment. When this becomes your habit, you will
automatically bring this sense of beauty appreciation to all life
circumstances. Harriet Beecher Stowe once observed, “In all ranks of life the human heart
yearns for the beautiful. ” Y es, in all ranks of life, which includes any
problems or dark situations as well. If only once in a day, stop in the midst
of a dark moment and look for the beauty nearby. Do this once a day and
gradually it will evolve to twice and before long, this will be your habitual
way of responding to darkness. Do not pretend or fake happiness when darkness is present. Instead,
cultivate an internal sense of awe about yourself and your place in the
world. Think of the magnificence of every breath you take. Be in awe of the
immensity of our universe. Know that behind all dark clouds the sun shines,
and behind all appearance of darkness there is an eternal light that you can
access which will defuse darkness. People who are described as self-
actualized are able to see beauty everywhere, and they source their life from
their awareness. It only takes a moment’ s pause to lighten darkness with a
thought of appreciating beauty. My favorite observation by Rumi is: “Sell
your cleverness and purchase bewilderment. ”
Become familiar with the literatur e of inspiration about those who have
overcome darkness in their lives. When I read about someone who has
transcended darkness, such as Helen Keller, I feel a strong sense of beingable to bring that kind of enthusiasm and light to any problem I might face. Stories about overcoming hardships always lift my spirits. Lance Armstrong overcame a diagnosis of terminal cancer, and survived
major sur gery to remove a cancerous testicle and tumors in his lungs,
stomach, and brain. Then he went on to eventually win the most grueling
test of physical endurance, the T our de France, racing his bicycle over
twenty-six hundred miles in the midst of summer, through the mountains. As if to punctuate his accomplishment he won the same race again the
following year. Lance was the two-time winner among the most elite
cyclists in the world. His story astounds me. It illustrates to me that we can
find light in the darkest of moments, and deliver that light to every obstacle
that crops up. Watching Lance ride, reading his story, It’s Not About the Bike,  and
listening to his interviews, gives me the courage to challenge myself to ride
to new heights. Those heights are not necessarily physical challenges. They
are the higher/faster frequencies of light and spirit that I can access and then
bring to those who live in the shadows where darkness looms. Send out white light and bathe others in it. Remember, everything is ener gy. Solid, sound, light, thoughts, spirit are movements, waves that vibrate to a
certain frequency. You can be an emissary of light and help others to
eradicate darkness in their lives. Think light and also practice meditating
and visualizing the white, clear, pure light enveloping anyone you choose. If you doubt your ability to accomplish this, or if you feel that sending light
through your thoughts and meditation is impossible then that will be your
experience. Shift your inner consciousness to the thought that no one knows
enough to be a pessimist. Then you will be able to transmit the light at the
highest/fastest vibrations where anything is possible. I practice sending white light, as does my wife, on a regular basis. If any of
our children are out late, we remind each other to bathe them in light and
send them the ener gy of spirit which is love, and to let that loving light
energy sweep over them. W e then have a picture in our mind of light rather
than darkness and danger. I have also studied auras, which are light ener gies that surround us much
like an electrical ener gy field. These auras can be read and altered by the
ways in which we practice spirituality. In fact, Kirlian photography shows
an aura of light surrounding living things, usually unseen by the naked eye. If this light is there, and we can alter it with our thoughts and emotions,
then why not realize that we can use our thoughts to send this pure light to
help protect anyone from the darkness. T ry it, with a mind that is open to
everything, and attached to nothing. Keep your thoughts center ed on light and what you want, rather than on
dark and what you don’ t want. Practice seeing the light within you. Bring
light thoughts to every circumstance of darkness. It is so common to do
precisely the opposite. When you do, you attract more of the illusions of the
dark. For example, if your thoughts are on how bad a situation is, how terrible
everything seems to be going, and all you can visualize is things getting
worse, you are literally attracting darkness into your life. Similarly, if you
approach someone, who is experiencing a dark episode, with thoughts of
fear, and anguish for them, what you are doing is identifying with the
darkness. It may seem to be proper to comfort those in darkness by
emulating their shadow thoughts, but you will help to eliminate that
darkness altogether by bringing light to the present moment. Empathy is a wonderful high ener gy quality and I encourage you to extend
thoughts of compassion and love to those who are experiencing darkness. However, I encourage you not to confuse empathy with reinforcing
darkness. Think thoughts of light and love and enter the darkness with that
energy. Your light ener gy will lighten the darkness. Y ou can emanate light
when you know that the darkness is an illusion since God’ s light is always
shining, and that thoughts of despair and anguish are what create the
