Rejoicing
Rejoicing is better than joy, because joy means that something has ended, is finished, completed; the full stop has been put there.
Rejoicing is on-going, riverlike; it knows no stopping, the full stop never comes. And life is more like rejoicing than like joy, because the moment joy ends, you will fall into its polar opposite. You will become sad, you will be in despair, you will start longing for joy again. You will start remembering the beauties of joy, the nostalgia, and the despair that it is no more.
Rejoicing - that is closer to life; that's how life is and should be. One goes on flowing from one peak to another, and the flow is a continuum. It is possible only to make your life a continuous flow if sadness is also absorbed in your joy, otherwise not. If sadness is against joy, then joy will end and sadness will have its say, will have its time. Just as night follows day, joy will be followed by sadness.
Rejoicing is an art. It means that the dance continues. Whether it is day or night doesn't matter: one enjoys the day and the sun and the light; and when the night comes, one enjoys the darkness, the depth of it, the velvety touch of it. But the dance continues. In success, in failure, young, old, alone, together, in life, in death, rejoicing continues.
So my emphasis is more on rejoicing than on joy. Rejoicing is far more comprehensive: it contains the polar opposites in it, hence it has more totality. And whatsoever is total is divine, whatsoever is partial is no more divine.
-Osho, “Won't You Join the Dance?, #16”