Growing through Joy
Q: You have said the planet, like any consciousness, does not need to grow through pain, that pain is not the only way.” How can planet Earth grow and evolve in a way other than upheaval and destruction? How can it shift into higher levels of consciousness more smoothly, and how can we help?
Lazaris: Everyone talks about the New Age. Some say its coming. Others say it’s already here. While they all talk of the New Age, no one really stops to look at what the Old Age was about. We suggest the Old Age method is one that involves struggle and hardship. The Old Age attitude says, “If something is worth having, it’s worth struggling over, waiting for.” It nobilizes all these sorts of puritanical concepts. It proposes that you should work hard all your life and then when you are old and can’t work any longer, you can enjoy your life.
Initially, you were never supposed to struggle. You were never supposed to suffer. You were never supposed to have pain in the creating of this playground that is your Earth. The creating of this illusion that is the physical plane of reality was never supposed to be hard. It was meant to be a joyous, celebratory experience of growing.
We will use a bit of an analogy here to describe how pain began. As you tripped along as consciousnesses, playing the roles of the gods you are, somebody stubbed their toe and it hurt. Rather than saying, “I goofed,” they said, “Oh no, I intended to do that. I planned to stub my toe, to inflict pain upon myself.” Why? “Because it purifies me.” Yes, that’s it! That sounds real good. “I stubbed my toe and it really hurts, but there was a benefit, you see — it really made me grow, and therefore, I’m more advanced than you. In fact, if you had any sense at all, you’d be wise like me and go out and stub your toe, too.” If I can convince enough of you to do it, then I have been vindicated from my mistake, and it somehow becomes a virtue.
All of Eastern religion and Western thought have been built upon this concept of struggling. The new method of growth is to grow through joy and love- to see life not as something you have to confront and win over, but something to encounter and celebrate. You can learn through the pain, but you can learn so much more rapidly through the joy of life.
Another false myth is that you need to experience pain to appreciate love and happiness. We liken this limiting belief to an analogy of when you were a little child, and you had your first bite of ice cream. You immediately knew, “Hey, this is good!!” You didn’t need to drink sour milk first to know that the sweet taste of ice cream was delightful.
Likewise, you do not need to struggle to appreciate the value of struggle-free life. The human consciousness is evolved enough, and people are sophisticated enough to recognize the value of love and joy. It is time to drop the struggle, to drop the suffering and appreciate it for what it was. Don’t make yourself wrong or beat yourself up, but realize that it is time for you as an individual to let go of the Old Age and enter a New Age. Grow by these more joyous methods. What we have been doing these many years of working with people is consistently showing them techniques to help them grow through the happiness, the laughter, and the wonder of it all. Thousands of people whom we have worked with are indeed discovering just that. They are continuously creating even more love and more happiness, and more success in their lives through the “wonderfulness” of who they are, rather than following the suffering, struggling, hardship routes they were taught in other lifetimes, as well as in the earlier portion of this one. It is time for a new way, a New Age of growing. And the most important point is that it works.
— Paul Zuromski, Body, Mind & Spirit
Q: Humanity has chosen to learn and grow through suffering. It seems now that more people are gradually awakening to the possibility of learning through joy. What suggestions do you have for people who want to strengthen that possibility, that ability, to learn through joy?
Lazaris: Most definitely, we would suggest it is encouraging — your observation is quite correct. Suffering, struggling and being in pain have been, so-to-speak, the “fare” of growth, what it has always been. Many have seen struggle as the only way of evolving. They felt there was no other way to grow. We, in that sense, were one of the first to most clearly and most specifically talk of joy and happiness. We still surprise many people with even the contemplation of such as an avenue of growth. Therefore, as more and more are coming upon that understanding and opening up to that possibility, we are very gratified and very pleased.
How can one move in that direction more completely and more fully to start growing though joy?
The first step — the vital step — is to recognize how much you want to believe that pain is the only way of growth. You need to be willing to establish a foundation. For all the years of pain, for all the time devoted to struggle, you need to realize: “I wanted it that way.” Or, “I thought it was the only way. I felt it was the only way.”
You need to be honest. “Everyone said it was the only way, and I didn’t bother looking any deeper.” You really need to look at and to recognize that you wanted the pain as the only way of growth for varying reasons. You really need to acknowledge: it was you who wanted it. Surely you may have been taught. Surely you may have been shown by demonstration; and in that sense, various people who put themselves up as leaders, as gurus, as masters may have instructed you: “No pain, no gain.”
However, you need to look deeper and to recognize that you create your own reality, and therefore you created being taught and being told that pain was the only avenue of growth that was available. As you can recognize that, as you can acknowledge that, then you can forgive yourself, forgive yourself for having bought the lie, and forgive yourself or having believed the limitations, forgive yourself for having been caught up in what is truly the Old Age and the old sense of growth that has been so predominant in your world.
Then, we suggest, the change can occur. You can open your hearts and open your heads — both, in that particular regard — to the possibility that you can grow through joy, that there is an alternative.
You can still grow through pain if you desire. It’s not as though that venue is shut to you, but a new avenue is open to you. Therefore, recognize, acknowledge, forgive and change. This process can move you very powerfully and very beautifully forward - forward with love, light, laughter, and joy.
Secondly, look at the belief, and literally change the belief. Understand that all beliefs are illusion, and therefore pick those illusionary beliefs that work most effectively for you. What advantage do you get from believing in the fear and in the pain?
What alternative advantages might you receive by believing in the joy and in the laughter? We realize some say you can’t “try” anything. We suggest, well, go ahead and try it anyway! Go ahead and call it what you will, but let yourself try, and see what happens as you go for the joy, as you go for the laughter, as you go for the wonder of what your reality is. This is the third step: Try joy!
As you try it and find out it works, that is the grandest impetus for the continuation, which is the fourth component. Once you begin the joy, once you begin the laughter, and discover the beauty of it, let yourself lighten up, etc. Realize that maybe you were foolish for taking life so seriously and so heavily before, but to continue that foolishness does not eliminate it. Therefore, be willing to admit, “All right. I found a new way.” Rather than feeling guilty, or letting pride get in the way, forgive yourself and let yourself unabashedly rush forward into that new way of growing, through the joy and the laughter, and let yourself lightly continue.
It was Alan Watts who said, “Angels fly because they take themselves lightly.” We suggest that that is a rather profound statement. Take these four steps, Recognize, Acknowledge, Forgive and Change, and let yourself fly.
— Van Robert Ault, Magical Blend
