1 00:00:00,240 --> 00:00:05,679 Speaker 1: Abiding joy, who carry music in their heart through dusky 2 00:00:05,759 --> 00:00:10,320 lane and wrangling mart plying their daily toil with busier 3 00:00:10,359 --> 00:00:16,000 feet because their secret souls a holier repeat. Serene will 4 00:00:16,039 --> 00:00:19,239 be our days in bright and happy will our nature 5 00:00:19,280 --> 00:00:23,280 be when love is an unerring light and joy its 6 00:00:23,320 --> 00:00:30,000 own security, wordsworth abiding joy. Is there such a thing? 7 00:00:30,760 --> 00:00:34,719 Where is it? Who possesses it? Yes, there is such 8 00:00:34,759 --> 00:00:38,119 a thing. It is where there is no sin. It 9 00:00:38,159 --> 00:00:42,119 is possessed by the pure hearted. As darkness is a 10 00:00:42,159 --> 00:00:47,000 passing shadow, and light is substance that remains. So sorrow 11 00:00:47,079 --> 00:00:51,600 is fleeting, but joy abides forever. No true thing can 12 00:00:51,640 --> 00:00:55,479 pass away and become lost. No false thing can remain 13 00:00:55,560 --> 00:01:00,799 and be preserved. Sorrow is false, it cannot live. Joy 14 00:01:00,960 --> 00:01:05,040 is true and it cannot die. Joy may become hidden 15 00:01:05,079 --> 00:01:08,760 for a time, but it can always be recovered. Sorrow 16 00:01:08,799 --> 00:01:12,120 may remain for a period, but it can be transcended 17 00:01:12,159 --> 00:01:16,560 and dispersed. Do not think your sorrow will remain. It 18 00:01:16,560 --> 00:01:19,920 will pass away like a cloud. Do not believe that 19 00:01:19,959 --> 00:01:23,480 the torments of sin are ever your portion. They will 20 00:01:23,560 --> 00:01:29,359 vanish like a hideous nightmare. Awake, arise, be holy and joyful. 21 00:01:30,280 --> 00:01:33,719 You are the creator of your own shadows. You desire, 22 00:01:33,840 --> 00:01:37,680 and then you grieve, renounce, and then you all rejoice. 23 00:01:38,560 --> 00:01:41,480 You are not the impotent slave of sorrow. The never 24 00:01:41,640 --> 00:01:44,840 ending gladness await your home coming. You are not the 25 00:01:44,879 --> 00:01:48,840 helpless prisoner of the darkness and dreams of sin. Even now, 26 00:01:48,879 --> 00:01:52,120 the beautiful light of holiness shines upon your sleeping lids, 27 00:01:52,640 --> 00:01:56,359 ready to greet your awakening vision. In the heavy, troubled 28 00:01:56,400 --> 00:01:59,799 sleep of sin and self, the abiding joy is lost 29 00:01:59,840 --> 00:02:04,120 and forgotten. Its undying music is no more heard, and 30 00:02:04,159 --> 00:02:07,359 the fragrance of its fadeless flowers no longer cheers the 31 00:02:07,400 --> 00:02:11,520 heart of the wayfarer. But when sin and self are abandoned, 32 00:02:11,960 --> 00:02:14,960 when the clinging to things for personal pleasure is put away, 33 00:02:15,680 --> 00:02:18,960 then the shadows of grief disappear, and the heart is 34 00:02:19,000 --> 00:02:23,240 restored to its imperishable joy. Joy comes and fills the 35 00:02:23,319 --> 00:02:27,599 self emptied heart. It abides with the peaceful, Its rain 36 00:02:27,719 --> 00:02:31,919 is with the pure. Joy flees from the selfish, It 37 00:02:32,000 --> 00:02:36,599 deserts the quarrelsome. It is hidden from the impure. Joy 38 00:02:36,719 --> 00:02:39,960 is as an angel, so beautiful and delicate in chaste, 39 00:02:40,280 --> 00:02:43,840 that she can only dwell with holiness. She cannot remain 40 00:02:43,879 --> 00:02:48,159 with selfishness, She is wedded to love. Every man is 41 00:02:48,199 --> 00:02:51,800 truly happy in so far as he is unselfish, he 42 00:02:51,879 --> 00:02:55,439 is miserable in so far as he is selfish. All 43 00:02:55,479 --> 00:02:58,840 truly good men, and by good men I mean those 44 00:02:58,840 --> 00:03:02,520 who have fought victoria the battle against self, are men 45 00:03:02,560 --> 00:03:06,159 of joy. How great is the jubulation of the saint. 