When recently have you experienced pure joy?  I had to ask myself this very question as I watched a recent episode of Oprah Winfrey’s new Lifeclass. Leave it to Oprah to get me thinking.

In this Lifeclass she showed several episodes of the Oprah Show when people experienced “joy rising,” including one I wrote about before. (This one always makes me feel great!)

I watched her show and laughed and cried. And I admitted to myself that I have had little joy in my life over the last four or five years.

Oh, I’ve received joy from watching my children grow and excel and mature. I’ve had some joy from my work. But I haven’t had the type of “joy rising” experienced by those on Oprah’s shows…or by Oprah herself in some of the situations she aired.

How many of us do experience that type of joy? What can we do to allow it in, to make it happen?  I think that’s really the question.

The answer I think comes in giving and receiving. That’s what I saw Oprah doing—giving in so many, many ways. And that created joy rising inside her—and inside the people around her. They received her gifts. They had to be willing to receive.

I read a book an participated in its challenge earlier this year. It’s called 29 Gifts: How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life. It’s an amazing way to change your energy and to focus on giving. My book, The Kabbalah of Conscious Creation, also talks about the need to give and to receive.

However, I think there’s even one more step: to feel grateful for even the smallest things.

Tonight I was grateful to laugh and to cry and to vicariously feel joy because of the joy rising I saw in other people.

Life’s too short not to enjoy at least some of it. I know we should enjoy every moment…but we can start small if we aren’t finding enjoyment now. We can enjoy the sunset, the cat purring, the smile on a child’s face, a hand holding our own, the fact that someone loves us, the tweet or email saying our work is appreciated, the yummy ice cream we treated ourselves to after dinner. Or we can enjoy giving something…anything to someone we know that brings a smile to their face.

When and how do you experience joy…and can you experience more of it? I’m surely going to try.

Over and over again we hear how we must connect our thoughts and feelings to create what we want. Even more important is simply to feel good.

Lately I’ve been having a hard time getting to that feel-good place. Then I watched this video of the Black Eyed Peas singing “I Gotta Feeling” at the kick off of Oprah Winfrey’s 24th season, and I started smiling and feeling pretty good. It wasn’t the singing that did it, though–even though the words of the song are enough to raise my spirits a bit. It started with the lady up front jumping up and down dancing and then the flash mob dance that ensued. Then it was Oprah’s joy and wonder. Wow.

Oprah said it best,”That was the coolest thing ever!” Watch and feel good.

I often consider and write about the idea of living in the moment. I know it’s not just a concept; it’s a worthy goal and one some people achieve. I have found it difficult to do so, although it remains one of my goals.

Quieting my mind during meditation also remains one of my goals, yet I struggle with this as well. My thoughts flow one after another no matter what I do.

Today, however, I read something that connected what I think of as the flow of thoughts to living in the moment. In fact, I learned that most thoughts are not connected and when we become conscious of the separateness of each thought we learn to live in the moment. This idea intrigued me, especially since becoming conscious of our thoughts represents a requirement of conscious creations on any level–including simply (or not simply) creating change in our own lives.

I learned this while reading a meditation tip written by Swami Nithyananda. Known as the “life bliss swami,” Paramahamsa Nithyananda is a young enlightened master of Yoga and meditation who has inspired more than four million followers worldwide. He has dedicated his life to helping people overcome mental, physical and spiritual barriers to achieve enlightenment and live lives of bliss, success and peace.

He claims that when we learn that each thought is a separate entity, not connected to the one that comes before or after, we can live in the present moment. When we do that, we can experience bliss. Now happiness is one of my goals as well, but bliss sounds even better.

Rather than try to paraphrase his meditation tip for you, I thought I’d just let you read it for yourself. I suggest you not only read it but try it. Here it is:

The mind is nothing but a collection of thoughts. These thoughts rise up in succession like the bubbles in a fish tank. All these thoughts that rise in the mind also appear to be connected. But just like the bubbles in the fish tank the thoughts in the mind are also independent and unconnected.

