When I stated "follow your bliss", you replied "I can't follow
my bliss, I
don't know what my bliss is"
K, the only way that I know of to find out is by choosing some goal and swinging the sword lustily until one
has accomplished it. Once you have it, you will find that it (the goal) is no longer attractive, and this will
cause some discontent. That is the way it is supposed to be. It's not the goal, but the journey that is
important, because it is the pursuit of the goal that brings about the necessary sublimation of our natural
energies and directs them into greater and higher modes of expression. Once on this
higher plane of expression, we are then (and often only then) able to perceive a higher goal, which then
becomes the focus of our concentration and imagination and thus helps us to sublimate our drives
even further.
So it is by active pursuit that we can eventually see reality, because it is only by active pursuit that we can
develop those discriminative faculties.
Negation alone only sows seeds of doubt, fear, indecision, inaction and misery. How could it be otherwise?
For if we only focus on negating life, that's what we're going to manifest - a life who's energy, zeal, love, and
realization has been negated.
So again I say: "Follow your bliss."
If you don't know what your bliss is, then make finding your bliss, your bliss, and follow that!
This will require you to use your imagination and discrimination.
You'll need Imagination to come up with the imagery to focus on and discrimination to eliminate all those
competing drives and desires which are wasting your time and sapping your energies.
And the first thing to take the sword to is the habit of constantly "negating" everything. This is what is
sapping you of your confidence
and drive. This is why you can't find your bliss. You are constantly sowing seeds of doubt and indecision into
your consciousness.
You need to use your imagination to come up with something that you desire more than your desire to kill (negate) everything.
Remember, that you can't eliminate this desire to kill, via negation alone!
You must use your imagination to come up with something you like more, and then focus on THAT,
instead of on your natural inclination to negate. Only thus can you sublimate this tendency.
Of course this advice I'm giving you is predicated upon the assumption that you WANT to find your bliss
more than you want to negate. If not, then please forgive my foolishness.
Got you phone message today about your visit to the dentist's office.
So what happens when "follow your bliss" meets up with suffering
and
limitation?
For most people, it's the same thing that happens when Bambi (a he) meets Godzilla (a she).
"Follow your bliss" is not a slogan for mindless hedonism. It is a statement of fact, and an encouragement to follow one's higher intuition.
It is also a statement of fact because for most people they do follow their "bliss" as they feel and understand it.
This "bliss" being
desire and pleasure at whatever level they happen to be at.
For example:
A materialistic person will interpret this statement in accordance with their desire level which is focused
on the material. They will see "follow your bliss" as a license to crave and consume those things they
want.
A more intellectually minded person may interpret "follow your
bliss" as an encouragement to follow those intellectual pursuits that bring
him/her the greatest meaning and pleasure.
A religious minded person my interpret "follow your bliss" as an encouragement to worship God in
the way that they are accustomed to.
A spiritually minded person may interpret "follow your bliss" as an
encouragement to follow the call of the "Higher Self".
But the question is this: "are any of them wrong?"
I would say NO. They are ALL correct, as long as their conscious understanding is in accordance with
their desire nature.
To say otherwise would be like telling a dog that they are wrong to be a dog, or telling a 1st grader that
they are wrong because you think they should be a 12th grader like you, etc.. Of course one must also
pay the price for their actions and suffer the Law of Cause and Effect on whatever
plane they're on, and for those on the lower planes of manifestation this price is usually suffering and death. But suffering
and death are not wrong in and of themselves. Suffering and death merely ARE.
So one is perfectly entitled to be on plane X and to pay their dues on that plane, if that is what they want.
The problems arise when one is in internal conflict, by consciously stating one set of goals and desires,
but subconsciously desiring another set of outcomes. In other words, you consciously aspire to a higher level
of development than where you actually are. This causes pain and conflict because part of you wants
the higher, while a more powerful part of you is still ATTACHED to the lower, and it's that more powerful
part (the subconscious vital animal soul or kundalini) that is in control of everything.
Therefore, the only way to sublimate base desires into more purified ones is to go to work on the
subconscious levels in order to "humanize" them.
So where Bambi meets Godzilla is where our naive consciously stated concepts and goals crash head on
with our powerful subconscious drives and desires.
So in your example, you felt uncomfortable in the dentist's chair while trying to conceive of how this
could be following one's bliss?
