Cultural Mythology: American Notions of Self and Country

Do we want Bliss?

I keep thinking about a yoga class that I attended at an ashram on Robertson Blvd in Los Angeles, ten or eleven years ago. I was trying to find some spiritual direction and someone told me about this teacher who was the real deal, a Sikh guru who naturally used yoga practice as part of his spiritual teaching, not for exercise, not to relax. The mind-body conversation in the East is very different from the West, the information flows both directions, (unlike Descartesian mind over body monologues). Which is not to say, I must assure you, that this guru's yoga was particularly easy. We held poses for what felt like hours while he talked about the way to discover the ground of being and challenged, tough-love style, the part of us that wanted to collapse on the mat and just quit damn it!

My first experience was powerful. Near the end of the session the teacher had us sit in lotus position, hold our arms straight up over our heads, and repeat a chanted prayer. It was kind of fun at first. I like chanting. But when I realized that this arms-over-head prayer session was not merely a slightly exotic, two-minute send off, but something we were going to be doing for some unspecified "awhile," I got discouraged. I didn't quit but I did get tired, loosen my arms a little, and generate some resentment. The guru dug in too. He exhorted us to stretch our arms to heaven, to find out what was possible, to give up a little comfort. And he instructed us to chant louder. Loudly. "This prayer is a hymn to your magnificence" he said. "Shout it out!"

So I did. I guess I was really looking that day for what he could teach me, and I've always been susceptible to tough coaching--- it tingles my heroic nerve. I stretched my arms and chanted and chanted in full voice. Energy started rippling through my body. Suddenly my arms were light, light as feathers, and I started to weep with joy. Bliss is the only word I know to describe the complete sense of rightness and wholeness that filled me in that moment. This state lasted for a couple of hours.

I never experienced that bliss again in that setting, and I went to only three, maybe four more classes taught by this man. But I do recall something from the last class that I attended, words from the guru that echo through my Campbell research and have a lot to do with my interest in the concept of bliss. We were once again holding a deceptively simple pose for an excruciatingly long time when he said, "You know that bliss is here. It is always available to us. Bliss is being. But the truth is, most of us do not want bliss. We only want to be a little bit happier."

What do we want? Goethe writes: "I praise what is truly alive, what longs to be burned to death." I yearn for that combustible element too. I also know that I fear that kind of surrender and, day to day, hope instead, for grace. And I continue to choose rather conventional forms of happiness, not bliss.

Your bliss, my bliss, just bliss

"Distance does not make you falter. Now, arriving in magic, flying, and finally, insane for the light, you are the butterfly and you are gone" Goethe says. I fell in love with the Goethe poem "Holy Longing," while preparing for my research project on Joseph Campbell's advice to "follow your bliss." Like Campbell, Goethe championed a heroic, vibrant, and creative way of life: "Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it." I've seen magnets bearing this phrase grace the refrigerator of many a friend and acquaintance.

Sorting out Campbell's ideas about "following your bliss" is part of my work with the American myth of unlimited potential. The myth of unlimited potential is the belief that we can do, have, and be anything that we want, and that happiness and freedom are linked to unlimited opportunity. Although the bliss idea was peripheral to most of his work, "follow your bliss" probably made Campbell famous. He caught some flack for it and I wonder how many people, myself included, understand what he meant and trace the implications for our lives and global community.

At first blush Goethe's poem, Campbell's advice, and the myth of unlimited potential seem to be different ways to say the same thing, namely, that we can and should be passionate about our work and our desires. We should spend our time (that is, our lives) doing what we love. I've certainly devoted a lot of energy to this quest and I hate to think that a poem that makes me feel so good could reflect a problem. But we can't afford to let our soaring heroic icons and ideas flap around our perennially blue skies without finding out where they roost.

Are we interested in bliss or YOUR bliss? One has an ego in it, the other doesn't. Joseph Campbell talked about bliss as the emotional component of the underlying unity of all things. But the meaning and source of YOUR bliss is harder to pin down. It could be a function of destiny or luck or ego or some combination thereof, and it's commonly connected to personal happiness, not cosmic mysticism. We may not have to choose one or the other but I think we do need to understand the difference.

There is a Hindu story (Campbell used to tell this one too) about a guru and a young woman who delivered milk to him every afternoon. The young woman was often late because she had to cross the river and a boat wasn't always available at the appointed time. The guru was annoyed with the delays and one afternoon he scornfully said "Young lady, if one has the name of God on his lips and in his heart, anything is possible."