You can do a small exercise. For ten minutes sit silently and observe the thoughts that arise in your mind. Don’t try to control or stop thinking. Just be silent and witness the thoughts coming. The moment a thought comes quickly, write it down on paper. Then, at the end of ten minutes read out whatever is written. You will see that it’s a mad man’s diary. There is utter chaos. There’s no connection between the previous thought, and the next one. Only when you write down your thoughts you come to know that the thoughts have no real connection. You may be thinking about having a cup of tea and the next moment you think about some pending office work. There is no real connection between having a cup of tea and the office work. Both are independent events. Even if there are two consecutive thoughts about the same event, the thoughts are unconnected as there is no continuity. There exists a silent gap between these thoughts of which one is not aware.

These thoughts by their very nature are unclutched. The problem begins when we start connecting these thoughts. When these independent and unconnected thoughts are linked together, we create illusions of pleasure or pain based on the nature of thoughts that we choose to combine. This is a play of the mind that is constantly happening within us.

When we perceive every incident as a new incident we will see life in a more beautiful way. Everything seems joyful and blissful. You stop taking things for granted. Once you start accepting life from moment to moment, bliss happens to you naturally.

(You can find out more about Swami Nithyananda at www.innerawakening.org and www.dhyanapeetam.org.)

Recently I’ve been trying to help my daughter through a particularly low patch in her life. A freshman at college, she’s felt depressed and lonely. We’ve had many conversations during which I had to listen to her muffled words as she cried and blew her nose.

As my heart broke and I tried to hold back my own tears, I offered her as many words of wisdom as I could find. I shared with her every technique I’d ever learned that would help her find happiness in her situation.

Each time when I hung up the phone, I cried. I cried for her–a mother whose heart and soul yearned to make things better for her daughter, who felt her pain and wanted to make heal it. And I cried for myself.

Her unhappiness made me acutely aware of my own.  On so many levels I knew I was not happy.

I needed to take my own advice.

Yet, my advice had not worked for my daughter–at least not well enough. Some of the tricks and tools had helped, but it took talking to her old therapist by phone for her to hear words that made sense to her.

I had to decide what would work for me. Just like my daughter, sometimes we can’t leave our situation to make ourselves happy. In fact, sometimes our baggage comes along with us. As I’ve heard it said, “Everywhere I go, there I am.” We can’t get away from ourselves.

We have to find a way to make ourselves feel happy. Rebbe Nachman of Breslov would advise us to fake it ’till we make it. To smile, sing, dance, act silly. He knew this would help long before psychiatrists realized that a simple smile could actually make us feel better–truly changing the chemical workings in our bodies so we would, indeed, feel happier.

Last night I sat around a campfire with a bunch of writers creating silly stories. Each person had to add one line. I couldn’t even say my line I was laughing so hard. It felt good. I felt happy.

We tend to focus on our unhappiness. That just makes us more unhappy. Instead, focus on what makes you happy.

What do you do to make yourself feel happy? What CAN you do to make yourself feel happy? What can you focus on that will make you happy?

My daughter realized that in the moment of feeling bad she could stop and remember a moment when she felt really good–good about herself and independent of anyone else. That made her feel better…happier…if not totally happy. But it’s a step in the right direction.

What step can you take today to make yourself feel happier? Take that step today.Focus on something that makes you happy.

Like the founders of our nation promised, we all have the right to pursue happiness and we do this via the choices we make. Today, Independence Day, I’d like to remind you that you are, indeed independent. You are free. We have the freedom to pursue the things that make you happy and bring you fulfillment.

As Steven D. Woodhull said, “You’ve got a lot of choices. If getting out of bed in the morning is a chore and you’re not smiling on a regular basis, try another choice.” Find something else to do. Find something else to think about. Find a new relationship. Find a new job. All of these are choices, whether you realize it or not. So, make a different choice.

Happy 4th of July.

