Introduction
Everyone wants to feel good. Naturally, we gravitate toward activities which give us pleasure and avoid those which give us pain. For some, this involves all kinds of sophisticated strategy and delayed gratification. For others, it’s as simple as going out and doing what they love.
All human beings are complicated, and each human being is unique. As a result, there are countless variations in the pursuit of pleasure. Often, our histories and life circumstances provide serious obstacles along the way. Even if those obstacles are surmounted, most of us possess deeply held beliefs about how much pleasure we’re allowed to have.
What unites most people in their pursuit of pleasure is the idea that it arises as a response to experience. Sex, money, power, love – these are all seen as exceptional triggers. At the same time, thoughtful people understand that none of those triggers will succeed in providing lasting pleasure unless a person’s inner environment can foster and sustain it.
In the pursuit of inner peace, we spend countless hours and billions of dollars. Our investments go to books, therapies, retreats, and techniques such as yoga and meditation. We hope that by becoming better, happier people, our actual experience of life will brighten as well.
This approach often leads to great success. We flow with life more easily and take things more in stride. But life is still hard, for everyone, and great suffering never fails to make an appearance at many points along the way. No amount of inner work, for example, can prepare us for the death of a loved one. In fact, most people would argue that it shouldn’t. To be fully engaged in life, the argument goes, means taking whatever comes and responding to it deeply and authentically.
I agree with this argument, but it only tells half the story. I try to tell the other half in this book.
Imagine an existence of constant, ever-available bliss. Imagine that this bliss asks for nothing and depends on nothing. Imagine that it is the very foundation of all experience, and that not even the most tragic of life’s events can alter its strength or presence.
I know that this bliss exists. I know it because I live it. And I believe that you can, too.
What’s more, in order to live in the radiance of this bliss, you don’t need to be like me or anyone else. You don’t need to have faith in God or any creed. Whether you’re shy or loud, Christian or atheist, revolutionary or arch-conservative, this bliss belongs to you.
"Alright then," you must be asking, "so where is it?" The answer is simple. The bliss to which I’m referring is deep within every one of us, always present but rarely chosen. To choose it requires the asking of just two questions. We need to ask these questions with great patience and intention. We need to embody them, to live them.
In this brief text I attempt to describe the questions, explore them, and provide you with everything necessary to make them your own. If you stick it out to the end, and begin living the questions, you may soon taste a bliss as eternal as it is indescribable.
The book begins with a quick orientation – Terms of Service – which explains how I came to write it and suggests a framework in which to approach it. Part Two – Basic Bliss provides a foundation for the questions, describes them, and then demonstrates how to put them to use. This first pass is elementary, and therefore avoids many subtleties and complications. Part Three – Advanced Bliss fills in those missing pieces. Part Four – Beyond Bliss explores how living the questions can radically transform our entire perspective.
How you read the book should be determined by what you bring to it. If you’re intrigued by what you’ve read so far, then proceed from start to finish. If you’re impatient, and want to get to the bliss right away, then skip immediately to Chapter 4. If you’re deeply resistant, perhaps not even sure it’s worth continuing, then first visit Chapter 17, which addresses the most prevalent dissenting views. If at any time along the way you despair, and suspect that the circumstances of your life preclude bliss, then quickly flip to Chapter 25. There, we’ll investigate some common roadblocks, as well as practical steps to work through them.
No matter how you arrive, I sincerely hope you make it through. If so, you won’t need to learn about bliss the way I did, which costs a lot more and hurts a lot worse.
Finally, it needs to be said that nothing in this book belongs to me. The bliss, as well as the invitation, are a product of the great mystery at the source of all existence. I bow to that source, revel in it, and one day hope to meet you there.
Chapter 1 – How I Know About Bliss
For over 20 years, with a seeker’s heart and a skeptic’s mind, I roamed widely in the spiritual marketplace. I explored my own heritage – Judaism – as well as any other that sparked me. Throughout my investigations, I vowed not to accept anything on faith that I didn’t experience directly. And except for a few peak experiences, that included no bliss whatsoever.
On the other hand I wasn’t complaining. I considered myself a fortunate person. I was blessed with many advantages and had chalked up many achievements. I grew up in a difficult family (who doesn’t?), but had worked hard to heal most of my wounds. My career and personal life were on track. I had my health. I anticipated life’s ups and downs and managed them reasonably well.
And then, all of a sudden, everything exploded. The details of that tragedy aren’t the subject of this book. What’s important, though, is how deeply miserable I became. All my assumptions about life went right out the window. At the age of 34, I felt like I knew absolutely nothing.
Eventually, that explosion came to serve me. I was cracked open, defenseless, and the hole left behind was wide enough for grace to enter. By grace, I don’t mean anything religious at all. There was no "seeing the light" or accepting a savior or coming to a deeper understanding. In my case, grace meant the arrival of an inner transformation. Spontaneously, and without effort, my experience of living was suddenly and irrevocably changed.
In my core, in the region we call the heart, arose the ceaseless experience of bliss. For no reason whatsoever, I felt joyous and peaceful and loving. At first I thought it was a mood, or another peak experience that would surely pass. But it hasn’t, to this day, and that was a full five years ago.