illusion of darkness. Extend compassion and know that all is for good. As
I’ve said many times in this book, we cannot go where God is not, and
where God is, all is well. Get outside into the light when thoughts of darkness overtake you. Whenever you find yourself thinking morbid thoughts it is imperative thatyou physically get up and let in some light. Then notice how much better
you feel with the presence of light. Letting in the light literally allows you
to erase the dark thoughts. I also suggest that you reexamine fearful thoughts in bright sunlight. Thoughts that seem so terrifying in bed at night never seem to be as
troublesome when you review them in daylight. I recall being a young boy
living in a foster home thinking about how much I missed my mother and
becoming fearful that something might happen to her and I wouldn’ t see her
again. My mind would wander into all sorts of dark happenings and my
anxiousness would increase until finally I would become frightened and
truly scared. The next morning in the safety of the light those fears
disappeared and I wondered how I could have been so frightened. Somehow the light not only decreases the darkness of a room, but it also
makes questions and feelings of dread fade into nothingness. The light is a
faster ener gy and its presence is a symbol of the fact that God is the way,
the truth and the light. Invite the light in the next time you experience
morbid thoughts and notice the dif ference. Practice purification in all ar eas of your life. The light is pure. The dark is
contaminated. Attempt to remove contaminants from your life which dim
the incandescence of your spiritual light. Begin with your own body. Drink
more pure water and less cloudy liquids such as soda pop, alcohol, and
coffee. Eight to ten glasses a day of pure water flushes out many of the
toxins that lower your ener gy levels and cause the ener getic harmony of
your body to be out of balance. Y ou will feel lighter, think lighter, and
experience more spiritual ener gy by simply purifying your system with
large quantities of pure water every single day. I began my water purification process fourteen years ago when my wife
encouraged me to give up diet soda as my staple drink. I used to drink eight
to ten twelve-ounce cans a day. Slowly but surely I replaced that
contaminated brown water with pure nonsparkly water. It has now been
almost fifteen years since I have touched any kind of soda pop, and I drink
at least one gallon of pure water every day. Allow the purification process to extend to your food intake as well. Y ou
know what is pure and what is toxic to your body. Eat at least three pieces
of fruit a day and have fresh or ganic vegetables at least twice a day. Send
the toxins out of your diet and notice how you feel. To complete the purification process, work on keeping your thoughts pure. Train yourself to not be judgmental and angry. Catch yourself when you are
having impure or judgmental thoughts. Use a mental image of shining a
bright light on your contaminated thoughts and notice how the light
removes those dark thoughts. When you are feeling frustrated and helpless
in the face of a “problem” allow the light in for just a second and note how
your inner feelings change. Recall that there really are no problems other
than a belief that we are separate from God. The problem itself resides in
our minds. By purifying your body, your thoughts, your language, you are purifying all
your behaviors and ultimately bringing in one of the central ingredients of
light to shine on any and all darkness that you may have created as a
shadow on your life. Repeat to yourself one of the most important passages for bringing light to
darkness: “The truth shall set you fr ee. ” Stay in truth. T ruly you will come
to see the freedom of the light when you stay in truth, and bring that truth to
all you encounter. When you practice deception of any kind, you invite a contaminant into
your system. Y ou cloud up the light and invite movement toward the
darkness. Others may complain that you do not tell them what they want to
hear, nevertheless be full of resolve when it comes to what you bring to
anyone else’ s darkness. When others know that you will not sugar coat your
responses in times of dif ficulty they will want to hear from you. I have appeared on many television talk shows over the past twenty-six
years and I have seen firsthand how many major entertainment personalities
travel with an entourage whose primary responsibility seems to be to tell
the “star” what he or she wants to hear. Their paid staf fs of hangers-on tell
them how brilliantly they performed even if they were dull, witless, andself-indulgent on the set. I’m certain that in times of dif ficulty the stars will
go to someone in their lives whom they know they can trust for an honest
response. It was people such as my wife who told me point-blank at various times in
my life that I was drinking the wrong liquids, eating the wrong foods,
gaining some weight, being too aggressive or self-indulgent, being too
focused on my money, or losing sight of my purpose. These truth-tellers
brought the light back into my life where shadows were slowly creeping in. The truth is the light. Practice this truth when helping others and always be
totally truthful with yourself. Y ou may not immediately send out all
darkness from your life such as immoral or toxic behaviors. But if you are
totally honest with yourself, and admit your frailties despite your outer
persona, gradually and surely, you will make the changes toward a