Years ago I read the book  The Path of Least Resistance by Robert Fritz. I haven’t thought about the basic concept embedded in the book’s title in many years. Today, however, I gave in to that concept.

I’ve been fighting…resisting…doing anything but what I thought I needed to do. “I have work,” I have thought. “I have responsibilities. I have deadlines.” Yet, other things have called to me as well–some of them also responsibilities or necessities of life. Yet I resisted taking action on them.

Today, I gave in. I decided I must simply do what lies before me. I must take the path of least resistance.I must do what I feel pulled to do, inclined to do, or what simply has to be done next without worry about the rest. I must follow a natural path rather than one I construct, since the one I construct feels to restrictive and difficult tomaneuver through.

I have family visiting. Even though I am not spending much time with them and they aren’t taking me away from my work in the least, I’ve been struggling to get work done. Today I decided I would simply just do what I could do and no more with no worry or stress.

Tomorrow, I have a truckload of mulch coming and two women who will plant flowers for me on a hillside. I need to save some money, and so I need to help them mulch and plant to save time. (Time=money) My husband and eldest son can help as well. However, to do this I have to give up work for most of the day. I’ve been saying for weeks that I could not do this. I would simply have to pay the price of having someone else do the work. Today I decided I would go outside and work alongside the others.

In fact, my soul longs to get outside in the sun and to put my hands in the ground. I pulled a few weeds the other day, and it felt so good!

I did a reading for someone today. I told this person he wasn’t taking care of himself , getting out into nature where he can feel awe, not rejuvenating so he has something to give back. Hmmmm. This sounds like advice I should take for myself.

How many of us spend too many long hours in front of a computer or behind a desk? How many of us need to revive our souls with some time with Mother Nature and a talk with our Father? I suggested this person take a walk and talk to God. I think I’ll stop resisting and simply do what I really need to do… In Judaism we call it hitbodedut: I’ll walk in nature and talk to the Creator of all I see around me.

Then tomorrow I’ll get out there and do some gardening. I’ll put my hands in the dirt, and I’ll worry about work later.

In my last post I talked about the Sukkot rituals of both building a sukkah and shaking the lulav, and then I promised I’d explain how and why anyone-Jew and non-Jew alike-might want to consider taking on these Sukkot rituals. Today, I’d like to make good on that promise.

You don’t have to be Jewish to purchase a lulav or to build a sukkah. You can order a lulav and etrog on line, and many synagogues take orders from members and non-members. When the pair arrive, the package usually includes instructions for performing the ritual; the words for the blessing are in the material in both English and Hebrew and transliteration. Additionally, you can find the instructions for performing the ritual on the Internet as well. (Plus, I’ve written articles about this, too.) If you want to build a sukkah, you can find exact dimensions and directions on line. (I also once wrote an article about this.) You can also purchase pre-packaged sukkah kits on the Internet.

First, why would anyone who wasn’t Jewish want to participate in the ritual of shaking the lulav? Because the time leading up to this ritual and the ritual itself offer value for anyone. That, however, means that you might also want to do a bit of preparation prior to shaking a lulav.

Let’s back track a moment to the period that comes prior to Sukkot: The High Holy Days. Anyone can take the time for introspection and repentance, which is done during the 10 days between Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Repentance), thus cleansing his or her soul and doing t’shuvah-turning away from sin, turning back to God, turning towards his or her best self. This is the stuff Jews do before Sukkot. If you then took a lulav and etrog, or any plants or items that symbolized the primary parts of the body that connect you with Spirit, and put them together or put them on an altar and said a blessing of your own construction or said a prayer while bowing in the six directions or somehow acknowledging that God is everywhere all around us, you would have accomplished the same basic ritual…without the Jewish trappings. And this could be very powerful. (See my last post if you don’t understand why I suggest doing the ritual in this manner.)

