“Here’s a simple test.
If it’s soothing or comforting, if it’s about peace, love, tranquility, silence or bliss; if it’s about a brighter future; if it makes you feel good about yourself, boosts your self-esteem, tells you you’re okay, tells you everything’s just fine the way it is; if it offers to improve or elevate you; if it raises or alters consciousness; if it combats stress or deepens relaxation, or if it’s therapeutic or healing, or if it promises happiness or relief from unhappiness, if it’s about any of these things, then it’s not about waking up. Then it’s about living in the dreamstate, not smashing out of it.”
--Jed Mckenna

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"There is a sensation, and you say that you are depressed or unhappy or blissful, jealous, greedy, envious. This labelling brings into existence the one who is translating this sensation."
--UG Krishnamurti


The man asks me about permanent bliss.

As in, he wants it.

Really who can blame him- it’s got to be better than the anxiety and depression he’s got now.

He’s heard from numerous sources this is an attainable goal.

“You can be totally different. You can have an excitement that never swings over to depression. It is the true excitement of finding yourself. Nothing is more exciting than to watch a fear fade from the mind forever. Nothing is more delightful than to possess self-command in a world of chaos. There is no greater inspiration than to know that you have found the true path at last."
—Vernon Howard

"Do you want to know my secret? I don't mind what happens." --J. Krishnamurti

Oh yeah, sounds good.

And it has to be real or there wouldn’t be so many sages promising it.

So thanks Vernon and Krishnamurti and all those Rinpoches, Sri Sris, Maharshis, and others, for confusing the heck out of large numbers of people.

While claiming one thing but living another.

Because apparently no one has actually lived the permanent-bliss-filled life.

Even Krishnamurti, despite that famous quote above, did mind what happens, yelling at students for “not getting it”, or encouraging others' celibacy while cheating with his dear friend’s wife for years and then framing said friend for Krishnamurti’s own business problems.

Ok then, Ramana, Nisargadatta, Mooji, Watts? Nope, nope, nope, and nope.

Just humans, reacting and experiencing non-bliss occasionally.

“If we could only see how the ‘awakened ones’ behave behind the scenes, it might shatter many of our spiritual illusions.” –Jeff Foster

Oh dear. So they’re all liars?

Well, many clearly state that the dream of perpetual bliss does not change one’s actual life. But mostly folks ignore that or simply don’t believe them.

“People expect some miracle to happen,
something to drop from Heaven in a flash.
It's nothing of the sort.
Only the notion that you're the body,
that you're this or that, will go, & you remain as you are. “
--Ramana Maharshi

They say it flat out.

So maybe we just misunderstand.

Because most seekers think the self, the ego, the person we think of as ourselves, is what attains the bliss. Enlightenment becomes something outside, something other than us, something we get.

And we think we’re going to be ourselves, the one who gets it.

"You want to remain as you are, but at the same time, you want to know the Reality. You want to remain in the illusory world and know the Reality. Impossible! Ultimate Reality will not emerge until all body-knowledge has been dissolved." --Ramana

To not-mind what happens might perhaps be lovely, but we still want it to be Me that does the not-minding.

Which is not possible.

“When will suffering cease? Not until individuality is lost.” --Ramana

Wait, individuality gets lost?

Uh oh.

“Everybody's searching for something.
Nobody's searching for nothing.” --Michael Markham

Because we are the bliss, and we are all the other feelings too, and we are every thought and sound and color.

Which means we are fleeting, ephemeral, and not located anywhere.

So there is no Me.

No Me to claim attainment of bliss, enlightenment or anything else. No Me to prefer one state over another.

We are all of it. Including bliss, including reaction, including naughty unsage-like behavior.

“There is no self apart from the perceiving. Perceiving is all there is.”
--Adyashanti

On the plus side, we get to be it all.

All experiences, experiencing.

Which is why to chase perpetual bliss is to aim small.

Meanwhile, paradoxically, the falling away of the sense of self might sometimes come with a peace, a love, an equanimity.

And also the sense of self, the person and personality, remains in this life and world. As a person we talk with the spouse, hug the kids, work the job.

We continue to be recognizable as ourselves.

And soon enough that self gets annoyed with the neighbor or the government or traffic or the cable company. Soon enough, that self gets afraid or ashamed or guilty.

The self continues to experience every emotion, continues to react to difficult circumstances.

Which is no problem when we are all of that too.

Still, we can count on it- the self is what minds what happens.

So if we really want to not-mind something, we could play with not-minding that we do mind what happens.

“How can the illusory separate self practice something in order to reveal that it is illusory?...The life story that has apparently happened is uniquely and exactly appropriate for each awakening. All is just as it should be, right now. Not because it is a potential for something better, but simply because all that is, is divine expression.” -- Tony Parsons

Because being everything is as not-small as is possible to be.

And who knows? It could turn out that

being all-encompassing divinity

might just be

pretty dang blissful.


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