faster/higher spiritual ener gy in which those shadows cannot survive. No
one said it better than W illiam Shakespeare: “T o thine own self be true. ”
The request of Saint Francis to bring light to darkness is a powerful way of
enhancing a spiritual solution to every problem. Light is pure, moral, clear,
and without deception. W alk this path and watch darkness dissolve. There is
no other choice. Darkness cannot survive for even one second when light is
introduced. OceanofPDF. com13
WHERE THERE IS SADNESS,  
JOY
’Tis easy enough to be pleasant, 
When life flows along like a song; 
But the man worthwhile is the one who will smile 
When everything goes dead wrong. —ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
The one sure sign that you have moved into the slower/lower frequencies
and left spirit behind is that you are experiencing less cheerfulness, less joy. If you are not radiant with joy and friendliness, if you have a long pouting
face and a chip on your shoulder, if you find it dif ficult to smile and a
burden to be genial, and if you are not overflowing with love and goodwill
for every creature and every being, then one thing is certain—you do not
know God. In this request of Saint Francis to sow joy where there is
sadness, he is asking to bring God to the presence of any sadness, and in so
doing, he will be removing the illusion of woe which is a thought created by
a mind that does not know God. WHY WE A VOID JOYSadness is an attitude that is habituated over a lifetime of focusing on what
is wrong and missing in our lives. I love the writing of Anthony DeMello,
particularly this astute observation, “There’ s only one reason why you’re
not experiencing bliss at this present moment, and it’ s because you’re
thinking or focusing on what you don’ t have. ” Sadness is a habit of
processing the world from a perspective of lack by constantly thinking
about not having enough of what you feel entitled to such as, money, health,
love, friends, or even free time. On and on go the thoughts, which create a
feeling of sadness. Joy, on the other hand, is a way of processing the world from the
perspective of what you have and what is right. Joyful people rejoice in
their strengths, talents, and powers and do not compare themselves to
anyone. They are not intimidated by the strengths, possessions and powers
of anyone else. Joy comes from rejoicing in all that you are, all that you
have, all that you can be and from knowing that you are divine, a piece of
God. Sadness derives from a scarcity consciousness that can be dissolved by
tuning into the abundance that is yours for the taking. As I’ve quoted earlier
from the scriptures, “ ‘My son,’ the Father said, ‘you are always with me,
and everything I have is yours’” (Luke 15:31). Now, what does everything I
have leave out. Nothing. The antidote to sadness is to bring the abundance
of this world in the form of your own joyful appreciation of all that you
have and all that you can have to the presence of the mistaken belief that
you are lacking something, and the illusion will dissolve. CULTIVATING AN A TTITUDE OF JOY
I once heard Leo Buscaglia tell a story about the ancient Egyptians who
believed that upon death their answers to two questions would determine
whether they continued their journey in the afterlife. The first question was
“Did you find joy. ” The second was “Did you bring joy. ” Finding joy
means consciously deciding to process your life in ways that focus on
gratefulness for what you have. Y ou can cultivate this attitude by refusing to
allow yourself to think in terms of scarcity. Being joyful means thinking
joyful thoughts even when you are tempted otherwise. The habit of thinking in sorrowful ways is a result of your training. Y ou
learned that joy was possible only when life was going the way you thought
it should. Consequently, you developed a habit of abandoning a joyful
appreciative thought in favor of sadness when life wasn’ t as you thought it
should be, and you were encouraged to believe that your sorrow was only
natural. But it is not natural. It is an error in thinking, an illusion like all the
other illusions described in this book. The error of sadness thinking is
corrected when you bring joy to it. Remember, the world has no sadness in
it, only people thinking sad thoughts. “God saw all that he had made, and it
was very good” (Genesis 1:31). T o me, very good means joyful, or as Peace
Pilgrim once asked rhetorically, “How could one know God and not be
joyous. ”
Cultivating an attitude of joy is, in a very real sense, bringing the spirit or
energy of God to everything you encounter by changing your mind. This is
what Albert Einstein probably meant when he suggested that you can’ t
solve a problem with the same mind that created it. Sadness is experienced
in your mind by processing and evaluating your life from a perspective of
not having. Change your mind by moving up to a higher/faster ener gy. JOY AS SPIRITUAL ENERGY
Consider how time seems to pass when you are joyful, versus the passage
of time when you are in a state of grief or sadness. When you are inspired
and involved joyfully in a project, time seems to fly. This is true for me
when I am giving a talk or deeply involved in my writing. Hours pass and I
am stunned that time has moved so quickly. This appearance of time as fast
or slow happens because time is really an illusion. W e have invented time to
carve up the oneness, which is in indivisible. T ime cannot exist when all is
now. As you move into joy, the experience of time melts into the oneness of
spirit, and time disappears. Consequently, living on purpose and feeling the