Second, why would someone who wasn’t Jewish want to build a sukkah? Why would anyone want to sit, eat or sleep in a sukkah if they weren’t Jewish? Right now, much of the world is still struggling with economic issues that have left people jobless and even homeless. Here in the United States, although some say we are seeing some indication that things are taking a turn for the better, many people are still foreclosing on their homes and are losing jobs. By its very nature, a sukkah is a temporary structure. As such, it reminds us of the impermanence of life….and all aspects of life. It reminds us that we have to be okay with letting parts of our life go…jobs, homes, people. Things end. People die. Change is forced upon us. We have to move, travel, be willing to pack up what we have and take it with us, like the Israelites in the dessert for those 40 years. So, spending time in a sukkah gives us a chance to meditate on the impermanent nature of life and to become okay with it. It allows us to be in the moment, in the now, and to enjoy that.

If you are an advocate for the homeless, try building a sukkah and living in it for a week. Contemplate what it would be like to have no permanent home…to be homeless…or to have a box as your home…or this sukkah as your traveling home. Also, use the experience to get to a place of gratitude for what you do have. If you do have a roof over your head on most days and food on your table, be grateful…voice that gratitude. You know, actually tell Spirit or God, I am grateful for my home, the paycheck that allows me to pay the rent or mortgage and buy groceries. In fact, a prayer of gratitude is the most powerful prayer of all. It will manifest more of the same in your life. God hears it and says, “You think that’s good? What till you see what else I can give you!” So, sit in a sukkah and imagine life in a sukkah all the time, and then look around at your normal life and feel grateful for all the wonderful things you have.

Then, go back inside your home and see what you don’t need, what you wouldn’t take with you if you had to travel with your sukkah, for instance, or give up your home. Or maybe just figure out what you have in excess and give it away. Give it to those who need it more than you do.

At this time of year, Jews prepare nice meals-feasts of sorts-in the sukkah. We decorate the sukkah with harvest items like gourds and apples and flowers. We eat the items that represent the local “bounty” from the harvests, the things our local growers provide for us (mostly from the stores). However, during the Jewish New Year, traditionally synagogues hold a food drive as well. So, after sitting in your sukkah, you can go home and find some canned goods to give to the hungry or make a trip to the grocery store or to your garden and give some food to those in need-all the while feeling grateful that you have enough to give.

Think of the sukkah as your tabernacle, the place where you pray to God, connect with spirit, invite the Divine presence into your life. Maybe there,stripped of the protection of your home, you can really become vulnerable and get close to God in a new way. Invite God in. Dine with God. Talk with God. Spend time with God.

Some Jewish sages have argued that the original “huts” used during the time after the Israelites left Egypt were actually Gods Clouds of Glory, which he spread over Israel as protection and Divine grace. Whether or not this is true, those Clouds of Glory described in the Bible or Torah symbolize God’s constant and enveloping presence. Maybe by sitting in a sukkah with your eyes closed and visualizing being surrounded by God’s protection and grace, you can feel that. Maybe by praying for protection in your “tabernacle,” you can summon Spirit to envelop you so you can have a true experience of being surrounded by God. Maybe you need an act of grace right now…ask for it there in the sukkah.

For those people who like the Native American or African traditions of honoring ancestors, the sukkah is a great place to practice these rituals. In fact, in the Jewish tradition, on each night of Sukkot we invite both physical friends to dine with us in the sukkah and the spirits of different biblical personalities as well. This custom, called Ushpizin, is based on the Jewish mystical tradition and allows us to remember and honor our Jewish ancestors, to recall their teachings, and to ask their spirits to be with us and to help and guide us. You can call on your ancestors, invite them into your sukkah and honor them there…or ask them to whisper wisdom into your ears.

I think anyone can find some of these more secular rituals and practices appropriate ways to celebrate the holiday of Sukkot or to put it’s principles to use in their life this month in a really meaning-full and spirit-full way. Sukkot is a lovely holiday worth celebrating.

Additionally, the holiday is a joyous one. It’s a time to remember to feel and express joy and to feel happy to be alive. To read more about this, please see my Examiner.com Sukkot column.

