Bliss is our true nature. Bliss is who we are, how we feel and what we radiate on a soul level at all times when not embodied.
Bliss is the reciprocal and simultaneous feeling of Love that souls have for God and the Love that God has for souls. It is derived from connection to the Divine. It has been described as being a Love of the highest order. It is the experience of extreme happiness.
How do you feel when you are in Love? Well, you feel in Love and you also feel happy about being in Love. Bliss is that: the highest order for Divine Love that transcends Body, time and place. For souls, Bliss is the “normal” way of being, the “status quo” level of happiness.
Here on Earth, Bliss is the spiritual ecstasy derived from a precise awareness of the connection with God. It is the byproduct of true, unimpeded Communion and awareness of Divinity.
Bliss is an uncontained sense of vast and expanding happiness, rolling over hills and valleys, stars and galaxies, going inward and outward at the same time. It is the feeling of holding hands with everybody on the planet and every angel, too─ at the same time, everywhere.
Bliss is the pleasurable radiation of happiness from the heart at a level just below bursting. It is a smile on one’s face that just might rip. It is the spiritual analogy to a full body, all-pore-inclusive orgasm. It is chi, life energy, sustained in perpetuity.
It is unlimited, everlasting Joy. Bliss is Joy, exponential.
Wowza!
Back on Earth, Bliss tends to get shrouded in the muck that we allow to separate us from God, or in the amnesia inflicted upon Humanity relative to the journey of being a soul embodied. We may hear tales of Bliss, yet never really experience it as we continue to get distracted by misery, affliction, addiction and striving for more “socially-appropriate” forms of happiness.
Experiencing true Bliss can render us unable to function, as it transcends Body, Reason, time and place. It can lead to trance, out-of-body experiences, obliviousness to one’s surroundings, personal rapture, revelation and profound understanding and insight.
Coming out of it can leave us feeling transformed, and asking for more.
Bliss is the joy of heaven on Earth. It is sweet elation. It is Nirvana. It is the pleasure of enlightenment or Samadhi. It is beatitude. It is a sacred euphoria. It is egolessness.
Bliss is an ambrosia for the soul and of the soul, self-fulfilling and self-perpetuating. Once tasted, we can gorge on it and create more. It is expansive.
It can make you dance ecstatically, or leave you oh-so-very still.
With Bliss, we make Love. We share sacred Communion/intimacy. Our Bliss tells us we are part of something greater than ourselves as it is greater than a singularly sourced joy.
Bliss is the happiness attained upon stumbling upon the Holy Grail. It is the Holy Grail of happiness, inherently Divine by nature. Bliss is the ultimate natural high.
Is Bliss a lure? Maybe. Bliss could be the divinely-inspired, dopamine-inducing pleasure which lures us to Communion.
“Ecstasy is, in a way, the nature of existence. There is a universe for the simple reason that it is ecstatic. What else is all the fireworks about?” -Alan Watts
Agape
Agape (pronounced as AH-GAYP) is an adjective meaning to have one’s mouth wide open in a state of surprise, wonder or splendor. Agape (pronounced AH-GAH-PAY) is a noun that can refer to the reciprocal bond of Love that can exist between God and mankind. AH-GAH-PAY leaves our mouths AY-GAYP. In Bliss, we stand AH-GAYP at AH-GAH-PAY.
Bliss and Infinitude
The element of Infinitude describes that state of awesomeness and unbounded capacity we feel when we are here on Earth and are also in our flow, fulfilling the mission of our Truth in Service to others. We experience Infinitude when we are doing what we were born to do. This might be said to be a form of Bliss. When we are living our Truth in Service to others; we are aligned with Divinity and we are in Communion.
Pure Bliss differs from Infinitude in that it foregoes any need for a mission beyond “just being.” Bliss reflects the awesomeness and unbounded capacity of a soul just being a soul connected to God. We can feel both Bliss and Infinitude while living on Earth. In following our Bliss and in living our Truth, we may first experience Infinitude, which might then help us to bare our souls and experience true, soulful Bliss.
Bliss and Joy
While Bliss is the ecstasy experienced from direct Communion with God, Joy is the daily manifestation of Bliss within all interactions here on Earth. Joy happens when we see Divinity all around us and within us.
Bliss can be so powerful that it separates us from the practical world. Joy, on the other hand, is accessible Bliss that we can experience in everyday life without being in the la-la land of full- blown spiritual ecstasy. Bliss is a spiritual experience of the soul. One might say that Joy, on the other hand, is a taste of that experience filtered through the Body. Joy is “Bliss Light,” “Bliss Practical” and “Bliss More Readily Accessible.” Joy can build up to Bliss and the Joys we experience can be the clues that ultimately bring us to our Bliss.
