True Joy In Life

This is the true joy in life, to be used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, to be a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clot of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and that as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live, I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me, it is a sort of splendid torch which I've got a hold of for a moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

Fuller Version from Erhard - the Heart of the Matter

What makes ecstasy possible?

What allows for ecstasy, is when your life is committed to a purpose larger than those things that are in your life.

All the nonsense in your life is swept away when you commit your life to a bigger purpose than your life.

Suddenly your neuroses are gone, my psychoses are gone.

Maybe i'm so stuck in my problems that I'm not able to commit myself to a bigger purpose. And I want to recognize the possibility of that and support the peopole who are in that position to transcending the problems and working their way through the problems.

But for most of us, nothing more difficult, nothing more complex than to commit our lives to a purpose bigger than our lives is necessary to really shift the whole spectrum of the problems in our lives so that suddenly these are not problems but simply additional things to deal with.

This is the true joy in life, to be used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, to be a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clot of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and that as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live, I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me, it is a sort of splendid torch which i've got a hold of for a moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

And for me, that is the context of this context of this thing called ecstasy. It is the space from which it comes and it's the place to which it is devoted. And it is what gives it meaning, it is what dignifies it, it is what sanctifies it, it's what makes it real, it's what makes it honest, it's what makes it tough, it's what makes it straightforward, it's what makes it love.