Feeling joyous on Shabbat constitutes a great mitzvah (commandment or good deed) in Judaism. No matter your circumstances, you must be joyous on Shabbat. Plus, according to Rebbe Nachman, it’s impossible to feel a connection to God unless you can experience joy. Indeed, mitzvot, or commandments, are supposed to connect us to the Divine, and, we are told that we should perform them joyously.

If you want to prepare for Shabbat by moving towards joy, begin by smiling…then laughing. If you are having trouble finding something about which to smile or laugh about, read this post I wrote for my San Jose Jewish Examiner column. It will provide the fodder you need.

(Hint: You’ll find some old Jews telling some old…some new…jokes. No joking.)

May you be blessed withShabbat shalom, sabbat peace and connection, and Shabbat simchah, Sabbath joy!

I’ve been feeling a bit melancholy lately, as well as grateful for my children despite the fact that they are driving me absolutely crazy. In the last month, three children have died in Los Gatos, the town where I live. A middle school boy took his own life, possibly because his girlfriend broke up with him or because the other children teased him about his sexuality. A high school senior and football player died of a possible heart defect. And four-year-old girl died in her sleep of some bizarre infection. All of these parents now must face the holiday season while dealing with their grief. For them December does not represent a “jolly, jolly season,” as the Christmas song says.

I know another family that lost their son this summer. They went on vacation and he developed appendicitis. The operation was successful, but the 13-year-old boy -their only child – died of complications afterwards.

Last night I was so angry at my son and daughter. Suffice it to say that I felt disappointed in their behavior. I see so much potential in them, and I don’t see them doing what it takes to fulfill that potential. What if I were, however, one of those parents whose children’s lives had been cut short. Their potential now can never be fulfilled.

So, on this Friday night as I smell the roast beef and challah baking, as I watch the sun setting like a crimson and orange ribbon across the sky, I feel both sad and happy. I’m sad for those who have lost someone recently. I remember Rabbi Holtzberg and his wife, who were killed in Mumbai just a few weeks ago…a memorial will be held for him in Monterey, where his cousin lives, this weekend. I remember my daughter’s best friend, who took his own life a year and a half ago. I remember my father and my husband’s father and my friend, Bill Ellis…

I’m happy that my family will join me around the Shabbat dinner table. I may not have a chance to attend Sabbath services tonight or tomorrow, but I’m grateful to have the chance to drive my daughter to an activity that moves her closer to her dreams tomorrow instead. I’m happy that my husband will do the same for my son. I’m at peace with the fact that my husband and I will work together this weekend on our property and that we can send some time together in that manner. I can pray to God while I spread mulch or while I drive my children to their activities or cook breakfast for my family.

And I’m also grateful for Shabbat, a sacred 25 hours when we aren’t allowed to feel sad or to mourn. While those who have lost someone may struggle through Christmas or Chanukah feeling their loss profoundly, on Shabbat, the Sabbath, we are instructed to feel joyous. We must take a break from our negative feelings, our deep sense of tragedy and emptiness and loss, and we instead must fill ourselves with the happiness that comes from connection with God.

Maybe by remembering God, by reaching toward the Divine, by renewing our faith, we develop the strength to get through our losses. Or maybe the “break” from mourning allows our minds and our hearts to process the loss on another level, thus making it easier for us to deal with it come Sunday. In any case, during this sacred time, we let go of all that drags us down and makes us sad, and we lift ourselves up. We pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, if you will, and find a way to smile. And smiling actually changes the body’s chemistry and makes us feel better. And that’s a good thing, even for a little while.

And we can still think about those who have passed, and we can allow their memory to serve as a blessing – not a curse – upon us and our lives. We can smile and remember them and be filled with love and joy at having known them and having experienced their essence – their soul – for even a little while.

So, take a break from the holiday season, especially if it doesn’t feel so joyous this year, and celebrate Shabbat each week. Bring some joy into your life for 25 hours every seven days. When the holiday season doesn’t feel jolly, be happy at least once a week on Shabbat.