Bliss, etc.

Joseph Campbell formulated what became his most quoted dictum, "Follow your bliss" in the decade before his death. Join this conversation to explore this idea and share stories.

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CarmelaBear
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Bliss, etc.

Post by CarmelaBear »

1. Feelings of joy and happiness come and go.....so that isn't it.

2. Seeing with the heart is an uncertain proposition at best....

3. Choosing what's right is its own reward, I suppose....

4. Thinking it through isn't much help, really....

What's bliss again?!!

I forget.
Last edited by CarmelaBear on Sun Jun 16, 2013 7:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

CarmelaBear
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Post by CarmelaBear »

Joseph Campbell wrote:The goal of the hero trip down to the jewel point is to find those levels in the psyche that open, open, open, and finally open to the mystery of your Self being Buddha consciousness or the Christ.

That's the journey."
Hi, Joe! I'm sorry I get so discouraged and confused sometimes. I try to be positive, getting on with it. I just don't understand how what is happening relates to what I am supposed to be doing.

I shouldn't be apologizing, huh? Eh, life's difficult, you know.

I think I'll go now. Going back to invisible again. You can't see me. Hidden behind the curtain.

Later, dude.

~
Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

rabar
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Re: So, this is bliss, huh?!!

Post by rabar »

CarmelaBear wrote: What's bliss again?!!
I forget.
I designed a 'bliss scale' in RENA units 1-100 (Rapture Ecstasy Nirvana Attributes) to commorate the author of the phrase, "How much bliss can you tolerate?" Although the question may seem specious at first glance, actually it's quite interesting because I think our life experiences tend to set our bliss tolerance ceiling lower than we would like.

I applied the RENA scale to John Curtis Gowan's combined tables from his book "Trance, Art and Creativity" here:
http://www.raysender.com/gowanchart.html

Gowan's (RIP) book(s) available are availablke for free download or online viewing here:
http://www.csun.edu/edpsy/Gowan/

Always open to suggested corrections/additions! (smile)

CarmelaBear
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Re: So, this is bliss, huh?!!

Post by CarmelaBear »

rabar wrote:I designed a 'bliss scale' in RENA units 1-100 (Rapture Ecstasy Nirvana Attributes) to commorate the author of the phrase, "How much bliss can you tolerate?"
Welcome to the forum, Rabar. Your contribution is thought-provoking.

The quality of joy is subject to nuance and subtle elements that defy measure, but yes, we do find a level that suits us.

Bliss in too great a quantity makes me feel guilty....like why only me and not all those poor, diseased and injured people in Darfur and Iraq and wherever there is chaos and suffering?

Bliss can get boring, too.

~
Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

rabar
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Re: So, this is bliss, huh?!!

Post by rabar »

Hi CarmelaBear, and thanks for the warm hello! You wrote:
Bliss can get boring, too.
Then it's not really bliss. I think 'bliss' was best defined by the Buddha as quoted, for example, here:
Maha-satipatthana Sutta (DN 22)
[22]"And what is right meditation (sama-samadhi)? There is the case where an
aspirant, quite withdrawn from sensuality, and withdrawn from unskillful
mental states, enters and remains in the first ecstasy (jhana): bliss (piiti)
and joy (sukha) born from withdrawal, accompanied by applied and sustained
attention (vitakka and vicára). With the stilling of applied and sustained
attention (vitakka and vicára), one enters and remains in the second ecstasy
(jhana): joy and bliss born of tranquility, unification of awareness free
from applied and sustained attention (vitakka and vicára) with internal
assurance. With the fading of joy one remains in equanimity, aware and
alert, physically sensitive to bliss (piiti). One enters and remains in the
third ecstasy (jhana), of which the Noble Ones declare, ‘equanimous and
aware, one has a pleasurable abiding.' With the abandoning of grasping and
aversion for pleasure and pain (sukha and dukkha) -- as with the earlier
disappearance of pleasure and pain -- one enters and remains in the fourth
ecstasy (jhana): purity of equanimity and awareness, with neither pleasure
nor pain. This is called right meditation."
True bliss cannot arise without also the arising of The Divine Mother's compassion for the pain and suffering of all sentient beings --
"She Who Manifests First from The Unmanifest and Cleans Up Last," so to speak.
"Doing good" without experiencing not only Her compassion to others but to one's own shortcomings merely
creates yet another 'do-gooder,' who tend to thrive in various missionary "fixing others" associations.
Purring - or the 'resonant breath' as experienced in sleep, is the easiest path for me to dissolve into self-arising bliss and, of course along with it,
concern and compassion for the pain and suffering of these so-called 'others.'
The heart is 'Big Mind,' the head is 'Small Mind,' according to many teachers. All the above in my own humble opinion, of course, with twinkles attached.

