The Path to Bliss
What if the path to cosmic bliss was no path at all? To step off the path is to let go of the idea that bliss is a destination.
We each have different definitions of success and happiness. The fault is in letting others define it for us. Maybe we've spent our entire lives climbing a ladder on a wall placed by someone else? It's time to step off the ladder.
Bliss is right now. You were born with it. You've always had it and it will always be within you. The challenge is simply that we've misidentified with someone elses definition of it. We've been led to believe bliss is somewhere 'out there' when in fact, it's in here and already here. Here within you. You are bliss.
Meet yourself (and others) where you are. If there's any problem, sit with it. Be the observer you are. Do not try to solve or understand, but simply observe, listen, and learn.
Ignorant Bliss
To be ingnorantly blissful is to let go of any self-identification or association with the self.
Any identity built upon the external world is an illusion. Your true identity is the only one that matters. Your true idenity? It's your true nature. It's organic growth. You emerged from a tadpole - you were victorious the day you were born as a human being. If you could see how far you've come from a little sperm & egg... a tadpole swimming up stream... to a 52-year-old human being - whoa! Congratulations for being born. You're arrival on this planet is victory enough.
The happiest people I know rarely every berate themselves or others. They don't strive for success, yet are successful. They don't appear to have bold aspirations, but rather live lives others aspire to. Perhaps the secret lies in living their authentically. It's not that they never have problems - they do. But the problems are not perpetuated by constant rumination - rather they tend to move on from them rather quickly.
Rumination keeps a problem around long after it's served it's purpose.
The Brain Box
A review of the movie Bliss starring Owen Wilson
The bigger message behind Bliss is enlightenment.
The 'Brain Box' are the thoughts we have that keep us stuck in a hell we invent. When Greg & Isabel 'unhook' themselves from the brain box, and 'awake' into bliss.
It's a powerful analogy for our own lives. When we are 'plugged in' to the brain box, we suffer. When we 'unplug' from the brain box, we find bliss.
I liken 'unplugging' to meditation. It's often in meditation when I find my bliss because I disconnect from the world I create in my mind. Perhaps that's the ultimate meaning of 'mindfulness?'
At the end of the movie, Owen finds himself in therapy which is needed to remind himself the brain box is a mental construct and he will spend the rest of his life attempting to unplug from the brain box while remaining plugged in to the brain box. I liken this to our desire to 'fix' ourselves through self-help and therapy.
Within the brain box, anything is possible because everything is a construct of the mind.
Isabel (his soul mate) exists to remind him that it's all an illusion.
Is clock time an illusion when real time is eternal?
If real time is eternal, then clock time is an illusion.
6am is little more than an arbitrary timestamp in eternity. A timestamp that once created is in the past.
We are living into our future's past and our plan (or lack of) for the future is only in our mind. What's real is what you are doing and the experience of what you are doing.
The page turns as solid as the clock ticks another minute. What matters are the words we tell ourselves and the words we speak to others.
This morning I am feeling something has been lost. Is it my own life? Is it the discovery that I will never have enough time to do everything? My own mortality is a mirror with the loss of friends, family, myself imminent.
Not just myself, but for everyone I'll ever know... eventually, they'll all be gone.
The lesson? To love. to listen. to express the appreciation... To live in the moment as often as I can.
Concepts & Beliefs
The power of discovering a way to identify the unidentifiable. It was always there, we just couldn't see it because our brains were unable to make sense of it.
When you grasp a concept previously unknown...
...that which we are unable to describe with words allows us to see what was previously unseen. It was always there, we just didn't have the conceptual understanding of it yet.
Once you do, you discover a missing puzzle piece in life and the puzzle called your life is revealed. Another puzzle piece.
Whether it's synthwave or TPS... it's when you discover something that has always been there, yet never saw it because the concept of it existed beyond your understanding.
The songs I enjoyed most through the years contained a common element: synthwave. It wasn't until I knew what synthwave was that I began to see it in so much of the music I prefer. And now that I've found it, I'm seeing it everywhere and able to bring something into focus, previously hidden, that brings me true joy.
Puzzle Pieces
Same can be said for TPS. Once you truly grasp the concept of TPS, the world begins to make more sense... you've just found another puzzle piece.
I believe CBT may be another puzzle piece I just found... one that will help me unlock the secrets to reclaiming sleep... in the nick of time or just at the exact right time (I couldn't appreciate the value of a good nights sleep until I wasn't able to get a good nights sleep).
We appreciate what we miss
We don't appreciate the importance of good health until we no longer have good health. We don't appreciate what we have until it's gone because we don't appreciate something until we experience life without it.
Can I find a way to appreciate it more before it's lost?
Appreciate it now before it's lost, broken, or stolen.
What if you could find bliss in appreciation itself?