joy of that purpose brings you into the faster ener gy pattern of spirit. This is
the fastest/highest ener gy you can have. Being on purpose is being in the
joyous present where time cannot exist. Now consider the reverse experience. Think about how slow time appears
to move when you are sad. The more deeply you enter the ener gy patterns
of grief, sorrow, melancholy, distress and sadness the slower time appears to
move. Moments of grief seem interminable. Y ou look at the clock and find
it impossible to believe that only fifteen minutes has passed. Albert Einstein
wittily described time’ s passage when he discussed relativity. “When a man
sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a
hot stove for a minute and its longer than any hour. That’ s relativity. ”
Joy speeds up the illusion of time while sadness appears to slow it down. Faster ener gy is spirit. Joy is spirit, and it is this fast spiritual ener gy that
will nullify the slower ener gy of sadness. Most of us tend to be drawn to
those who have a positive, joyous outlook. Y ou acquire that attitude by
becoming conscious of the many blessings life has given you. Be a person
with a joyous attitude and you will become someone who radiates this
faster positive joyous ener gy which will dispel sadness everywhere you are. Before you can send joy where there is sadness, you must first work on
your personal ener gy patterns. Resolve to live in the faster ener gy of joy
with yourself. This is accomplished most readily by feeling purposeful in
all that you do as frequently as possible. MOVING T O PURPOSE
Moving toward purpose in your life is like bathing yourself in joy. It is a
simple way to move up to the faster frequencies of spirit. Abraham Maslow
described the ladder of self-actualization as moving up from the basic needs
for food, drink, and shelter to a sense of belonging and beauty appreciation. At the top of the self-actualization pyramid is a deep sense of purpose and
meaning in your life. This is where spiritual joy is experienced. T ime
disappears and you are in communion with the highest aspect of yourself, or
what I call God consciousness. Here at the apex of the pyramid, joy is your
constant companion. This state of bliss depends exclusively on the quality of your thoughts. It
means letting go of your concerns about how you are being perceived by
those around you, it means detaching from the results you produce and,instead, immersing your entire being into the activities of your life. It means
refusing to pursue  happiness and instead bringing  happiness to all that you
undertake. In short, perfect joy is found in the absence of striving for it, and
instead realizing it is within you. A sense of purpose is not about what you do or about going on your ideal
vacation. It is not realized by anything or anyone external to you. Purpose is
found by being willing to suspend your ego, knowing that you are eternally
connected to God, and surrendering the little mind to the big mind. The true
joy of living is in allowing the higher ener gies of spirit to guide your life. In
this state of awareness you never have to ask what your purpose is or how
to find it. Instead, you feel purposeful in everything that you do, and you
bring that kind of joy to all that you encounter. It will not matter whether
you are weeding your garden, reading a novel, shoveling snow, creating
your own symphony, driving through traf fic, or meditating in the silence of
your bedroom. Y ou will be the bringer of joy because you are in harmony
rather than in conflict with God. And the irony is that you will find that the
surest way to get to that state of inner joyful purpose is by giving it all
away. FINDING JOY BY GIVING IT A WAY
Perhaps the surest way to find happiness and joy for yourself is to devote
your ener gies toward making someone else happy. If you make an ef fort to
search for joy you will find it elusive, lar gely because you will become
engaged in the search itself. Y our life will be about striving and your life
experience could be expressed in the sardonic saying that “Life is what
happens while you are making other plans. ” However, if you try to bring
happiness to someone else then joy will come to you. You come into this life with nothing and you leave with nothing. The only
thing you can do with your life is give it away. This is the true essence of
feeling purposeful. This is the way to have joy in the face of sadness. Y ou
experience joy when you attempt to bring it to others. This is what Saint
Francis understood to be the goal of life. The entire second part of the prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi is a testament
to the truth that we find joy by giving it away. And in order to give it away,
we must possess it ourselves. grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love;  
And he concludes:  
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life. I have found that most of the times that I am engrossed in sadness due to a
problem it is because of something that someone else has said or done, or
failed to do. So this is the “problem. ” I am sad because of the actions or
inactions of others. Now, of course, this is an illusion; something that I have
created in my thoughts. It is in my mind that I am experiencing the
“problem. ” So, what is the spiritual solution. It is always so simple that I
often conk myself on the head for not realizing sooner. The spiritual solution is to attempt to bring some joy to someone else, and
my sadness disappears instantly. And then it reappears in my thoughts again
