Real Joy comes from within, from Being. Pleasure and pain come from without, from things outside of you. Joy never stops being joy. It is the nature of spirit, of being. It is not affected by external things. Once you are present in Now and aware and in touch with your Self, the joy will be everywhere in you and it shall never stop. It never had stopped and never can stop anyway, but you can be blind to it by not being Here, Now, fully present. Joy is an eternal state, in Now. It is not in the past or future, for those are ‘times’ that do not exist, except only in the mind.

Pleasure and pain on the other hand are external. They are also complimentary. The same thing that gives you pleasure gives you pain. Think about it. Whatever external thing gives you please, when it is not there you feel pain, you feel the pain of not having it. The same thing gives you pleasure and pain. Or the thing that gives you pain, when it is not there you feel pleasure. The same thing gives you both. All external things do this and that is why people are often feeling unsatisfied. However, once you touch your Self and live Now, real Joy comes to the surface, and that can never change to pain. From that point on, everything will become enjoyable, even the most ‘painful’ things will cease to bring suffering to you and you will marvel at all life. Joy is Being, and Being is Isness, Now. From that point on, you shall be happy with all being, resisting no present moment but creating your next moments in a powerful way through true choice.

Resisting Isness is futile. Resisting Now is painful. What do you expect to gain out of resisting what Is? You cannot undo it. So why bother? Yet, when you touch your Self and feel Joy, you shall not need any intellectual conviction to stop resisting Now. You shall just naturally love all being.

Why does the same thing give you both pain and pleasure? It is because of the mind living outside the moment of Now. For example, if you like a certain thing that gives you pleasure, when you have that thing you enjoy it (unless you worry about loosing it). When you do not have it and you let your mind escape Now and go into the past and future thinking ‘it was great when I had that thing and I really wish I had it now. I look forward to when I will next have it. I do not like not having it now’, you start getting into ‘problems’. When you think like that, you totally miss the joy of Now, what Is. And that ‘gap’ between Now, Isness’ and a past and future that only exist in mind is the cause of pain, anxiety and dissatisfaction. Joy is always in the moment of Now. It is ever-present, but you can choose not to see it. When you are out of mind, of no mind, you are Being, Now, in harmony with all else that Is, Now. In that state, you are in the best position to enjoy Now and also create the next Now in the most powerful way, free of worry, anxiety and negativity. The mind is a tool, and you should activate it to create an intention of the next Now. This very quick and detached thinking should not take any more than a few seconds every now and then. If you use your mind to constantly ramble on inside your head thinking about the past and future, all you do is live in the past, worry about the future, and lose Now and joy. And anyway, that is no good formula for creating a future. All problems exist only in the mind – they cannot exist in Now. In Now, you always pass. You cannot fail Now. Not two seconds from now, or five hours from Now, but right Now. All problems exist outside of Now, in the mind, when you use the mind incorrectly.

Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility: For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen.
-– Kahlil Gibran

The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate. That is to say, when an individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner contradictions, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposite halves.
-– Carl Jung