Living with Joy

In the tradition of Esther Hicks, Jane Roberts, and Edgar Cayce, Sanaya Roman joined the ranks of gifted, bestselling channels 25 years ago when she wrote Living with Joy, which was given to her by Orin, a timeless spiritual being of love and light.

The spiritual truths and transformative meditations and exercises throughout Living with Joy make up a systematic course in spiritual growth that has opened hundreds of thousands of individuals to their fullest potential. Now, in the new 25^th anniversary edition of Living with Joy: Keys to Personal Power and Spiritual Transformation (H.J. Kramer/New World Library), Orin, through Sanaya, has revised and updated the information in ways that will help contemporary readers continue to grow through joy, peace, and love, rather than through struggle and pain. Eighteen "Daily Joy Practices" and hundreds of "Joy Affirmations" that highlight the key points in the book have been added.

Excerpts from Living with Joy*:

What is inner peace? All of you have a picture in your mind of what you think inner peace is. You have achieved this state many times, sometimes for moments, even for hours, and so you know what inner peace feels like. Part of growth is learning to create that feeling without being dependent upon things turning out a certain way or needing people to respond in a specific way. You want to create inner peace as something you are and be able to give and share it with others. You become the center, radiating your soul's light outward, rather than reacting, or waiting for situations, relationships, and events in your life to be arranged in such a way that you have peace.

Creating inner peace from the higher levels is learning to open your heart. It means that you are not focused or attached on an emotional level to things that happen in the world around you. You know who you are, and you let things flow around you without touching or affecting your sense of peace. You can learn to touch and affect the energy in the outer world from that center of energy within yourself. That is peace.

Opening the heart means remaining open and loving no matter what another person does, no matter what occurs to you, or what happens in your career. It means choosing to feel peaceful no matter what your outer life looks like. It is easy to be loving and open when those around you are loving; the challenge is to be loving when those around you are closed, afraid, or negative.

Anything you are attached to or must have a certain way, any belief or concept that is inflexible, will be an area in which your inner peace can be affected. The goal is to take that sense of inner peace and affect everything in the outer world, touching it with that energy. The first step is to find that sense of inner peace.

One of the simplest ways is through relaxing your body, which you can do both through physical touch and through mental relaxation. Your body can be the receptacle of many thoughts that are not peaceful. If you can bring your body to a state of peace and rest, the mind can be taught that feeling and learn to create it. Peace is more than just a feeling of relaxation in the body. It is a very specific radio wave, a vibration you send out that affects everything in your outer world.

You can begin to experience various levels of inner peace, down to the deepest feelings of it. Start by finding a sense of peace within. Give yourself one opportunity in the next week to feel inner peace. You may want to create a place of beauty, a sense of timelessness, to play music -- anything that helps you truly experience what peace means to you. From that space, from that knowing, you can begin to change everything you see in the outer world.

What is the value of inner peace? It certainly feels better to the emotional body. However, it is more than that -- it is the ability to affect the outer world from your highest level, to create and manifest from a focused place of purpose and an inner sense of who you are. When you are tranquil and calm, when you slow down and feel relaxed, you are able to create and think at your higher levels. What you bring to earth and create from this space is your higher good.

You can create things when you feel tense, anxious, or fearful, but those things may not be for your highest good; in fact, they will probably not be. If, before you plan your life or think of new ideas, you find a sense of inner peace and operate from it, you will find your plans reflecting more of your soul's purpose than your personality's desires. If, before you act or speak, you bring in this sense of peace, you will find your world changing rapidly into a very different place.

Inner peace is a connection
to your deeper self,
and it will assist you
in letting go of fear.

Fear is a lower energy, a vibration of less light, and you can change it with love. One of the goals of having inner peace is healing fear. It may be a fear that someone will hurt or reject you, abandon or run away from you. It may be a fear that you cannot make it in the world, a fear of putting yourself out there and failing. Inner peace is a connection to the heart and a willingness to let go of fear. You can achieve inner peace by letting go of feeling you have to defend yourself, and by being willing to be vulnerable. It is not putting on an act for other people; it is being willing to shine through as who you are and knowing you are all right.

What is required to feel good about yourself is not the same from person to person. What you require for self-esteem is not necessarily what another person requires. It is important to discover what makes you feel worthy, confident, and happy about who you are.

Self-respect at the highest levels comes from honoring your soul. This means speaking and acting from a level of integrity and honesty that reflects your higher self. It means standing by what you believe in (you do not, however, have to convince others to believe in it), and acting in a way that reflects your values. Many of you criticize others for not living up to a value system you consider right, but on closer examination you may not be living up to it yourself. You have seen the person who is always telling people how they should act, but he or she does anything he or she pleases. Self-respect means acting on your values and what you say you believe in.

