Guided Meditation: Finding the Joy Within You

Dambara Begley leads a 15-minute guided meditation to help you find your joy within you.
He is a longtime meditator and teacher at Ananda.

Transcript

Dambara Begley:

Hello, friends, my name is Dambara Begley. And I'd love to meditate with you. So let's do a guided meditation. And we're going to focus on Joy.

Joy is our nature. Bliss is where we came from. And so, what better way to remind ourselves what we're all about than to start the day off and end the day with joy in our hearts and in our minds?

Quieting the Mind Through Meditation Songs

So let's do a chant. From joy I came for joy. For joy I live.  In sacred Joy, I melt again. These are words from Yogananda, his poems Samadhi, which describes the state of Infinite Joy, Infinite Bliss that is our birthright. So all we have to do, as Yogananda said, is improve and increase our knowing. It's already there. We don't have to go outside and find it somewhere. We just have to remember that it's inside, and meditation is perfect for that.

So, let's chant. Chanting is a way of just bypassing the brain and getting right into the heart and the heart of the Spirit. And then we'll just talk a little bit as we guide ourselves into a meditation.

(Chanting From Joy I came. For Joy I live. In sacred Joy I melt again 5x)

Again, let's do a little softer now bringing it more inside more internal.

(Continuing chanting 7x).

Lifting the Spirit of Joy Upward

Then silently now inside. Let's take the spirit of joy that we feel inside and offer it up wholeheartedly. Inside, through our inner energy channel our inner spine through the chakras, lifting up our heart to the point between the eyebrows, offering ourselves wholeheartedly into the Divine Light.

Everything that we want everything that we know we are, offer ourselves into that light and let's pray together. Pray with me.

Divine Mother, Heavenly Father, Friend, Beloved God, Great Gurus, Saints of all religions.

Bless me in my practice. Instill in me a Spirit of peace, inner calm, inner joy, that I may feel it deeply in my meditation and throughout the rest of my day. Help me be a channel of peace and of joy to everyone I meet, to this world in need. Come to me now.

Aum, peace, amen.

Relaxing the Body

Before we begin meditation proper, let's just release any tensions we have lingering inside, in the physical body by inhaling with a double breath, tensing the whole body and then releasing with a double breath.

So follow along with me inhale with a double breath.

Tense the whole body.

And throw the breath out.

Again, release.

And one last time,

Tense, and let it all go.

It's a great technique for just releasing everything inside that we may not even be aware of letting it all melt away.

Guided Consciousness of Pure Joy

And now just be pure awareness, pure stillness, pure consciousness, focusing at the light between the eyebrows, in the forehead, the front part of the brain, the spiritual eye.

Now feeling that joy relax upward, into superconsciousness. Focusing on the light in the forehead, the point between the eyebrows the spiritual eye, offering ourselves completely into that light.

And feeling realizing inside of the nature of that light is joy, divine bliss. Bliss beyond all compare beyond imagination of expectancy as Yogananda said, everything our heart desires and it's ours.

Let's open ourselves up completely. Not only offering ourselves into that light, but accepting that light that is already there and letting it fill our being.

Let's meditate now (Long Pause for 10-15 minutes)

(Chanting: Ever New Joy) 

Joy, joy, joy, joy ever new joy.

Sharing the Blessings of Joy With Others

Taking that joy that we feel inside. Being grateful to realize that joy within, let's offer that joy now back out into the universe, returning the bliss, in a circle of joy, and sending the blessings out to all those in need, in desperate need of that joy in their lives. Acting as instruments to share that, with all those who are in need, bring to mind now. Those you know to be in need of special blessing, special healing, visualize them bathed in healing Light, bathed in uplifting Joy, receptive to that Joy within and all around.

And let's pray together,

Divine Mother. Thou art omnipresent. Thou art in all Thy children. Manifest Thy healing presence in their bodies, in their minds and in their souls.

Rub your hands together generating Divine healing energy, holding our arms up and sending waves of healing light out to the world in need, chanting three AUMs together. AUM AUM, AUM,

Aum, peace. Amen.