In São Paulo in May 2012, a musician sat at the piano with something building inside him—four years of spiritual transformation, visions, awakenings, interior silences, moments he could not frame in language. He composed a piece called "Joie de Vivre," a title borrowed from French philosophy meaning not mere happiness but what the French call "an exultation of spirit," a comprehensive joy that touches one's whole being. The composer was Bader Soma, a spiritual practitioner known formally as Bhāgavat Āshraya Dās, based in Montreal. And in that piece, which would become the statement of a larger work, he discovered something essential: music could say what words could not. A year later, on his birthday, September 20, 2013, he released that song to the world as a gift.
The phrase "joie de vivre" circulates widely in English-language wellness culture, often reduced to little more than "enjoying life" or "having fun." But the concept carries far more weight than its casual usage suggests. Joie de vivre is not mere pleasure or entertainment; it is, as Soma's description notes, a "joy of everything, a comprehensive joy, a philosophy of life, a Weltanschauung"—a way of seeing and being in the world. The French theorist understood something crucial: this joy is not restricted to eating well or enjoying conversation, though it includes those things. Rather, it is what the French call "sentiment exaltant ressenti par toute la conscience"—an exalting sentiment felt by one's entire consciousness. It involves the whole being.
This matters because joie de vivre, understood this way, is not a feeling that arises and passes. It is a state of consciousness, a mode of engaging with existence itself. It is the underlying tone of someone who has moved beyond seeking happiness and instead dwells in affirmation—a yes to life itself, even to its difficulties, because the joy is not dependent on conditions but rooted in something deeper. That depth is what drew Soma to the phrase, and what made it the perfect expression for what he needed to communicate.
Soma's decision to create the album EntheoGenesis—a title meaning "the awakening of the divine within"—emerged directly from a confrontation with language's limitations. Over four years of spiritual practice and inner work, he accumulated experiences, insights, and emotional states that resisted articulation. This is familiar territory to contemplatives: the gap between what is lived and what can be said. Mystics, poets, and spiritual seekers have long known that the deepest truths slip away when forced into grammar and syntax.
Rather than forcing those experiences into inadequate words, Soma turned to music. The piano became his instrument of expression in the deepest sense—not as a vehicle for entertainment or even art for its own sake, but as a language native to the dimension he inhabited. Where speech divides and defines, music works through resonance, through the frequencies that bypass intellect and speak directly to consciousness. An eighteenth-century harmonium drone or a contemporary piano progression enters the listener not through the gate of understanding but through the gates of the body, the nervous system, the subtle anatomy that contemplatives know as the vehicle of transformation.
This is why EntheoGenesis, the full 18-track album, works as a spiritual document. It is not a musical expression of spiritual ideas; it is the direct sonic expression of a spiritual process. Each piece reflects, in Soma's own words, "all the emotions I felt which I could not put in words." This is the opposite of adding a soundtrack to a story. Instead, the music IS the story—the story of what it feels like to awaken to the divine nature within.
Albums like EntheoGenesis occupy an interesting space in contemporary music and spirituality. They are not kirtan recordings, which serve a devotional function for a community. They are not New Age ambient works designed to induce relaxation. They are intimate documents of transformation, created by someone willing to let the listener witness their own process of awakening. This requires vulnerability and a certain kind of confidence—confidence that the experience is real enough, powerful enough, true enough to stand on its own without explanation.
Released officially on October 30, the album arrived as a complete work, a coherent journey through the landscape of the artist's four-year spiritual unfolding. The individual piece, "Joie de Vivre," serves as both a microcosm of this larger work and a statement of its philosophy: that joy—true, comprehensive, consciousness-touching joy—is not something to be pursued but something to be discovered within one's own nature. The French phrase echoes through Buddhist and Hindu philosophy alike: the recognition that consciousness itself, in its essence, is characterized by sat-chit-ananda, being-consciousness-bliss. Joie de vivre, in this reading, is awakeness to that fundamental nature.
The specific geography of this work adds another layer of meaning. Composed in São Paulo in May 2012—released in Montreal in September 2013—the music carries the energy of a global spiritual lineage. Soma, based in Montreal, Quebec, drew on the resources of his environment: working with director Philip Waheed for the music video, filmed at Les Deux Gamins on Rue Prince Arthur Est in Montreal, a neighborhood rich with artistic history. Yet the impulse came from Brazil, a country with its own deep traditions of spiritual practice and music-making. The album itself was produced at Purnima Studios, suggesting an intentional, spacious approach to creation—the kind of attention to environment that anyone who understands sound knows is crucial to the work.
This is not incidental. The musician who creates spiritual music must do so in accordance with the consciousness that the music expresses. Rushed production, careless recording, distracted attention would undermine the message. Instead, Soma's approach reflects the philosophy embedded in the work itself: that consciousness and joy are not abstract concepts but living realities that manifest in how we approach the most concrete details of creation.
Soma released "Joie de Vivre" on his birthday as a gift to the world. This gesture, simple as it sounds, speaks to a particular spiritual understanding: that what has been given to us—awakening, joy, the direct experience of the divine within—is meant to be shared. A birthday is the anniversary of one's entry into the world. Marking it with a gift to others inverts the usual transaction and suggests a certain completion: "I have received something precious. Now I return it in gratitude."
This is the gift of EntheoGenesis as a whole. It is not Soma's private record or a commercial product designed primarily to generate income. It is an offering—documentation of a journey that others are also undertaking, expressions of states that others also know, a map drawn by someone who has traveled the territory and wishes to mark the way for fellow travelers.
Listen. That is the first step. The full album EntheoGenesis is available on streaming platforms including Spotify and through CD Baby. The official music video for "Joie de Vivre," directed by Philip Waheed, can be found on Bader Soma's YouTube channel, along with other works including "High Renaissance." For those drawn deeper into the work, the artist maintains an official website at badersoma.com, where you can connect through multiple platforms including Patreon, Instagram, and SoundCloud. If the music speaks to you—if it touches something in your own experience of awakening—follow the connection. This is how authentic spiritual work moves through the world: not through proselytizing or marketing, but through recognition. One consciousness recognizes itself in another, one joy affirms another's joy, and the work of awakening continues.