Professing one set of values but acting from another leads to a lot of internal conflict. For instance, you may believe in monogamy deep inside, and yet the person you are with wants an open relationship. You decide to go along because you want to hold on to this partner. You believe in one set of values, but you are living by another, and there will be a lot of conflict and potential pain around this issue.

How can you know if the values you "think" you want to live by are yours? You often cannot know until you try. You might think that a good person gets up early in the morning, yet you always sleep late. Many of you have values you think you should live by but do not. The best thing to do is to try out these values -- get up early in the morning for a while. Often, what you think are your values turn out to be "shoulds" given to you by others, and when you actually live them, you find they do not work for you. Ask yourself what you value. What do you think good people do? Are you following these values? It is difficult to feel good about yourself if you are living in a way that goes against your underlying values. It is important to examine your values and either live by them or change them.

When you complain that someone or something is making you sad or angry, ask yourself, "Why am I choosing to experience that feeling or to react in that way?" Blaming others will always take away your power. If you can discover why you are choosing to feel hurt by other people's actions, you will learn much about yourself. Some of you are afraid that if you stand up for yourself, you will lose someone's love. Some people are quite good at convincing you that you are in the wrong when you do stand up for your beliefs. Thank them silently for providing you with the opportunity to become strong, for often strength is developed in the face of opposition. Self-respect means standing by your deepest truth and knowing your innermost feelings. It means making yourself and not another the authority of your feelings.

Some of you live or associate with people who belittle you and make you feel bad. You can end up focusing so much on their feelings that you lose track of your own. A woman was married to a man who constantly criticized many of her actions. She became so focused on his feelings that she never asked herself during all the years they were together how she felt about the way he treated her. She was always trying hard to please him, trying to anticipate his moods and whims in order to avoid his criticism. Yet everything she tried ended with him being angry or irritated at her. She began to feel she had failed or was in some way a bad person. She spent so many hours analyzing his feelings that she lost touch with her own. Many of you try to please people, and as you try to please them, you focus more on how they feel than how you feel.

Self-worth means paying attention to how you feel. You do not need reasons why you choose to do something. You do not need to prove anything to another person about your worth. Validate your feelings; do not analyze and question them. Do not go over and over them, asking, "Do I really have a reason to feel hurt?" Let your feelings be real for you and honor them. Many of you make other people the authority of what is good for you. When they say you are bad, you believe them. When they say things are your fault, you believe them. I am not suggesting that you ignore what other people say, either, but instead honor what you feel. It is one thing to be open to constructive criticism and another to constantly try to do what others want you to do when you do not want it for yourself. Creating self-esteem and self-worth involves honoring your own feelings and path and direction. It means honoring yourself with your words, actions, and behavior.

Self-esteem means believing in yourself, knowing that you did the best you knew how, even though two days later you might see a better way. It involves making yourself right rather than wrong and allowing yourself to feel good about who you are. Some of you try very hard all the time, pushing yourselves, rushing around and feeling that whatever you do, it is not enough. Trying and working hard to get things done is not necessarily the road to joy. Respect yourself by following your inner flow. Rest, play, think, and take time to be silent. Doing those things that nurture yourself are ways to increase your self-esteem.

Imagine, if you will, that you are a king, and your treasury is full. In fact, you have so much you do not know where to begin distributing the wealth. All of the people in your kingdom are walking around saying how poor they are, but when you offer them your money, they act as if they do not see you, or they wonder what is wrong with what you are offering.

I look out and see the storehouses all over -- untapped, unused, and even unrecognized. You have heard the expression "heaven on earth." There is nothing that stops you from having it, except your ability to ask for and receive it. What are these storehouses? What things lie within them that we would love to pass out?

One is love. We do not measure growth as you do (career advancements, more money, and so on). We look to spiritual evolution, which includes joy, self-love, the ability to receive, reframing the negative into the positive, the refinement of the ego, a willingness to embrace the new, and the ability to work together for common purpose.

Do you ask for love? The more you give and receive love, the greater your spiritual growth. Every moment you spend focused on something that is not working, thinking of someone who does not love you, makes you like the people who turn away from the king's treasure. You always have the opportunity to think of times you felt loved, to imagine a future of abundance, and thus to partake of spiritual wealth.

What do you think of? Every in-breath takes you up to the world of essence where form is created, and on the out-breath you send to the world your wishes. Every time you recognize the love you have, you increase it. One of the laws of receiving is that recognizing when you have gotten something increases it in your life, and every time you do not acknowledge something you make it so much harder to have more sent to you.

The more you focus on what is wrong, the more wrong you will create in your life, and the more it will spread to areas that were working. The more you concentrate on what is right in your life, on what is working, the more other areas of your life will work. It is the same in receiving. The more you acknowledge how much you are receiving, the more you will have.