as I go through the mental dialogue of agonizing over someone else’ s
conduct, and back I go to providing some joy to someone, and the cycle
repeats itself until I finally get the real answer. Send some joy to the people
whom I per ceive to be the sour ce of my sadness. But that seems so dif ficult. After all, my ego reminds me, they are wrong and I am right and my ego
would much rather be right than happy. But I tame my ego, and change the thoughts I have of being wronged to
thoughts of joy for those who I perceived have annoyed me. Instantly and
permanently my sadness dissolves like magic. By sending joyful lovingthoughts to others, particularly to those whom I have perceived to be the
source of my sadness, I end the problem, which only existed in my mind to
begin with. As you get better at finding joy by giving it away you will find that another
shift takes place. First you were working with your thoughts only, which is
where you experience sadness. As you transform those thoughts of sadness
into joy, your emotions will follow. You will experience a shift in your
sense of physical well-being and begin to feel better. You will feel lighter,
more comfortable, and healthier. Your feelings of despair, anger and
depression will begin to dissolve, and then your behavior will change to
follow the path of joy. You will reach out to those who have “wronged
you,” with for giveness and extend a helping hand to those who used to be
classified as your enemies. From thoughts to feelings to behaviors, your entire life shifts away from
problems when you find your purpose by giving joy away. You may be wondering, at this point, if I am suggesting that you should
never allow yourself to feel sad, which would be a form of denial. Of
course you will experience sadness, and I do not advise you to pretend to be
happy and joyful when you are not. So, how do you resolve the obvious
paradox. HANDLING YOUR OWN SADNESS AND THE SADNESS OF
OTHERS
There is a powerful quote from A Course in Miracles  that addresses the
issue of sadness or negative emotions such as despair, darkness, hatred,
injury, and doubt, which have been the subject matter of this book. Nothing real can be threatened
Nothing unreal exists,
Herein lies the peace of God. Yes, you will feel sad at various times in your life. No, you should not deny
those feelings and pretend to be joyful. Y es, it is healthy to express these
feelings, to honor them and not to feel guilty when you do experience them. But go back to this idea that I have been hammering at from the opening
pages. If it is not of God it is not real, and everything is of God, and all that
is of God is good. W e can all agree that sadness, despair, disease, and hatred
are not good. It cannot exist if it is not real, yet you do feel the existence of
the sadness. But it is only a thought created by a mind that feels separate
from God, therefore it is an illusion. When you understand the nature of your sadness you can acknowledge it,
accept it, honor it, and do anything else with it that you choose, including
paying homage to it and building a shrine to it. But in the end, when you
want to dissolve it, bring in the faster/higher ener gy of joy and you can give
it a big, wet kiss good-bye as it floats out of your life. Sadness simply
cannot survive simultaneously with the ener gy of joy. Why. Because it is
unreal, and therefore cannot exist except in your ego-mind’ s eye. God’ s
love is real. Joy is God’ s love. And joy can never be threatened. When you understand this fundamental truth about sadness, that it is unreal
and an illusory product of your mind you will no longer feel such a strong
need to defend your right to be sad. Y ou’ll realize that when you ar gue for
your right to be sad and depressed the only thing you’ll get for your ef fort is
more sadness. Begin to opt for the higher spiritual ener gy of joy. Ultimately
this ener gy will be your natural state. When you study the lives of sages and
saints you discover that they are joyful, free, and feel a profound love for
every living creature. Sadness is not a part of their repertoire. Nisar gadatta Maharaj responded with this stunning response to an inquiry
about his not feeling sad in the face of circumstances that drive most people
to despair, such as war, poverty, and the like. “In my world, nothing ever
goes wrong. ” He was saying that he lived in the world of spirit, and the rest
is illusion. Get outside your body and all its concerns and possessions and
view everything as an observer. From that perspective, sadness is
impossible. Those whom we call realized beings are most often in a state of
cheerful, joyful bliss. Y ou may not see yourself as a realized being just yet,
but my guess is that you are an aspirant if you read books such as this. If so,then aspire to send joy to sadness; it is a great way to be. What follows are a
few suggestions for doing just that. SUGGESTIONS FOR SENDING JOY IN THE F ACE OF SADNESS
Acknowledge your sadness, understand it is unr eal, and then let it go. Don’ t
attempt to fake happiness in the face of sadness. Instead, identify yourself
as being aware of sadness as it occurs, then ask yourself if you wish to stay
in this emotional state. If the answer is no, then move toward a mental
understanding of the sadness by recognizing that feeling sad is the result of
how you are choosing to think. Sadness is purely and totally located in your
mind; it does not exist in the world. Once you acknowledge your absolute right to be sad, decide how long you
want to stay in that state, understand that it is the result of your thoughts
