Are You Dancing With Joy?

"Why aren't you dancing with joy at this very moment? That is the only relevant spiritual question."

-- Pir Vilayat Khan

Have you ever seen a dour preacher? If you've spent anytime in church, recently, or in youth, I'm sure you have. They abound like mosquitos on a hot summer's night. They're all about doom and gloom, fire and brimstone, sin and salvation. Joy never crosses their lips.

Or watch television at those odd hours when people can't sleep and rates are cheap, and you'll see another brand of joyless preacher -- the screaming and shouting, fund raising, televangelist. Alot of strutting and preening, surely. Dancing with joy -- nowhere to be found.

The thing is, you don't need a middle man between you and the Divine. God doesn't use wholesalers, and She tends to shy away from pyramid schemes. A cosmic dance instructor is unnecessary when your entire DNA is encoded to do the dance of joy.

Simply tune into the life force that runs within you, and let it move you. Or watch as the life force unfolds into the world through the people all around you. Or feel the life force move between you and all your cosmic dance partners as you dance your way through life.

It's the same force -- within, without and between. Rising-falling, expanding-contracting, giving-receiving, and the only truly intelligent, intuitive, spiritual response is to dance with joy!

So, today, allow the joy to rise within you and move though you. Tune into your own joyous heartbeat, your own wildly ecstatic blood flow, your own serenely blissful in-breath and out-breath. And as you do, allow the movement to take place, allow the Spirt to move you into your own unique dance of joy. Spin and twirl, watusi and frug, twist and shout, at least metaphorically. Dance and groove in your own beautifully crazy way. Whatever you do, don't sit this one out!