Cultural Mythology: American Notions of Self and Country

We find what we search for

2010-03-19T17:52:00-07:00

“Our minds, bodies, feelings, relationships

are all informed by our questions.

What you ask is who you are.

What you find depends on what you search for.

And what shapes our lives are the questions we ask,

refuse to ask, or never think of asking.”

—Sam Keen, philosopher and theologian, from Spirituality & Health, Spring 2000. Artwork by C. Svehla.

Do we want Bliss?

2010-03-19T11:02:43-07:00

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

2010-03-17T19:12:52-07:00

"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?

The Holy Longing

2010-03-14T19:00:33-07:00

Tell a wise person, or else keep silent,
because the mass man will mock it right away.
I praise what is truly alive,
what longs to be burned to death.

In the calm water of the love-nights,
where you were begotten, where you have begotten,
a strange feeling comes over you,
when you see the silent candle burning.

Now you are no longer caught in the obsession with darkness,
and a desire for higher love-making sweeps you upward.

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.
And so long as you haven't experienced this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest on the dark earth.

by Wolfgang von Goethe, Translated from the German by Robert Bly. The artwork is a computer generated fractal derived from fire. If you're interested in fractals, check out this video explanation, "The Colors of Infinity," by Arthur C Clarke, author of the book 2001 Space Odyssey.

What do you desire?

2010-03-12T09:41:07-08:00

"If we go down into ourselves, we find that we possess exactly what we desire." - Simone Weil

Spiral Heart