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Post by CarmelaBear »

That's a lot to take in, Rabar. I'm thinking on it.


~
Once in a while a door opens, and let's in the future. --- Graham Greene

rabar
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Post by rabar »

CarmelaBear wrote:That's a lot to take in, Rabar. I'm thinking on it.
~
The article below goes into the 'bliss' topic more deeply, from a Buddhist
POV. I have some disagreements with the author on other topics, but find
his arguments clarifying jhana level definitions helpful. See:

A Proposed Unified Theory for Altered States of Consciousness
http://www.greatwesternvehicle.org/tran ... rption.htm

deus_ex_machina
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Re: So, this is bliss, huh?!!

Post by deus_ex_machina »

CarmelaBear wrote:1. Feelings of joy and happiness come and go.....so that isn't it.

2. Seeing with the heart is an uncertain proposition at best....

3. Choosing what's right is its own reward, I suppose....

4. Thinking it through isn't much help, really....

What's bliss again?!!

I forget.
Here's an exercise: Tinkerbell has just sprinkled you witt pixie dust, so you can fly. All you need is one "happy thought" What is it?

rabar
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Post by rabar »

Quote:
All you need is one "happy thought" What is it?

My happy thought is 'not thinking about thinking' -- sort of a spin-off from my one-armed great-aunt Emma's hiccup cure: "Walk around the house not thinking of a fox." (I'm not making this up, by the way).

I can top off my bliss any time I want by:
Resonating my trachea by purring/snoring.
On the inhale:
HONGGGGGG (loud snore)
On the exhale:
GREEEEEEE (with a gargled French "R")

Ten of these and my toes and fingers start to tingle, which I interpret as a sign that I have dissolved all lateral tensions in the body (armoring). I then can very very lightly touch my face to activate the unmyenlinated afferent nerves, whose job is to alert us to the kind of touch a fly gives when landing under our nose. I tame the tickle to a tickle by wiggling my toes, which then pours through my body and evokes the same kind of feeling I get just before going over the edge into orgasm. But the nice thing about this is that I can have it 24/7, which of course takes care of the usual definition of bliss - i.e. 'it comes and goes.' This version only comes.
For a sample demonstration, see PURRING TO NIRVANA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvyW3-2QSeQ

If you don't get joy from the facial tickle, you need to dissolve more armoring. Keep purring! HONG-GREE for Nirvana!!!

At your lotus tootsies,

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Post by CarmelaBear »

I find joy and bliss in all things. There is a satisfaction in every physical condition, including the emotions (both passionate and calm), including pain and pleasure, including laughter and tears. There is a deep well of contentment from which I draw whenever I find myself thirsting for relief from suffering.

I simply LIVE bliss. It is something quite solidly grounded. I know because I'm still here, and I am thriving.

Having said that, the definitions of bliss, whether from the mouth of Campbell or the sages of the east, seem unclear.

Perhaps it's just the intellectual exercise that baffles me, because the experience seems utterly accessible.....even when it disappears from view. I access bliss in so many ways.

It contains great miystery.

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Post by rabar »

I find joy and bliss in all things. There is a satisfaction in every physical condition, including the emotions (both passionate and calm), including pain and pleasure, including laughter and tears. There is a deep well of contentment from which I draw whenever I find myself thirsting for relief from suffering.

What you said, CarmelaBear!!!!
I simply LIVE bliss. It is something quite solidly grounded. I know because I'm still here, and I am thriving.

