Question: Is there a great difference between joy and Delight?

Sri Chinmoy: There is a great difference between joy and Delight. Let us say that joy is the opposite of pleasure. Indulgence in the physical and the vital is called pleasure. Pleasure is immediately followed by frustration, and frustration is followed by destruction. But joy is something that grows in us. Slowly and steadily it can grow. Again, joy also can fade away, but it will never come down to the level of frustration. To have joy is like drinking a glass of water. If you are thirsty, then you may finish all the water; then it will be gone. But if you put the cup right near the sink, you can fill it up again and again. In the same way, if necessity demands, joy will diminish. But it can also be replenished. But whether it diminishes or grows, if it is real joy, then it is not going to frustrate or destroy you.

Joy you can get in your mind, in your heart and even in your arms. After you have thrown the shot put a great distance, immediately your arm will make you feel that it has achieved everything and you will feel joy inside your arm. Sometimes, while walking very fast, if you get a kind of relaxed feeling in your knee, inside your knee you will feel joy. If you get a little strength inside your ankle, you will feel joy in your ankle. So any part of your being can have joy. Joy can be divided among the parts of your being. You can have joy in the mind, in the vital or in the body. You can have joy anywhere.

Joy does not usually descend to the lowest, because it is afraid of fighting with pleasure. Joy and pleasure have practically the same strength, so joy is afraid to fight because it is not always certain to win. One is a good boy, the other is a bad boy. But the bad boy sometimes defeats the good boy and makes him feel helpless, hopeless. But when the good boy gets strength, he tries to transform the bad boy and give him good advice as to what he is doing right and wrong. In this way joy tries to transform pleasure.

But delight is something else. When you have delight, you will feel tremendous ecstasy in your whole being, from the soles of your feet to the crown of your head. From Above, Delight-Nectar descends through the crown centre and drips into the Third Eye. You drink this Delight-Nectar and feel a sense of Immortality. As soon as one little drop of this Delight comes into the sahasrara chakra, the whole body gets a divine thrill. Not even one cell, one molecule, will be denied this intense ecstasy.

Joy cannot go beyond the boundaries of its own existence. But Delight comes from the soul's region, from the transcendental Silence-Height. As it descends, it gradually illumines everything, even the gross physical. From the highest it comes to the lowest. Delight has tremendous power, but it descends very slowly. When it enters from the highest plane, it goes first to the soul's arena, then to the psychic plane, the mental plane, the vital plane, and then finally to the physical plane. Delight always descends very, very cautiously, and very steadily and unerringly.

From:Sri Chinmoy,The significance of a smile, Agni Press, 1977
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