Weddings are in season. A couple of weeks ago, I attended the wedding of a mature couple who found each other after years apart. Rumi has said that ” Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They are in each other all along.” Their wedding was a joyous event, a celebration of ageless love, family, friendship and the power of Spirit. Joy emerged in the sanctuary where the two were married. It sustains its powerful strength as it traveled to the reception. Vibrant energy caused guests to dance and rock like whirling dervishes, twirling into a spiritual and loving trance. Smiles were plentiful and laughter bounced off the walls of the exquisite ballroom like inflated balloons in a large box. Love saturated the air and made everyone apparently forget the transitory nature of sadness. Empathetic joy was lavishly on display in the opening dance of the couple; flushes and rushes of well-being permeated the celebratory air. Everyone derived benefit from the joy of the couple who were married, and thus found ways to discover joy within themselves.
Empathetic joy is life affirming and spiritually nurturing. But we don’t have to wait to experience it at weddings or other celebratory events of people we love. We can rejoice when a co-worker gets a promotion even if we don’t get one; or when a couple gives birth to a child even when we are childless. We can get happy when a friend’s daughter graduates from college, even when our own child struggles in school; or when a person we barely know achieves a milestone he wanted to achieve, even if our own achievement seems elusive.
A bit harder is to celebrate the joy of someone with whom you have a “sandpaper’ relationship. Now, that requires that we realize that another person’s joy is really our joy anyway, since we share the same spiritual universe. What we feel about others reflects how we feel about ourselves. We have an opportunity to expand the joyful possibilities for ourselves by consistently practicing empathetic joy. Victor Borge said that ” laughter is the shortest distance between two people.” Empathetic joy is the shortest distance between peace and well-being. Love others with empathetic joy and wake up to the true treasure of life.