At your current level "follow your bliss" is a statement of fact concerning
your conscious understanding of what is "desirable" for you; what it
is you think you aspire to be and do. In this case it seems to be a Krishnamurti
-esque vision of a reversal of all held beliefs (whatever that means). However, this naive self-conscious
conceptualization of the world is no match for your powerful subconscious drive to seek pleasure
and avoid physical pain and discomfort.
So once again Bambi meets Godzilla - CRUNCH!
So here's the problem in a nutshell:
K's Bambi Mind says "follow my bliss" means => seeing reality
now, coming to know God, and rejecting ALL falsehood! (abstract as that may be)
BUT
K's Godzilla Mind says "follow my bliss" means => pleasure, good
food, lots of money, sex, fresh air, sunshine, sex, good job, loving spouse, sex,
status, respect, sex, long life, avoid pain, experience beauty, sex, security, spawning intellectual ideas, spawning with young women, etc....
When Godzilla once more runs over Bambi, it can be a frustrating and painful experience of one's own puny
impotence in comparison to what GODZILLA wants.
You cannot hope to defeat Godzilla. For the fact of the matter is that you need her in order to live.
By struggling with Godzilla, you only injure yourself and your capacity for
aliveness.
Your only hope is to educate and sublimate her, thus making her your ally.
Once you have "humanized" Godzilla, SHE will then be able to
reflect into you conscious awareness, your higher intuition and so enable you to
truly SEE the face of the beloved behind the mask of ugliness that you are currently experiencing.
(note: this is also the timeless truth behind the tale of "Beauty and
the Beast" with the gender roles reversed from my Bambi/Godzilla metaphor.
Belle is the self-conscious, Beast is the powerful subconscious)
So if you want to SEE REALITY, first you've got to tame Godzilla!
So how does one tame Godzilla?
How did Belle tame the Beast?
Here's a hint: It has to do with the (habitual and emotionally charged) Imagery one consciously chooses to
dwell upon. It is at the point where the image is formed that the locus of control resides. The Image making
power is the controlling power. It is the creative LOVE force.
"tale as old as time" - It is LOVE that tames the beast.
So next time you're facing a dragon, remember that before you can truly "find your bliss", you've got to get
Bambi and Godzilla working
together on the same team first.
And to do that takes imagination, discrimination, and the courage to start "somewhere". It doesn't matter
where you start as long as you start somewhere where you have an "interest". The most important thing
is to start taking control of one's own image making power, and learning how to direct it from one's highest aspiration however they can
conceive it at the time.
And yes this sounds like one is doing some "personal" (or even
selfish)
effort, but my understanding is that it only seems that way. As you gain
control of your image making power, what is actually taking place is that
the Higher Self is getting control of the reins on its particular vehicle
(your personality). So part of the process is to have the FAITH that no matter one's own striving,
everything is in fact in God's hands (and it is).
So it is an expression of Faith to say: "In all of my doing, I of myself
do
nothing".
Thus I DO, but without attachment to the doing which belongs not to me, but to God.
And so you've gotta have Faith in what you do, because if Godzilla senses any fear in Bambi, it's all over!
It's Faith that allows one to act "as if", and thus perform the
magical act of forming the unconflicted image and implanting it in subconsciousness
with confidence. Only thus can we start to transmute and free Godzilla from her afflictions to the point
where eventually we will be able to look into her face and indeed find our bliss, find our beloved, and see
the face of God and our own face as ONE in the same.
I was wondering what type of practices, techniques, meditations, etc. you
would suggest for developing the connection to one's bliss?
Is it simply a matter of opening to desire?
What exactly is it that truly allows us to open up to >our bliss? (btw,
wasn't it Joseph Campbell that coined this phrase?).
I direct these questions to you JC, but I welcome anyone's response to this
query.
=====
I hope that my "Bliss Meets Godzilla" post was helpful in addressing
your above questions.
It is all about desire, but the problem is that we don't strike with all our
might towards our "desires" because typically Bambi (self-conscious)
wants one thing while Godzilla (subconscious-vital animal soul) either wants
something else or is wanting different things at different times. Eventually we
need to figure out that in order for us to get anywhere we need to get Godzilla
on our side first. In the mean time, the Divine Will (God's Desire) as it
manifests in our personality will just keep playing out existing patterns of
personal desire, pain and limitation for us in order to draw our attention to
these patterns.
But ultimately it is God who decides when it is time for us to start to take
the next evolutionary step, by giving Bambi new ideas, and by allowing the Law
of Cause and Effect to get our attention (typically via pain and perceived
limitation). Then it's up to Bambi to get Godzilla moving in the same direction.