46 00:03:07,000 --> 00:03:10,240 No true teacher promises sorrow as the ultimate of life. 47 00:03:10,759 --> 00:03:14,960 He promises joy. He points to sorrow, but only as 48 00:03:15,000 --> 00:03:19,479 a process which sin has rendered necessary. Where self ends, 49 00:03:19,520 --> 00:03:24,400 grief passes away. Joy is the companion of righteousness in 50 00:03:24,439 --> 00:03:27,840 the divine life. Tender compassion fills the place where weeping 51 00:03:27,879 --> 00:03:32,439 sorrow sat. During the process of becoming unselfish, there are 52 00:03:32,520 --> 00:03:38,520 periods of deep sorrow. Purification is necessarily severe. All becoming 53 00:03:38,599 --> 00:03:43,639 is painful. Abiding joy is its completion, realized only in 54 00:03:43,680 --> 00:03:47,599 the perfection of being. And this is a state where 55 00:03:47,639 --> 00:03:51,919 all is loveliness and power and love with all sublimest 56 00:03:52,039 --> 00:04:00,840 qualities of mind, where all enjoyed dominion over themselves, acts, feelings, thoughts, conditions. 57 00:04:01,960 --> 00:04:05,520 Consider how a flower evolves and becomes. At first, there 58 00:04:05,560 --> 00:04:08,599 is a little germ groping its way in the dark soil, 59 00:04:08,719 --> 00:04:12,360 towards the upper light. Then the plant appears, and leaf 60 00:04:12,439 --> 00:04:16,399 is added unto leaf, and finally the perfected flower appears, 61 00:04:16,800 --> 00:04:19,959 in the sweet perfume and chaste beauty of which all 62 00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:24,759 effort ceases. So with human life, at first the blind 63 00:04:24,800 --> 00:04:27,680 groping for the light in the dark soil of selfishness 64 00:04:27,680 --> 00:04:31,199 and ignorance. Then the coming into the light, and the 65 00:04:31,240 --> 00:04:35,360 gradual overcoming of selfishness with its accompanying pain and sorrow, 66 00:04:36,079 --> 00:04:40,279 and finally the perfect flower of a pure, unselfish life, 67 00:04:40,639 --> 00:04:44,759 giving forth without effort the perfume of holiness and the 68 00:04:44,800 --> 00:04:50,120 beauty of joy. The good, the pure are superatively happy. 69 00:04:50,839 --> 00:04:55,959 However man may argumentatively deny or qualify this, humanity instinctively 70 00:04:56,000 --> 00:04:59,319 knows it to be true. Do not men everywhere picture 71 00:04:59,360 --> 00:05:02,759 their angels as the most joyful of beings? There are 72 00:05:02,879 --> 00:05:06,040 joyful angels and bodies of flesh. We meet them and 73 00:05:06,120 --> 00:05:08,879 pass on. And how many of those who come in 74 00:05:08,920 --> 00:05:12,319 contact with them are sufficiently pure to see the vision 75 00:05:12,360 --> 00:05:15,959 within the form, to see the incorruptible angel in its 76 00:05:16,000 --> 00:05:20,040 common instrument of clay, They needs must grow. Who cannot 77 00:05:20,079 --> 00:05:24,240 see the blade before the ear must be the outward 78 00:05:24,279 --> 00:05:29,600 symbols disappear from him whose inward sight is clear. Yes, 79 00:05:29,720 --> 00:05:33,279 the pure are joyful. We look almost in vain for 80 00:05:33,360 --> 00:05:37,160 any expressions of sorrow. In the words of Jesus, the 81 00:05:37,160 --> 00:05:40,600 man of sorrows is only completed in the man of joy. 82 00:05:41,920 --> 00:05:46,079 Aye Buddha, who wept with all my brother's tears, whose 83 00:05:46,120 --> 00:05:49,600 heart was broken by a whole world's woe. Laugh and 84 00:05:49,639 --> 00:05:53,639 am glad, for there is liberty in sin, and in 85 00:05:53,720 --> 00:05:57,879 the struggle against sin there is unrest and affliction. But 86 00:05:57,959 --> 00:06:00,959 in the perfection of truth, in the path of righteousness, 87 00:06:01,319 --> 00:06:05,759 there is abiding joy. Enter the path. There spring the 88 00:06:05,800 --> 00:06:10,759 