and lowered ener gy, and then you can let it go. This is accomplished by
bringing joyful thoughts into your present moment and watching the
sadness fly away. This little mental technique of being able to acknowledge, understand, and
disperse can be accomplished in a few seconds, or you can make it last for
weeks if you so choose. The point is that by bringing awareness to sadness
while you are feeling it, you give yourself the option of replacing it with
joy, which is the spiritual solution to the error of sadness. Radiate the ener gy of joy to others who appear to be experiencing sadness. Listen to the painful and sad tales of others with empathy and with a
commitment to living in joy. You are then contributing a higher ener gy to
the situation. Sadness cannot survive in the faster ener gy of spirit. This is
similar to attempting to pick a fight with someone who refuses to fight. Eventually the antagonist will either disappear or abandon their pugilistic
ways. And so it is with those who are determined to stay in sadness. They
sense that you are refusing to join them in their lower ener gy patterns. They
will either seek out a more willing soul to burden, or your presence and
your unyielding commitment to contribute joy will dissolve the sadness. My responses to people who insist on being glum are usually on the order
of: “Things will improve if you decide you will be happy regardless of all
these events,” or “Y ou are feeling sad now, but I’m certain you will get past
these things and someday you’ll look back on them with a smile on your
face. ” I try to maintain a sense of my own commitment to happiness in the
face of obstacles when I encounter people who are struggling with hurdles
in life. In this way I can radiate out that ener gy and help to eradicate the
energy of sadness. Aristotle put it like this: “Happiness is the meaning and
the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence. ” This is
good advice to recall when you face your own thoughts of sadness or
encounter those of others. Look for the benefit in those who ar e delivering sadness to you. Yes, there is
a benefit that accrues to you when you encounter any ener gy that is lower
than the ener gy of spirit. These people are your greatest teachers. They
remind you that you have not yet mastered yourself and they provide you
with the here and now opportunity to choose joy and the peace that comes
with it. W ith their expression of sadness you learn how to transcend that
energy and use it as a guide. There is a story about G. I. Gurdjief f, who led a spiritual community in
France, that illustrates the value of having lower ener gy people in your life. John Marks T empleton tells the story in his book, Worldwide Laws of Life. There lived an old man who was the personification of dif ficulty—
irritable, messy, fighting with everyone, and unwilling to clean up or
help in any manner. No one was able to get along with him. Finally,
after many frustrating months of trying to stay with the group, the old
man left for Paris. Gurdjief f followed him and tried to convince him to
return, but it had been too hard, and the man said, “No. ” Finally,
Gurdjief f offered the man a very big monthly stipend if he would
return to the community. How could the man refuse. When the old man returned everyone was aghast. Upon hearing that
he was being paid (while they were being char ged a fair sum to be
there), the community was up in arms. Gurdjief f called everyone
together for a meeting and after hearing their complaints, he laughed
and explained: “This old man is like yeast for bread. W ithout him hereyou would never really learn about anger, irritability, patience and
compassion. That is why you pay me and I hire him. ”
Every experience of sadness provides valuable lessons to learn and doors to
open to higher spiritual awareness. Therefore, give thanks when such
opportunities surface. Go to your purpose and know the joy that comes fr om being ther e. If you
have ever said, “I don’ t really know what my purpose is,” I suggest that you
remember that the only thing you can do with your life is to give it away. In
any moment when you are reaching outside your own self-indulgence and
attempting to serve others, you are on purpose. Whenever you feel out of touch, sad, or like you are floundering, just stop
in that moment and ask, “How may I serve. ” Then reach out in any small
serving capacity and notice how purposeful you feel. This is joy. This is the
bringing of joy to sadness. It all revolves around reaching those higher
rungs on the ladder of self-realization. Feeling purposeful is one of the very
highest of those rungs. A simple act of comforting another person is an act
of purpose. Helping someone across a street or going out of your way to
hold a door open for a stranger are acts of purpose. Even a kind greeting or
sending a greeting card are purposeful acts. They bring you joy and they
erode sadness that might exist in others or in yourself. Settle disputes and shar e your truth. Make a list of the people you would
call if you knew that you only had one more day to live. Imagine what you
would say to them. Then ask yourself what you are waiting for. The fact is
that tomorrow is promised to no one. T ell people whom you love exactly
how you feel about them and why. Ask any whom you have of fended or
violated in any way to for give you. If there are lingering hurts in your life,
make an ef fort today to replace them with joy. Send flowers, make a phone
call, write a letter. In a style that gives you joy, communicate that you want
sadness deleted. When you do this, you are living at a higher/faster
