Joseph Campbell famously suggested that we follow our bliss. This is often taken to mean finding the thing that you love to do and making a career of it. Making a career out of something you love to do is great. However, if you imagine that you will find a starting point and know what the whole journey looks like or where it will lead you, you are likely to part company with your bliss almost as soon as you start. Campbell also pointed out, following your bliss does not mean you know where it will take you.
Sometimes this saying is taken as a broader injunction about how we live all our life, to use the feeling of bliss as a compass in where we go and what we do. This is a deeper level that requires that we know and reference the feeling of bliss on an ongoing basis. It also requires that we come to trust this inner compass. It will tell us if we are on our path at the moment, and perhaps where to go next.
I increasingly find that my mind, still running in old patterns, will spin visions of fear and anxiety when it can’t see next week or next month; but if I check into my heart, it is fine. Our bliss is not the pleasure or satisfaction of the body, though we may learn to find it there as well. Following your bliss is not about hedonism in a superficial way, it is about finding the deep joy of being alive that we all carrying inside us.
As children of western culture we tend to assume that following our bliss is something we do in the outer world, a path we take through life, a tool we can use to be happy. It may be all these things, but most deeply it is an inner path which leads us to those levels of our being that are bliss, that are always in touch with the divine. When we have found this inside, we also have our compass, and know the next steps on our path.
The expression is not ‘find your bliss’, we all have it already. You may say that you don’t know what it is, but I suggest that you do. It may be in small things at first; a flower, a song, the smile of a child. You may have put it away as part of ‘growing up’, but it is still with you waiting to be invited back into your life. Just as a mighty river starts as a small stream in the mountains, find a small piece of bliss anywhere in your life, follow that trickle of water, cultivate the experience. Allow it to grow it will lead you deeply into yourself, where there is a river full of joy and life force, which is our spiritual being.
You have heard of people who have achieved something wonderful, but had no idea when they started where their journey would lead, or how they would fulfill their vision. But they knew their bliss, felt that part of their being, and they trusted it. That perhaps is the hardest part. Letting the mind vent its worries and anxieties but returning ever more deeply to that part of you that is your bliss is in this moment. Close your eyes and follow your breath into your self and find it now.
(© 7/2011)
