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Can Calm And Electric Joy Coexist In The Same Person?

Discussion in 'Snippets of Life (Non-Fiction)' started by Rihana, Jun 13, 2025.

  1. Rihana

    Rihana Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    When I write birthday wishes, I try to avoid the usual clichés like "wishing you a wonderful year ahead", those just feel so routine. If I know the person well, the personalized and heartfelt words come naturally. For others, I follow a simple formula: I wish them three things - like joy, adventure, and laughter. Sometimes I get more personal and add naps, a boring year, fewer decisions, or something like these.

    This approach has its drawbacks, though. When these wishes appear in public spaces like Facebook or WhatsApp groups, mine tends to stand out. Not like a sore thumb, but like a thumb that came to the party dressed to impress. Inevitably, the birthday person singles out my message with a longer thank you, which is both lovely and a little amusing.

    Putting that aside, I want to ponder something I recently saw shared in my feed:

    "Maybe the goal shouldn’t be constant joy or happiness, but peace. A cool neutral. To experience life from that steady place, no matter what happens."​

    I think this cool neutral is a valuable strategy, especially for handling life’s lows with tranquility. But what about those monumental moments like a child’s birth, the birth of a grandchild, a great review at work, witnessing a child’s wedding, first performance on stage, first words, first steps, hearing "I love you" for the first time, graduating from medical college, successfully defending a PhD, or any one of those "life lotteries" - when life feels electric and the joy is uncontainable?

    Does this peace and calmness that reigns no matter what also dull life’s high moments? To an extent, I think yes. When one develops the ability to be mostly calm and at peace, the feeling of joy can be muted a bit as well.

    Question - Does finding peace amid hardships also quiet the intensity of life’s greatest joys?

    Still, I believe that the compromise of a slightly muted joy is worth it. That balance allows us to truly be present for both the highs and the lows, appreciating each moment fully without being swept away. Perhaps peace isn’t the opposite of joy, but the quiet foundation that makes joy all the more meaningful.
     
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  2. gamma50g

    gamma50g Finest Post Winner

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    I agree that the end goal should be a cool, calm neutral state of mind no matter how exuberant or sorrowful external circumstances are doing true Bhakti to God and are truly God's favorite. This is elaborated further in ch 12 of the Bhagavad Gita 12.15 to 12.19. You can look up the meaning but the essence is the same.

    Having said this, I am myself trying to put this in practice. It is relatively easier for me to stay cool and neutral during difficult circumstances. Since my mind is cool, I dont get provoked and I don't give any knee jerk reactions. I havent encountered any recent negative events of catastrophic proportions to test myself. But I sincerely hope I can maintain this state of mind even then.

    However, I did encounter two extremly joyous events of stupendous proportions recently - one of which was awaited for years. I was chanting the Bhagavad Gita when the news came and spontaneously tears of joy and grattitude for the divine just overflowed freely from my eyes and heart. The feeling of grattitude overshadowed the feeling of joy and all I could do for the next few minutes is offer my thank you to Him in between my sobs.
     
  3. Rihana

    Rihana Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    That’s such a powerful thought, gamma. The way you described joy flowing into gratitude really stayed with me. Intense, overflowing joy can sometimes feel like it pulls us away from the calm we try to cultivate. But if it turns into gratitude, as you said so beautifully, maybe it is not a disruption at all, but a deeper kind of alignment. "Gratitude overshadowed the feeling of joy." That line has stayed with me.

    Oddly enough, I can relate. I had a few big wins recently, the kind that came from steady effort and discipline. But when they happened, my joy felt surprisingly quiet. I kept wondering if something was off or if I was just becoming more philosophical with age. Reading your words made me realize that I did feel gratitude, or as I like to call it, gratefulness. I just hadn’t fully noticed it. In the days that followed, when people congratulated me, I kept saying, “I’m just grateful,” and found myself naming all the things that had lined up outside my control.

    I don’t know if I’m saying this coherently, but I think I’ve stumbled on a possible answer to the question that was posed. Maybe we can feel calm, cool, and neutral, and still, when we compute the entire range of feelings we feel on a joyous event, the net sum might be just as rich and alive as electric joy. Instead of a dozen deep red roses, there is a bouquet of more variety!
     
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  4. gamma50g

    gamma50g Finest Post Winner

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    You hit the nail on the head @Rihana . That calm can come only when you go beyond the "me" to take credit for the circumstances and instead surrender the outcome of all the events that happen in your life (both, good and bad to Him). Then the joy automatically transforms into intense grattitude.
     
  5. HariLakhera

    HariLakhera IL Hall of Fame

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    As long as our mind is not at peace, there is no hope of being at peace. Peace is not something one can import from outside; it has to be found within.
    The question, therefore, arises: how to put the mind at peace? The answer is in the question itself. Experience says that whatever you are in pursuit of, it is beyond reach. Stop, take a deep breath, and here lies in you that you were searching outside.
     
  6. Rihana

    Rihana Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

    Just to clarify, the question isn't about how to reach peace or how to calm the mind. It's about what happens after peace, calm and equanimity have become someone's default state.

    The question is: after one has achieved the ability to be at peace amid hardship, does that same ability also quiet or lessen the intensity of life’s greatest joys?
     
