Original bliss
I was “sharing” and “comparing notes” with a friend in Australia who’s also had a heart opening and he reported the same experiences.
In his case, he saw a brilliant Light, which would be a vision of the Self, Christ, or Atman, our essence. In my case, I felt a torrent of love.
We both agreed that there was no way to describe the flood of love and bliss one feels when the heart opens. It defies words.
But the point I wish to make is that just talking about bliss brought me into the transformed space. I acknowledged to him and his partner that I had just entered the transformed space. The conversation had carried me into it.
I left the conversation deep in bliss. So talking about bliss seems to invite …. well, yes, it does. It does invite the experience of it.
And one experience of it seems to be all it takes to create an explosion of and then an ongoing ease connecting with bliss.
I cannot for the life of me see the pattern in all these trips in and out of the transformed space but I’m quite sure there is one. I can certainly see the direction all this is going in though.
For now, all I can do is list the circumstances, define the situation, like an ethnographer or sociologist. So here we have “talking about bliss” resulting in another entry into the blissful transformed space.
I can’t remember which day it was that I decided I wasn’t going to abandon this state any more. My house is now bliss-friendly.
After making that decision (but making it firmly), I remained in the transformed state for the rest of the day without fear, worry, anxiety. I was comfortably and stably settled into it.
It still comes and goes however. But it’s getting easier to summon bliss, so to speak. It comes by earnest invitation. And (consciously) touching any little bit of it, no matter where or how it happens, has led and can lead to an instantaneous and explosive experience of it. After that, the channel is open.
My friend described an explosion of white Light. I felt a torrent of love. I’m beginning to suspect that both were instances of “stream entering” in Buddhism and “spiritual awakening” in Hinduism. (1)
If I can pretend to be him for a moment, here’s what I’d say: I have seen the Light (2) and I knew it was myself. I found the treasure [the Self, the Light, the Christ] buried in [the] field [of the heart]. And buried it up again [relinquished the experience].
Having seen the treasure, I now want to own the field and hence the treasure. And so I sell all other desires than that and focus on purchasing the field. Purchasing the field is to say the Light becoming so intense that it causes a permanent heart opening.
Having purchased the field is a state which many sages call moksha or liberation. I’ve called it, after Ramana Maharshi, Sahaja Samadhi. It’s the endpoint of Ascension for most people.
Sahaja means our “natural state of being.” Our natural state becomes our normal state and our heart remains open. What a torrent of love and bliss that must be.
For my friend, his “crystal staircase” (his words) of enlightenment might be more and more brilliant experiences of Light. For me it might be deeper and deeper experiences of Love. The ascent will be different for different people.
You can see that I’m quite present in my writing. Anyone who’s followed me over the months and years can detect in the way that I’m speaking right now that there has been a change in me. Yes, it comes and goes, but it’s staying more and more as well.
My job is to go through Ascension along with everybody else and write about it, to make the whole thing public. This is what that looks like.
Back to the bliss. I feel myself enter a space of freedom from care.
I can feel those careworn feelings if I wish (purely optional), but, even if I did, I’d still feel buoyed up.
Bliss is like a sweetness that’s maintained through different concerns and anxieties. The different worries are all there but the sweetness of the bliss is also there and it cancels the worries out, while itself retaining its fullness. For these reasons, I contend that bliss transcends and transforms worries.
One taste of bliss, a sage once wrote, and he hungered for it ever after. For me, bliss is the reward for all action. It’s all I want and all I’ve asked for.
I feel blissful at this moment. I feel satisfied. I feel at peace. This is the experience of the transformed space. And all I want is for others, like my friend in Australia, to know this space. Jump in. The water’s warm and so inviting. And love is nothing without participation, without flowing.
Suzi is away so there’s only me answering email. I won’t be able to answer folks promptly, I’m afraid. Later, all will change.
Footnotes
(1) On stream entering, see here and following.
(2) Compare with Krishnamurti’s first experience of enlightenment:
“I sat crosslegged in the meditation posture. When I had sat thus for some time, I felt myself going out of my body, I saw myself sitting down with the delicate tender leaves of the tree over me. I was facing the east. In front of me was my body and over my head I saw the Star, (1) bright and clear. … There was such profound calmness both in the air and within myself, the calmness of the bottom of a deep and unfathomable lake. Like the lake, I felt my physical body, with its mind and emotions, could be ruffled on the surface but nothing, nay nothing, could disturb the calmness of my soul. … I was supremely happy, for I had seen. Nothing could ever be the same. I have drunk at the clear and pure waters at the source of the fountain of life and my thirst was appeased. Never more could I be thirsty, never more could I be in utter darkness; I have seen the Light. I have touched compassion which heals all sorrow and suffering…. Love in all its glory has intoxicated my heart; my heart can never be closed. I have drunk at the fountain of Joy and eternal Beauty. I am God-intoxicated.” (Krishnamurti in Mary Lutyens, Krishnamurti: The Years of Awakening. New York: Avon, 1975, 171-2.)
, 171-2.)