I think we ARISE AND AWAKEN to ourselves as bliss-consciousness! As many teachers have said, it is our natural state of being. That is why we remain unfulfilled until we return to this wellspring of our being: Sat-Chit-Ananda - where we all return after death, but it's so sweet to experience it while still alive.
It’s like we’re waking up from a bad dream and discovering we’ve been in heaven all. It contains great mystery.!
Wonderful! And for this reason,
The Galactic Alliance, by the authority vested in them, have conferred upon YOU
Honorary Eternal Bodhisattvahood, with all rights and privileges pertaining thereunto.
You are hereby & forever entitled to walk barefoot, make friends with everyone, teach the sacred truths and do anything else that brings harmony, happiness, celebration, relaxation, communication, health, love, joy, creativity, pleasure, abundance, grace, courage, balance, spontaneity, passion, beauty, peace, and life energy to yourself and to all other beings everywhere. Furthermore, as a member of the Alliance, you are hereby officially authorized to sit smiling and sassy on the lap of the Divine Mother, to nurse at her nipple that She placed in the back of your throat (uvula), to purr-snarl-snore-sing and otherwise resonate your trachea-heart-bloodstream, to jump in mud puddles, talk with animals, trees, rocks, elves, sprites, and effortlessly channel Her healing love in all six directions, demonstrating all the virtues and characteristics of the Bodhisattva that include Equality, the Orison of Quiet, Total Attention upon the Beloved, Overmind, Adamic Ecstasy, Amorous Abstraction, Knowledge Ecstasy, Cleansed Perception, Pratyahara, Ineffable Contact, Spiritual Marriage, Orison of Union, Transforming Union, Ineffable Union, Union with no distinctions, Sampajnata Samadhi, Knowledge Ecstasy, Gnosis, Equilibrium, Equanimity, Cessation of thought, Rapturous Flights of the Soul, Liquifaction of the Soul in the Divine, All Precepts Disregarded, Savitarka Samadhi, Eternal Presence, Knowledge Contact, Primary Object Transcended, All Siddhis Discarded, The Rainbow Body, Nirvitarka Samadhi, Direct Knowledge, Bliss Beyond Ecstasy, Beyond Rapture, Savicara Samadhi, All Feelings Cease, Nirvicara Samadhi, Divine Existence, Awareness of “no-thing-ness,” Asamprajnata Samadhi Without Support, Transcendental Union, I AM, The Divine Gnosis of The Diamond Wisdom, as well as taking Refuge in Objectless Consciousness and The Naturally Arising Primordial Wisdom in which the Three Kayas, Dharmakaya-Sambhogakaya-Nirmanakaya, otherwise known as Essence-Nature-Energy, or Consciousness-Light- Bliss, Sat-Chit-Ananda are inseparable, and opening Thyself to the Descent of Supermind and The Mother Force into Matter within the Nectareous Embodiment of Sahaja Samadhi, the Eternal Light thus Enfleshed as an Avataric Spiritual Being, always remembering that: Just Where You Are Is Where The Divine Always Manifests!
Signed for Aditya, Chair Pro Tem, Aditi's Solar Legation & Planetary Faralongeer

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Post by creekmary »

...hmmmmm......."bliss"......I think sometimes it's one of those things where the end result is probably going to be kinda worth it...but the process is not above sucking....more than occasionally....

Susan
("pay no attention to the wo/man behind the curtain!!")

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Post by CarmelaBear »

Hey, Rabar!

Your shouting tells me I may not have been as clear as I would have liked.

Here's another try:

Time goes by. Everything changes. One day's bliss can be tomorrow's nightmare.

We live today with decisions made many years ago for reasons that defy memory. The consequences can have a cummulative effect. :shock: It's like the results of too much stress. There is a price to be paid for the bliss we choose, and this price is not at all blissful.

So, things I thought would be bliss morphed into unrecognizable jumbles of disaster. :P Life will knock you down until it knocks you out, and those who are the most passive and relaxed leave the active and dynamic ones biting the dust. To follow anything, one must be prepared to fight and risk death. The irony is that you have to figure in the cost of bliss in your choice of bliss. Maybe the "bliss" is so meaningful or intense, that the suffering and sorrow and loss don't matter much.

It seems to me that my best bliss would be most certain to occur when my own personal goals become aligned with those of humanity. My worst bliss is better than none at all, and most of my average bliss is so common that I forget it's there at all.

~
Last edited by CarmelaBear on Sun Sep 07, 2008 11:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by CarmelaBear »

creekmary wrote:...hmmmmm......."bliss"......I think sometimes it's one of those things where the end result is probably going to be kinda worth it...but the process is not above sucking....more than occasionally....

Susan
("pay no attention to the wo/man behind the curtain!!")
Paying special attention to the wo/man behind the curtain, all I can say is: EXACTLY.

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Post by Sir Gawain »

Follow your bliss: First discover what would provide you with complete happiness, then follow it. Not on a material level but spiritually. For every person it will be somewhat different. For myself I came to grips with the realization that my nature (combative and belligerent) is not bad. It merely directed me in the long run to live the Way of the Warrior. I welcome conflict and challenge as an opportunity to test my mettle. All the while following a code of behavior and philosophy that helps me refine what I find to be truth. It allows me guidance and clarity combined with a sense of purpose.
Arthurus Quondam Rexque Futurus<br>Sir Gawain de Orkney, K.R.T.

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