Part 4: Ecstasy Deepening into Bliss

“Follow your bliss”

Joseph Campbell famously said, “Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.” He went on to say, “People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”

Nowadays many, maybe especially religious people, see this as a sort of new age platitude. Whether it’s seen as flippant hedonism or unrealistic idealism, bliss is often thought of as something outside of the normal experience of life. A moment here or there if you’re lucky. But to follow your bliss? That is selfish individualism and not really how life works, right?

But my own experience these last few decades has been one of bliss, one of “the rapture of being alive.” I believe it is possible for us to live everyday in this state. Let’s explore how that might actually be possible.

Read More