healing streams, quenching all thirst. There bloom the immortal flowers, 89 00:06:11,240 --> 00:06:15,399 carpeting all the way with joy, their throng, swiftest and 90 00:06:15,480 --> 00:06:20,040 sweetest hours. Tribuation lasts only so long as there remains 91 00:06:20,040 --> 00:06:23,639 some chaff of self which needs to be removed. The 92 00:06:23,720 --> 00:06:27,839 tribuation or threshing machine ceases to work. When all the 93 00:06:27,920 --> 00:06:31,199 grain is separated from the chaff, and when the last 94 00:06:31,279 --> 00:06:35,319 impurities are blown away from the soul, Tribulation has completed 95 00:06:35,360 --> 00:06:37,839 its work, and there is no more need for it 96 00:06:38,439 --> 00:06:42,920 than abiding joy is realized. All the saints and prophets 97 00:06:42,959 --> 00:06:46,399 and saviors of the race have proclaimed with rejoicing the 98 00:06:46,439 --> 00:06:50,199 Gospel or the good News. All men know what good 99 00:06:50,279 --> 00:06:56,000 news is an impending calamity avoided, a disease cured, friends 100 00:06:56,079 --> 00:07:01,439 arrived or returned in safety, difficulties overcome, success in some 101 00:07:01,720 --> 00:07:05,040 enterprise assured. But what is the good news of the 102 00:07:05,079 --> 00:07:10,040 saintly ones. This that there is peace for the troubled, 103 00:07:10,480 --> 00:07:14,879 healing for the afflicted, gladness for the grief stricken, victory 104 00:07:14,959 --> 00:07:18,399 for the sinful, a home coming for the wanderer, and 105 00:07:18,519 --> 00:07:22,360 joy for the sorrowing and broken hearted. Not that these 106 00:07:22,439 --> 00:07:25,759 beautiful realities shall be in some future world, but they 107 00:07:25,800 --> 00:07:28,720 are here and now, that they are known and realized 108 00:07:28,720 --> 00:07:33,000 and enjoyed. And therefore proclaim that all may accept them 109 00:07:33,279 --> 00:07:36,480 who break the galling bonds of self and rise into 110 00:07:36,519 --> 00:07:40,920 the glorious liberty of unselfish love. Seek the highest good, 111 00:07:41,000 --> 00:07:43,680 and you will find it as you practice it and 112 00:07:43,759 --> 00:07:47,879 realize it. You will taste the deepest, sweetest joy as 113 00:07:47,920 --> 00:07:51,399 you succeed in forgetting your own selfish desires, and your 114 00:07:51,439 --> 00:07:55,399 thoughtfulness for others, in your care for others, in your 115 00:07:55,439 --> 00:07:58,680 service for others. Just so far and no further will 116 00:07:58,759 --> 00:08:02,759 you find and realize the abiding joy in life. Inside 117 00:08:02,759 --> 00:08:06,560 the gateway of unselfishness lies the asylum of abiding joy. 118 00:08:07,079 --> 00:08:11,720 And whosoever will may enter in, whosoever doubts, let him 119 00:08:11,720 --> 00:08:16,600 come and see. And knowing this, that selfishness leads to misery, 120 00:08:17,279 --> 00:08:22,120 unselfishness to joy. Not merely for oneself alone, For if 121 00:08:22,160 --> 00:08:26,079 this were all, how unworthy could be our endeavors, But 122 00:08:26,120 --> 00:08:29,000 for the whole world. And because all with whom we 123 00:08:29,079 --> 00:08:31,439 live in come in contact, will be the happier and 124 00:08:31,560 --> 00:08:36,279 truer for our unselfishness, because humanity is one, and the 125 00:08:36,399 --> 00:08:39,600 joy of one is the joy of all. Knowing this, 126 00:08:40,200 --> 00:08:42,919 let us scatter flowers and not thorns in the common 127 00:08:42,960 --> 00:08:46,440 ways of life. Yes, even in the high way of 128 00:08:46,480 --> 00:08:50,159 our enemies, let us scatter the blossoms of unselfish love. 129 00:08:50,799 --> 00:08:53,360 So shall the pressure in their footprints fill the air 130 00:08:53,440 --> 00:08:56,919 with the perfume of holiness, and gladden the world with 131 00:08:57,039 --> 00:08:58,159 the aroma of joy.