The young woman went way ashamed and determined to live up to the standards of this esteemed teacher. The next afternoon she arrived promptly. She was on time two more days when the delighted guru finally asked her, "My dear, how is it that you are now so punctual?" "Teacher," the young woman replied,"it's just as you said. When I get to the river, I meditate on the name of god and walk across the water." The guru was amazed and decided to try it. After all, if a simple woman could do it, surely a spiritual master like himself could walk on water too. The young woman lived on the other side of the river and he went with her and began to pray. The young woman set off, her feet barely sinking into the waves, and the guru followed. At first things went well but when he was several feet from the shore he began to sink. The young woman turned when she heard him cry out. "Teacher," she asked, "Why do you hold up the edge of your garment?"

The guru's ego weighed him down and his pride was the least of it. Any ego, that is his awareness that he was somebody, doing something, has weight.

Today, we can call the young woman's accomplishment "being in the flow," which is what I think Goethe tries to articulate in "Holy Longing." What longs to be burned, to meld, to melt, and to disappear is not consciously created, it exists in us and calls to us. This kind of bliss is not a matter of deciding what you want, but surrendering so fully to what is that you forget yourself and cease to exist. Can we do this? Is there a new balance to be struck between the individual and the cosmic, perhaps a new model for heroism or path to a meaningful life?

Joyful participation

I'm off this morning to Santa Barbara, to spend another few days doing research in the Joseph Campbell materials held by Opus Archives . I'm looking for insight into Campbell's notion of bliss, and the relationship between the hero's journey and the difficult trials associated with such a journey, bliss, and other objects of a quest (love or beauty, for example). Campbell believed that myths and stories are useful tools for understanding life and he believed that people today live, for probably the first time in human history, in societies that don't have a governing mythology. I disagree with Campbell on this last point.I think our mythology merely appears in different disguises; it's not always associated with "religion" in the traditional sense but is cloaked as self-help or economics or science.

Wherever you find it, the search for mythology and myth making is important for each of us as individuals, to find and create meaning and purpose for life, and to liberate ourselves from invisible ideas and dogmatic beliefs that govern our lives and determine reality to a large extent. We need a better story, a new mythos, a "healing fiction" as James Hillman says, to find a more beautiful, just, and sustainable way of life. I think the useful myths of today will point us toward paradoxes and help us struggle with the tensions that ring through modern life. Campbell said, "Follow your bliss." He also said, "Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world." These words inspire and puzzle an often despairing idealist like myself. So off I go and I'll share my discoveries with you in the coming months.

Double-edged sword

Many Western people are intrigued by Buddhism and Hinduism. These Eastern philosophies seem to provide answers to the problems posed by Christianity (and monotheistic religions generally), like exclusivity for example.  The Christian God is love, but he chooses some people and lets others burn in hell. He's also jealous and vengeful. As Daisetz Suzuki once said, "Nature against Man, Man against Nature; God against Man, Man against God; God against Nature, Nature against God; very funny religion!"

The superiority of Eastern spiritual ideas seems obvious although I think the shift is much harder for folks to make than is commonly assumed. But the hours I recently devoted to Joseph Campbell's taped lectures gave me something to chew on. Campbell is a good source for insights; he spent many years studying the East, traveled to India and Japan, was friends with gurus and roshis, and had great respect for the traditions. Here is one point that he makes that I find provocative and want to pass along. Eastern religions or philosophical systems are about identity, "thou art that." Western religions are about relationship, the relationship between the Creator and the created, God and human. Mystical experience is the heart of the East and borders on heresy in the West. Okay, we probably all like this part. But here's the rub. There is no place for personality, for the will to "be" anything, in the East. The prescription is to fit into your assigned social role and then proceed to erase yourself by eliminating all longing--that is, all that is idiosyncratic, what we call authentic. We want to approach the mystery all right, but it's the mystery of our own being as a singular event that compels us.

I'm not purporting to speak for everyone here, I don't know the secrets hidden in every Western heart. But this rings true for me and I agree with Campbell when he suggests that our dilemma is in learning to hold both ends, to experience union without complete dissolution, if that is possible. The individuality that we treasure and wrap meaning around is the proverbial double-edged sword.