frequency and bringing a spiritual solution to sadness, allowing it to
disintegrate in the powerful spiritual force of joy. Remind yourself that joy is found in stillness. I often relate the line from the
Old T estament, “Be still and know that I am God. ” The two key words here
are still and know. To know  as I’ve written about extensively in earlier
chapters is to make conscious contact; to have a direct experience. Still
refers to the silence of meditation in which you know the one that is
indivisible and that silence cannot be divided, nor can God. And now refer
to the New T estament: “Joy is the fruit of the spirit. ” By being still, you
know God, and joy is the fruit of God. I recommend that you practice being still, particularly when you seem to be
surrounded by sadness. Recently, my wife had been through a very rough
two-day ordeal with one of our children. She had almost no sleep and a
mountain of dif ficulties to handle. When I said, “Honey, you must be
saddened and so exhausted with all that you’ve been through,” she
responded without hesitating, “Not really, my meditation keeps me centered
and joyful even when everything around me is in turmoil. ” She finds her
antidote to sadness in meditation. I recommend meditation as a daily
practice for bringing joy to sadness. Study the lives of the saints and sages. This is always a great way to bring
the higher spiritual ener gies to the lower ener gies of the senses and the
material world. Those whom we admire are not morose and depressed. They are purposeful, full of determination and passion, afire with a burning
desire to live out their own strong sense of purpose, and filled with joy. For myself, I have found that I never seem to have enough time to do all
that I want to do, and consequently I have no time to waste on being
melancholy or feeling self-pity. Certainly, I get hurt and feel sad on
occasion. However, my sense of awe at everything around me, combined
with my burning desire to fulfill my own destiny leaves precious little time
for being sad. Strive to emulate all the great spiritual teachers you’ve admired and the
ones you’ve become acquainted with. They live in bliss, they laugh, and
they find joy in the seemingly most inconspicuous things. A grasshopper, a
seashell, the shape and silhouette of a tree against a dark sky, even a piece
of candy can make them overflow with joy. Read about these divine souls. Go to their places of worship, talk to their devotees, immerse yourself in
their ener gy and you’ll discover people who always manage to bring joy to
sadness, because they themselves are joy personified. Feel supr emely happy. Here is what John T empleton suggests in his
marvelous book, Worldwide Laws of Life :
There are three simple words that almost seem to have magical
properties for developing a positive attitude in our life. Feel supr emely
happy. When you let yourself feel supremely happy—regardless of
outer appearances—your whole body changes. Y our thoughts, your
facial expressions, your health, your attitudes, in fact, everything about
you changes for the better. I have tried this technique on many occasions since I read John T empleton’ s
book. I simply say to myself, “At this moment, regardless of anything else
going on around me, I am going to feel supr emely happy. ” And almost by
magic I am transported to a more mystical divine ener gy of joy. I use this
suggestion and also the metaphor of unplugging myself from the outlet of
the physical world and plugging into God. When I get that thought and
picture in my head, I say to myself, “I feel supremely happy. ” Try it. Y ou’ll
be delighted at how quickly you can move from sadness to joy. This concludes the seven requests Saint Francis of Assisi made in his
prayer. They symbolize a spiritual solution to every problem. If you can
learn to sow 1) peace, 2) love, 3) pardon, 4) faith, 5) hope, 6) light, and 7)
joy, you will eradicate virtually every perceived problem that you
encounter. These seven elements of spiritual problem solving will blot out
the illusion of 1) turmoil, 2) hatred, 3) injury, 4) doubt, 5) despair, 6)
darkness, and 7) sadness. As you set about to find the place that is your mind, hunting for the
boundaries and the material substance, you ultimately will discover the
truth. There is no place called your mind. Then the illusion is permanently
dissolved by the good that is God, which can know no iniquity. I am ending this book with a powerful passage from a quotation based upon
the holy book known as the Bhagavad-Gita. In this ancient classic tale, the
warrior Arjuna is talking to Krishna (God) and asking who is the illumined
man. I am of fering my comments on God’ s responses and encouraging you
to savor the ideas that Arjuna is receiving. (This is from a translation by
Eknath Easwaran. ) It sums up beautifully the messages of this book. Arjuna:  Tell me of those who live always in wisdom, ever awar e of the Self,
O Krishna; how do they talk, how sit, how move about. Sri Krishna:  They live in wisdom who see themselves in all and all in them,
whose love for the Lor d of Love has consumed every selfish desir e and
sense craving tormenting the heart. The illumined person understands the one power and knows that they are
always connected to that spiritual essence. There is never a question of
being separate from God. Love of spirit is so strong it has become a
knowing. Y ou can turn to that knowing to end the problems that Krishna
tells Arjuna are the sense cravings of a tormented heart. The love for the