There are two kinds of requests: those made by your personality, and those made by your soul.

A request for spiritual evolution is a soul request, as is a request for higher purpose, clarity, love, and focus. A desire to find your higher path or for more light in your life is also a soul request.

Personality requests can have the clothing of a soul request. They are usually more specific, such as a request for a new car or a material object, for instance. If you are willing to look at the deeper motivation behind what you want, and what you expect to get from having it, then you will open up many more ways and forms in which your request can come to you.

A personality request is very specific, so it often takes longer for the Universe to find ways to get it to you. If, however, instead of asking for money, you ask for what the money would bring you -- such as more security or the ability to travel, to take time off from your job, or to pay your bills every month with ease -- the Universe and your soul can bring these to you more easily.

Learning to receive is learning
to ask for the essence of what you want,
rather than the form.

Often the Universe brings what you specifically ask for, and you find it is not what you want. This wastes much time. Before you say that you want something, ask, "Is there any broader or more accurate way I can state that request?"

When you say, "I want this man or woman to love me" or "I want this person to bring me joy," then you have made it very difficult for the Universe to give you what you want, especially if that person does not love you or bring you joy. If instead you say, "I am open to receiving love from a man or woman who will love me," then it is much easier to have it, for you are not attached to the form (a specific person) but rather to the essence (love and joy).

If you want something to appear in a specific way, it may take longer than if you let the Universe create magic and miracles and bring you the soul request, rather than the personality desire. Often, this requires the ability to let go and detach.

You may have experienced picturing something and having it come to you. Yet many of you do not know how to let go of the old and open to the new. Be willing to be open to new forms if you want to receive.

If you are cluttering your life with many relationships, for instance, or if you are filling your time with an unsatisfying relationship, then there is no room left in your life for a fulfilling one. If you are asking for more money but you are spending all your time giving away your services, or pursuing activities that do not bring you money, it will be much more difficult to attract it.

Be willing to do what your soul directs
you to do if you want to create
what you are asking for.

Often when you ask for something, you will find yourself going through unexpected changes to prepare yourself for having it. Your attitude may need to change, or the viewpoint you are holding may be creating an energy block that is keeping you from having what you asked for. The Universe will immediately send you many experiences to open up and change your attitude, so that you can have what you requested.

Sometimes you must let go of certain things to have what you have asked for. You may need to release a thought, friend, useless activity, or a high level of worry. It is not that the Universe is punishing you, or trying to make it hard for you to get what you want, but that you have a gentle and loving inner teacher that wants to give things to you only when you are ready and it will be for your highest good.

Your innermost self and the Universe may not make a lot of money available to you, for instance, if you are not ready to handle it and it would not be for your higher good. Your higher self may bring you many lessons to change and shift your attitudes before money comes, so that it will truly benefit your growth. Many requests for fame and great amounts of money are not actually to your benefit, so your soul may slow down the arrival of these things, while it brings you other opportunities that are more appropriate for you, and while it strengthens you and builds a foundation for you to have these things.

You ask for so little, and that is what saddens us as we look over the minds of humanity. We see the limited focus of your thoughts, looking so close at hand rather than reaching for the heights.

One way to have more in your life is to use your imagination, for it is a great gift the Universe has given you. Every time you imagine having something, challenge yourself -- imagine having even more! If you want a house, a friend, a lover or any relationship, a car, a life of leisure -- fantasize about it and enlarge the vision.

Fantasy can lead to higher purpose. For many of the things you fantasize about the most (even those you feel furthest from having) can be pictures of your higher purpose and the life you will lead as you reach it.

What can you ask for? You can ask for spiritual evolution and more light, for that is a general request that your soul will utilize to bring you many unexpected gifts. (You will want to acknowledge these gifts when they come.)

Having faith in yourself, and letting go of memories when things did not work, will help you open to more abundance. If you must think of the past, think of those times you were powerful and creative. Go into your heart and ask whether you feel you deserve all the joy and love that is awaiting you on your path of higher purpose.

You can begin to imagine joy, peace, and harmony as your birthright. Focus, clarity, and love are available for the asking. Request a vision of your higher purpose, and be willing to recognize the gifts every day as they come, even the small things. The more you acknowledge what the Universe is sending you, the more you can bring into your life.

Ask! We cannot give you anything unless you ask. The Universe waits for you to ask. When you see it coming, be willing to take and receive it. When the opportunity comes, grab it! Thank and acknowledge the Universe for it, and you can create heaven on earth.

*Excerpted from the book Living with Joy Copyright C 2011 by Sanaya Roman. Printed with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA. www.newworldlibrary.com