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  7. SGBV

    SGBV Finest Post Winner

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    Such a thought provoking thread it is. Thanks for starting this discussion @Rihana

    To answer your question:
    From my experience, yes! I used to be a very expressive and loud person who celebrated even the smallest joys, whether it was my favourite cricket team winning or a new movie release of my favourite star. You can imagine the excitement I had for major personal milestones like a promotion, earning a degree, or buying a property.

    At the same time, I was easily triggered. Even a small comment online or a casual remark at work could provoke me. But over time, life threw enough storms my way that gradually taught me to become calmer and more peaceful. This shift has helped me process situations better and handle challenges with more composure and wisdom.

    In fact, I’ve recently gone through some of the most difficult phases of my life, and I was able to navigate them with remarkable calmness. Simply waited for the storms to pass while taking necessary and, most importantly, wise actions without panicking. This mindset made facing tough times surprisingly manageable.

    Likewise, even my successes these days pass without much fanfare. They no longer excite me the way they once did. Usually, I just make a quick call to my husband or my mom to share the good news, or perhaps put up a brief social media post. That’s it. I don’t even check back on the comments or replies until my next login (sometimes weeks or months later ) and there are no celebrations. Life feels very peaceful now.

    But do I enjoy this? Honestly, no — not at all. I miss being that lively, vibrant person. This calm, Zen-like state of mind feels more like survival mode than truly living. You can call it wisdom, maturity, or whatever you like. But deep down, I know: this too shall pass. Because it’s living in the moment that truly makes life beautiful.
     
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  8. Rihana

    Rihana Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    Thank you for the response, SGBV. It’s really nice to read how you’ve described the change in yourself - how successes no longer elate you the way they once did, just as difficult phases no longer throw you off course like before.

    On a lighter note, this difference reminds me of the initial period of a love marriage versus an arranged marriage - intense, electric feelings versus a steadier, calmer connection.:grinning:
     
  9. Viswamitra

    Viswamitra IL Hall of Fame

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    Pleasure and pain are part of life cycle as we live our lives with our own mind and the structure of thoughts, emotions, feelings, principles, etc. built in our mind. It includes all our life experiences, our interaction with our parents at a young age, our relationship with the spouse and children and many more. Every one of us have a right to pursue happiness but have an obligation to love every fellow beings with their own positive and negative traits as everyone built their lives out of thier bundle of thoughts, emotions, feelings and principles. If we expect others to accept us the way we are, we have to accept others as they are. Right and wrong can be determined only when we raise above the mind and use our conscience. The agitated mind provides arguments not to listen to the conscience, therefore, the peace becomes essential element for right living.

    Frankly, peace, right living, love, truth and our ability to not hurt others are somewhat related and comingled with each other. The key factors that influence our clear conscience are right living, gratitude, sacrifice, and service to others. Even though our ultimate goal is to pursue happiness, what we pursue is limited by our mind's ability to determine what is true happiness. If we like to place ourselves in a permanent bliss, then, one should be able to observe the happenings and not get attached to it. Pain and pleasure are relative terms measured by our mind. If we are pursuing peace at all times, we need to seek right living, gratitude , sacrifice and service to others. When we are dedicated in all our actions and full of devotion in faith of God, do our duties with care and diligence, have determination to achieve our goals, discrimination to differenciate right from wrong, and discipline to conduct our lives with rigor and discipline, we reach the point of peace that is inherent in us. Frankly, we are only moving away from that point of bliss and peace only by our thoughts, words and actions.

    How do we determine whether we are walking towards or away from it? Our Mind is like a shadow of our conscience. If our shadow is behind us, then, we are walking towards the Oneness or light and if it is in front of us, we are walking away from the Oneness or light. Our entire effort is unite our body, mind, intellect complex with our Consciousness.
     
    Last edited: Jun 18, 2025
  10. Rihana

    Rihana Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    Thank you for your detailed and thoughtful reflection, Viswa. I appreciate the insights you shared about peace, right living, and spiritual detachment. However, I feel your response was somewhat adjacent to the specific question I posed.

    @SGBV ’s response addressed the core of my question by reflecting on both the benefits and the emotional cost of cultivating peace. She talks about missing the vibrant highs while embracing calmness and appreciating this calm, Zen-like state of mind, yet feeling it’s more like survival mode than truly living.

    @gamma50g 's response described moments of what might have been intense joy that transformed into deep gratitude. The feeling of gratitude overshadowed the feeling of joy. In a way, the intensity of joy has been channeled or reshaped into similarly powerful but different feelings, all arising from surrendering the outcome of events to a higher power, to the Divine.

    To clarify, my question explores a paradox: Does attaining the ability to be at peace amid hardships also quiet the intensity of life’s greatest joys? In other words, I am asking whether striving for equanimity might lessen both the highs and the lows, thereby potentially reducing the emotional depth of joyful moments as well as painful ones.

    Your response, while rich in spiritual philosophy, focuses broadly on the importance of peace, conscience, and living ethically. It discusses how peace helps us make sound judgments and encourages detachment from pain and pleasure. But it does not grapple with the emotional trade-off or engage with the core issue I highlighted: could attaining inner peace come at the cost of experiencing joy with full intensity.
     

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