“Lord of Love” is a wonderful description of spiritual ener gy. Sri Krishna:  Not agitated by grief or hankering after pleasur e, they live
free from lust and fear and anger. The illumined person is free because they have transcended the lower
energies such as lust, fear, and anger and brought their opposites to dissolve
such delusions. Sri Krishna:  Fetter ed no mor e by selfish attachments, they ar e not elated by
good fortune or depr essed by bad. Such ar e the seers. The illumined person does not identify happiness or success by the material
world events that are called good and bad. They are unattached to these
things and their detachment is what gives them a problem-free life. Sri Krishna:  Even as a tortoise draws in its limbs, the wise can draw in
their senses at will. The illumined person lives by higher spiritual faculties of love, creativity,
intuition, kindness, for giveness, surrender, and cheerfulness, and is not a
slave to their senses. They can ignore the cravings of their senses and
therefore avoid the problems that go with those sensory demands. Sri Krishna:  Though aspirants abstain fr om sense pleasur es, they will still
crave for them. These cravings all disappear when they see the Lor d of
Love. The illumined person comes to know that all “problems” are the result of
feeling separate from God, and they disappear when they make conscious
contact with God. Hence they know the truth that there is a spiritual
solution to every problem. Sri Krishna:  For even of those who tr ead the path, the stormy senses can
sweep off the mind. But they live in wisdom who subdue them, and keep
their minds ever absorbed in Me. By taming the ego and moving into the higher ener gy of spirit, the storms
created by our attachments and material world identifications dissolve. Sri Krishna:  When you keep thinking about sense objects, attachment
comes. Attachment br eeds desir e, the lust of possession which, when
thwarted, burns to anger. Anger clouds the judgment; you can no longer
learn fr om past mistakes. Lost is the power to choose between the wise and
unwise, and your life is utter waste. But when you move amidst the world of
sense fr om both attachment and aversion fr eed, ther e comes the peace in
which all sorr ows end and you live in the wisdom of the Self. An attachment to anything leads ultimately to a world of problems. By
letting go and surrendering we can then bring the peace and love of spirit to
bear on all that we were previously attached to. This ends the possibility of
anger, despair, doubt, darkness, and hatred. This higher ener gy allows us to
always be free to live in the wisdom and peace of the Lord of Love, i. e. ,
God. Sri Krishna:  The disunited mind is far fr om wise; how can it meditate. How be at peace. When you know no peace, how can you know joy. By reconnecting to God we move up to a higher/faster spiritual vibration. This is accomplished by going to the indivisible place of silence. In silent
meditation we also come to the place of unity—oneness. That which is
indivisible. Here is where peace and joy are experienced. Here is the
solution to any and all problems that arise from a disunited mind. Sri Krishna:  Use all your power to set the senses fr ee from attachment and
aversion alike, and live in the full wisdom of the Self. Such a sage awakes to
light in the night of all cr eatur es. That which the world calls day is the night
of ignorance to the wise. Darkness disappears when you come to know the light that always shines. The light of the sun, and the light of God never go out, despite what your
senses and attachments might tell you. Sri Krishna:  As the rivers flow into the ocean but cannot make the vast
ocean overflow, so flow the magic str eams of the sense-world into the sea of
peace that is the sage. God’ s abundance is unlimited. Y ou can drink from the inexhaustible source
of love, light, joy, and harmony at will, and when you do, you will come to
know perfect peace. Sri Krishna:  They ar e forever fr ee who br eak away fr om the ego-cage of I,
me and mine to be united with the Lor d of Love. This is the supr eme state. Attain to this and pass fr om death to immortality. This says it all. When you move into the ener gy field of God you will never
again doubt the knowing that there truly is a spiritual solution to every
problem.
According to the author, the key is to recognize that the truth will set you free and to bring that truth to the situation, rather than trying to sugarcoat the truth or pretend to be happy when you're not.
What is the key to bringing light to darkness?
The author recommends acknowledging and accepting the feeling, then recognizing that it is an illusion created by the mind and letting it go by focusing on a higher spiritual energy.
What is the author's suggestion for dealing with sadness or negative emotions?
The author suggests radiating the energy of joy by focusing on the higher spiritual energy and letting go of attachment to material possessions and desires.
How can you bring joy to others who are struggling with darkness?
The author believes that joy and sadness are not separate entities, but rather two sides of the same coin. He emphasizes the importance of recognizing the illusion of sadness and replacing it with joy and higher spiritual energies.
What is the author's perspective on the concept of joy and sadness?
The author suggests that one should not seek to find purpose, but rather recognize that purpose is already a part of one's being and can be accessed by surrendering to a higher power and living in the present moment.
What is the author's advice for finding a sense of purpose?