Finding joy in small actions and simple aspects of life is closely connected to shifting your inner state—from focusing on difficulty and external results to embracing ease, creativity, and inner fulfillment.
Embracing Simplicity and Small Joys
The ability to experience joy in small things is a sign of an evolved state. The ego often looks for complexity, but the being thrives in simplicity.
- Joys are too Simple: If you understand that your joys are too simple, you can be fulfilled in a simple way. If you look at your past and past cravings without projecting the future into them, you realize you are Ashutosha, or “Bhole Baba”—easily pleased and innocent by nature, needing only simple things to be pleased.
- The Power of the Simple: Many beautiful things can happen in your Being through simple laughter. Simple techniques, such as laughter, can bring great mental transformation and instantly take you out of a low mood or depression.
- Avoid Rejecting Simplicity: If you reject things because they feel “too simple,” you often miss the opportunity to awaken excitement and joy. Rejecting simple things and struggling with complicated ones takes away the courage and excitement needed for spiritual travel.
- Internal Independence: Having the inner space that does not need too much to be joyful is defined as aparigraha (non-possessiveness).
- Lifestyle of Joy: To expand the Anandamaya Kosha (bliss body), it is recommended to cultivate small habits like little dancing, singing, painting, and carrying a smile, which are “tax-free” and expand your being without needing external recognition or cost measurement.
Joy in Everyday Action and Work
Finding fulfillment in daily tasks involves a cognitive shift, viewing the work itself—regardless of its external outcome—as an expression of joy and creativity.
- The Joy of Creativity: When you create something, or simply do something, the joy that opens up in your heart remains and soaks you in that experience. Learning to taste this joy of creativity is essential.
- Focus on the Path (Dharma): When you enjoy the path (or the process of living), you are in dharma. If you fall in love with the work itself, the idea that “I am working” disappears, and the activity becomes ecstatic.
- Creating High Enthusiasm: Success and wealth creation are linked to radiating intense high enthusiasm in any task you undertake, even something like collecting garbage. High enthusiasm is defined as joy overflowing through your intelligence, and it is the key to creating wealth out of joy, not insecurity.
- Work as Leela (Play): When the pressure to create disappears, your whole creation can become Leela (play). Life should be experienced as playful.
- Context Defines the Task: The experience of work drastically changes based on your context: Three men breaking stone feel sadness, peace, or bliss depending on whether they believe they are “breaking stone,” “making a pillar,” or “building a temple”. Knowing the larger vision makes one blissful.
- Working Without Expectation: The Bhagavad Gita verse, “Karmanyevaadhikaraste maa phaleshu kadachanah” (do your duty but don’t expect the result), means letting the job itself become the enjoyment. If you continuously think about the money or the goal, you will lose the joy of living.
- Activating Joy: Dedicate at least 30 minutes a day to perform an action that brings no name, fame, or money, such as painting or cleaning a temple. This practice helps you learn how to move your body and discover the source of your energy without being driven by fear or greed.
The Joy of Enriching Others
Small acts of contribution and sincerity provide deep, lasting joy, often referred to as “Enriching”.
- Sincere Contribution: A simple act of giving money to small children selling flowers, and the sincere “Thank you, Swamiji!” shouted by one child, resulted in joy in the system for the next twenty-four hours. This shows that sincere joy caused in another person, even through a small sincere act, can add to one’s own bliss.
- Enriching in Daily Life: Life has no pleasure other than Enriching. The attitude of enriching is applicable to any profession—even selling shirts—where you convert resources (money) into something useful (a shirt) for the other person. When you go to serve a person, you should go with the feeling of enrichment.
- Joy of Giving: When you give, share, or enrich others, you feel joy. You will understand that even your exhaling is a form of giving, enriching the trees with carbon dioxide.
- Expanding Joy: When you focus on causing the reality of others (such as members of your teamily), your ability to be joyful will increase.
In essence, finding joy in small works involves recognizing that fulfillment is internal, and simple actions become deeply joyful when performed out of sincerity, enthusiasm, and a sense of selfless contribution (Enriching), rather than expectation of large results or rewards.
