John 16:22 Meaning Therefore You Now Have Sorrow

Present sorrow is real to the mind that still believes love can be withdrawn, but it belongs only to the interval before recognition, not to what is true. Love returns to sight, and when it does the joy it brings is of a different kind than the world's, for it does not depend on any circumstance and therefore cannot be undone by one.

A joy that no one can take is a joy that was never given by the outer world in the first place. It rises from within, from the mind's remembering of what it is, and because nothing outside placed it there, nothing outside can remove it. This is the difference between happiness that comes and goes and the peace that has no opposite left.

Heart: the center of the mind where love is recognized, the place that steadies into a joy no outer circumstance can reach

Sorrow belongs to the surface, where forms come and go and the mind grieves each loss. The promise is not that sadness will be forbidden but that a deeper meeting is coming, and from it a joy will rise that no circumstance planted.

Because no one gave this joy from outside, no one can carry it off. It does not hang on a person staying or a situation holding. It springs from the presence that remains when the grieving thought quiets, from being itself. Happiness that arrives can always leave. This gladness lives in the ground beneath every event, and it will still be there when the sorrow has passed.

Sorrow arises because love has attached itself to a form, and forms come and go. Grief is the mind measuring loss, counting what it will no longer have, and this counting is the whole weight of it.

Joy that cannot be taken belongs to no one outside. It is the taste of one's own being when the clinging drops. The master seen again is not a person returning but the same awareness recognized within, no longer needing a face to gather around, and whoever tastes that has nothing left to lose, because nobody gave it and nobody is holding it.