Following Our Bliss
Your Bliss is right inside you right now. You don’t have to go anywhere or follow anything to feel it. It involves a pilgrimage of one step─ within. To access Bliss, we have to learn to just be, shedding our ego and any sort of persona which evolved as a matter of appeasing and complying with the social demands of who we think we ought to be or what others think we ought to be. We have to strip off all layers and all masks and effectively “bare our souls” to access Bliss. For most of us, this can be a tall order and will often involve extensive Healing work and/or defiance of conventionality.
Following our Bliss usually means doing things that makes us happy (since those things usually reflect our Truth). By logical extension, following our Bliss might also mean letting go of things that make us unhappy. These could be the emotional wounds and self-limiting beliefs that we all carry. Doing personal and spiritual work consistently over time naturally leads to doing those things that truly make us happy and shedding those things that don’t. In the process, we come closer to our Truth. We peel off layers of falsity and are more who we really are by Divine order. Proximity to our Truth equates to greater Bliss since we are also closer to our Divinity.
On the path of following our Bliss, we will get tiny little crumbs of it that lure us towards it─ if we are aware and pay attention. Along the way, there will be many false temptations that may tell us that our Bliss is found elsewhere. Perhaps it is found by complying with social convention, doing what is expected of us or chasing some material want? The question that we will really have to ask is: Exactly whose Bliss am I following?
Even that can be tricky question, as the ego and others will tell you that it is your Bliss you are following when in fact it is really not.
Much of the spiritual work found in The Periodic Table of Spiritual Elements serves to help one discern and discover one’s Bliss. In the meantime, if it is not completely clear, that is okay. Follow your Bliss as best as you can based upon your own Intuition and continue to ask the question: “Whose Bliss am I following?”
“Follow your bliss. If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while waiting for you.” -Joseph Campbell
Recipe for Bliss
There is no one recipe for Bliss. Reaching a state of Bliss is about setting up an environment conducive to the experience occurring and not endeavoring to force it in any way. Bliss may be something we enter into through an act of Surrender and letting go. It may develop after a period of spiritual development and Healing whereby we have shed egoic, self-limiting beliefs and inhibitions. Or it will occur after we have worked towards Healing specific emotional wounds and ventured closer to our Truth. All of these paths bring us closer to our Divinity but the specific journeys there are different for each of us.
Along with processes of Healing, purging and spiritual development, common methods of experiencing pure forms of Bliss might be: Prayer, Meditation, chanting, music, yoga and sacred/ecstatic dance, among others. These methods seem to have crossed cultures in the Western world today and each of them entail a shedding of ego, self-consciousness and inhibitions while utilizing the Body to obtain a high level of relaxation and freedom from the “fight or flight” mechanisms that may have been running our lives before. The Body aids in Bliss. Ironically, the Body can assist with out-of-Body experiences like Bliss.
Another way Bliss can happen is by having a sudden or abrupt epiphany, personal rapture or extraordinary mystical experience (in the dreamtime or in waking reality). In the mainstream Bible, St. Paul, on his famous road trip to Damascus, is said to have heard a Divine voice. He stood speechless (agape) and filled with the Holy Spirit (Bliss).
‘To chant the holy name and dance in ecstasy is so easy and sublime that one can achieve all the benefits of spiritual life simply by following this process.” – Sri La Prabahupada
Seeking the High of Bliss
Our natural true nature is Bliss. Yet many decide to just “get high” on common psychoactive recreational drugs like alcohol, marijuana or amphetamines. We already have full access to this overwhelming, joyful, euphoric ecstasy that can be life transforming─ the ultimate natural, healthy high. Why engage in psychoactive intake and pharmaceutical wanderlust (with addictive potential) in order to obtain a cheap and temporary imitation that pales in comparison to the real thing? Why would we want to distort our natural way of being or our chances at revealing true Bliss?
Others might seek out the same type of dopamine-infusion through non-psychoactive activities such activities as gambling, compulsive sex, consumerism or even workaholism.
The short answer to the “why” question above is that getting these types of highs can be fun in the short term. They are easily accessible and usually overtly or implicitly reinforced by society in one way or another as a means of temporary escape or stress relief. “High-seeking” behaviors, with clever variations, are routinely taught and passed on from one generation to another.
The longer answer might be that we “know not what we do.” There may be some part of us that knows that Bliss is accessible anytime we want it but we just don’t know how to access it. At the same time, many people maintain emotional states and belief systems that keep them perpetually disconnected from it. High levels of anxiety, unconscious beliefs of inadequacy, non-alignment with one’s purpose, confusion over a crazy world and lack of connection with God are some examples. High-seeking behavior foregoes the work necessary to address the issues mentioned above and provides immediate self-medication and distraction from them.
