21/10/2022
Santosha [santoṣaḥ]
finding contentment or bliss beyond physical circumstance. Or, as we would say in English, joy. Unlike happiness, which is fleeting and very surface level - joy is something that fills your being from your toes to the crown of the head and is felt as a golden kiss in the heart-space.
We are fooled to think that such a profound experience can only come from contact to outside stimuli. The world is a mirror - and your reaction to whatever you see shows something that already exists within you. When you see a beautiful flower and you feel joy, that joy is already within you - the flower is merely a vehicle that reveals that joy to you. When something bad happens and you become sad or angry - that outside happening just reveals a sadness or anger that was inside you all along. Instead of making yourself dependent on what the outside world shows you to dictate what you feel on the inside, santosha refers to a higher state of consciousness that is not attached to the outside worlds physical circumstance.
When you are angry - observe that anger and let it move through you.
When you are sad, observe that sadness and let it move through you.
But above all, enjoy it. And as bizarre as that might sound, i don’t mean grab ahold of it and identify yourself with it - i just mean experience it fully so that the feeling moves through you.
Find joy in the knowing that you are not those feelings and emotions, but that your essence is made of something far deeper and far more profound. That is true santosha, true joy ✨