So there I was, the same guy as before with the same rotten life, except instead of feeling rotten it felt spectacular. The bliss in my heart radiated throughout my body, and beyond, to anyone open to receive it.
On top of all that, nothing seemed to be required of me in order for the bliss to continue. It was a mysterious gift, with no strings attached.
From the outset, I decided to pay very close attention to what was happening. I felt like my own life now contained the message I’d long been seeking, and I wasn’t going to let that message elude me.
It didn’t. I got it. And now I pass it along to you.
Chapter 2 – Don’t Believe A Word I Say
Usually, in a book like this, the writer presents a thesis and then sets out to prove it. You, the reader, follow the writer’s train of thought. In the end, if you make it that far, you decide whether to agree or disagree.
Often, you’re swayed a bit by the position and reputation of the writer. You probably choose to read the book in the first place because you have reason to respect the writer’s opinions. Maybe the writer’s a renowned expert, or can document years of study on the topic in question.
In this book, however, I don’t attempt to prove anything. Nor do I claim even a shred of expertise. I don’t expect you to trust what I say, and in fact I hope you won’t.
Instead, I’ll present you with a series of observations from my own life. These observations have led me to believe that the direct experience of bliss is available right now, and all the time, to virtually every human being.
Does that sound outrageous? It might to me, if I were in your place. But I hope, as you read further, that you’ll come to know this for yourself.
That won’t happen because my observations make sense. Even if they do, and you accept them as your own, nothing but your beliefs will change. And the goal here is something much more profound.
I invite you to doubt my observations like a reasonable and skeptical scientist. I invite you to put them to the test in your own life. I invite you to experience this bliss when it’s easy, when it’s a challenge, and when it seems utterly impossible. Only then, if it happens, will you share the gift that was given to me.
Chapter 3 – This Is Not A New Age Book
This is not a New Age book. In fact it’s nearly the opposite. Perhaps you’re wondering why this bears mention. The answer lies in what the New Age label represents.
At the core of most New Age thought, in my experience, are two key tenets. The first is that each of us creates our own reality, from the world we see around us to the world we find within. Anything we don’t like, according to this logic, we can change. The trick is to learn how we’ve made it so, and then to re-direct that same process to manifest a new result.
Approaching life this way can lead to valuable self-empowerment. Many people employ it to uncover limiting personal beliefs. From my perspective, however, it can over-emphasize the amount of control we actually have. It can lead us to blame ourselves, falsely, for the circumstances of our lives. Sometimes, in addition, it can allow us to deny what is. And denial of what is, as we’ll soon discover, actually prevents change from taking place.
The second core New Age tenet is that each one of us possesses the potential for unlimited everything. If we can merely tap this potential, then all the love, health, success, power and money in the world will be ours. Most of the books, tapes and seminars of the New Age movement offer techniques for unleashing that potential.
This book isn’t one of them. Though health, success, power and money are often a by-product of living the questions, they’re never the goal. Our focus will remain on moment to moment experience, not results. In fact, what we’ll be exploring here is a bliss that has nothing to do with the particulars of your life.
The claim I make is this: You can live in bliss even if you’re alone, sick, failed and broke. Not that I expect that, or wish it upon you, but it’s certainly one hundred percent possible.
What we’ll examine in the following pages is an outlook that separates our state of being from all we do or don’t achieve. We’re free to go about our business, but don’t depend upon it for personal satisfaction.
Does that make any sense? Would you accept if it were true? Perhaps, like so many, you’re attached to the idea that how you feel is the result of what happens in your life.
If so, for just a few hours, I invite you to suspend that assumption entirely.
Chapter 4 – A Defining Moment
Think of an activity that gives you great joy. This could be singing, reading, hiking, or even watching your favorite TV show. Once you’ve selected the activity, pause for a few seconds and summon up the feeling that the activity generates.
Next, think of a person who you love as much as anyone on earth. If no one springs quickly to mind, instead choose a pet, or even a place. Once you’ve selected your love, pause for a few seconds and conjure up the feeling it elicits.
Now take a deep breath, smile, and bring that joy and love together. Let yourself sink into the experience this creates. Plain and simple, it’s bliss.
Joy + Love = Bliss.
That’s the formula, only we need to add a refinement. As long as this bliss is centered on an action, or a thing, it’s bound to come and go. This type of bliss is therefore temporary, and that’s not what we’re after. A more accurate formula would be:
Joy + Love - Cause = Permanent Bliss.
If you feel like it, give yourself a taste of this right now. Call up your previous two "causes," let the bliss flow, and then consciously allow the causes to fall away. If you stay with the feeling, the experience of bliss, it won’t fall away as well. Not for awhile, at least, until your mind jumps on board a new tangent.
In my own life, I’ve come to see that bliss is present all the time. It’s truly permanent. And this is a great relief, because it means that I don’t have to create it. But while bliss is always there, I’m not always there with it. Sometimes I choose to go elsewhere, and other times I’m swept away by one of a million habits and patterns.
Of course I’m not alone in this. Essentially, it’s the human condition. The problem we all face in our lives is not how to create more bliss, or even how to find it, but simply how to guarantee access.