The potential for addiction accompanied by shame can then easily arise, which would further call for greater self-medication. Addiction is often shame-driven and initiated by some imprinted feelings of inadequacy or of being “less-than” in some way. Escape from these unpleasant states of being is desperately sought via the addiction that is then exasperated by the shame of having it and not being able to conquer it.
Many will follow the self-destructive trail of seeking false Bliss via high-seeking activities until negative consequences force an examination of these actions and, often, of a person’s entire life. Unfortunately, some may function indefinitely in addiction and never examine their state of being.
The irony is that folks that engage in false states of Bliss are seeking Bliss in the first place, or more correctly, a facsimile of it. In partaking in these behaviors, however, they are actually driving themselves away from Bliss. If Bliss is our true nature and if being our true self helps us reveal that, distorting our true self in any way simply detracts from it. In other words, we want to be “clean machines” so as not to distort our true way of being in any way. Anything beyond very nominal use of psychoactive ingredients or pursuance of high-seeking activities is insane and Bliss-adverse. If you have an addictive proclivity, take special care to avoid high-seeking behavior and instead venture towards the natural Bliss within. Each of us is responsible for recognizing and addressing our addictive patterns or manners of seeking false Bliss outside of ourselves. Each of us has the power to find true Bliss within, the ultimate natural high.
“The outer world, with all its phenomena, is filled with divine splendor. But we must have experienced the divine within ourselves before we can hope to discover it in the environment.”
-Rudolph Steiner
ALCHEMY
Bliss arises in Communion. It is generated in the presence of true Communion. All elements that support Communion for an individual will then support Bliss.
Truth and Bliss are interrelated in that following Bliss leads us to Truth and living our Truth can lead to Bliss.
Non-Attachment supports Bliss by releasing attachment/addiction to forms of false Bliss, and releasing any and all attachments to that which makes us unhappy.
Body can serve as a conduit, ironically, for out-of- Body experiences of Bliss, via relaxation and the shutdown of fight-or-flight defense mechanisms. The Body can serve as a conduit for Bliss in sex oriented towards sharing sacred Communion.
Meditation, Prayer, chanting of Mantra, and dance with the Body, are common methods of shedding ego and surrendering to Bliss.
Doing our Healing work is vital to removing barriers to experiencing our Bliss.
Surrender serves to allow Bliss by letting go of control of outcomes or attempts to force it to occur.
Light helps us to be “Light like a feather” and not take life too seriously, thereby opening ourselves up to Bliss.
PRACTICE
- What is your Bliss? How do you express it, or experience it? How can you best follow it? How might you discern whether the Bliss you pursue is yours or based on the expectations of others? Ask yourself these questions daily, and make an action plan for increasing your sense of Bliss by figuring out which activities make you feel Blissful, and indulging in those whenever possible. Focus on practical, easy-to-achieve methods of experiencing Bliss. You may not be able to afford two weeks in Hawaii right now, but you may have some time this week to read that book you bought months ago that’s been sitting on your shelf, collecting dust. At the same time, don’t forget the importance of self-care, and avoid overusing chemically induced or other dangerous forms of Bliss that can ultimately hurt you.
- Identify and take responsibility for any addictive/high-seeking behaviors. Seek professional help as necessary.
- Kiss for Bliss. Make love in a manner intended for sharing sacred Communion. Study the philosophy of Tantra as it relates to sex and sacred Communion.
- Identify any ways in which you seek Bliss outside of yourself. Are you too reliant on the opinions of others? Are you weighing yourself down with professional or familiar expectations?
- Go within with a daily practice of Prayer, Meditation, chanting, yoga or sacred/ecstatic dance, or whatever activity best resonates with you (or some combination of activities). Find resources for each activity in your area such as a meditation course, a Kirtan music/chanting event or an ecstatic dance class.
- Make a playlist of music that catalyzes Bliss, dance, Prayer or Meditation for you.
- Schedule a Date Night with yourself. Watch a bunch of your favorite movies, or go to a movie you’ve been dying to see but that no one wants to see with you. Paint your toenails. Dye your hair. Take a long, hot bath with a bottle of wine. Eat your favorite foods. If you can afford it and enjoy it, go get a massage. In short, “do you” for an evening.
MANTRA/PRAYER
I Know Who I Am; I Am Bliss; I Know Where I Come From; I Come From Bliss.
I Let Bliss Pour Through Me; I Let Bliss Rise Within Me; I am Bliss.
I Am Pure Energy, Peace at this Moment, Courageous and Willfully Present.
Please Let Me Be My Bliss and Release All That Does Not Serve Me.