posted on Sep, 22 2012 @ 03:10 PM
Great idea for a thread OP! Great examples as well!
Anyway, I wanted to share some wisdom from one of my favorite authors/scholars, Joseph Campbell, whose philosophy is summed up as "follow your
bliss."
This is an excerpt from the book, "The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers," which is a collection of interviews between journalist Bill Moyers and
Joseph Campbell.
"Campbell: Now, I came to this idea of bliss because in Sanskrit, which is the great spiritual language of the
world, there are three terms that represent the brink, the jumping-off place of transcendence: Sat, Chit, Ananda.
The word 'Sat' means being. 'Chit' means consciousness. 'Ananda' means bliss or rapture. I thought, 'I don't know
whether my consciousness is proper consciousness or not; I don't know whether what I know of my being is my proper being or not; but I do know where
my rapture is. So let me hang on to rapture, and that will bring me both my consciousness and my being.' I think it worked.
Moyers: Do we ever know the truth? Do we ever find it?
Campbell: Each person can have his own depth, experience, and some conviction of being in touch with his own sat-chit-ananda, his own
being through consciousness and bliss. The religious people tell us we really won't experience bliss until we die and go to heaven. But I believe in
having as much as you can of this experience while you are still alive.
Moyers: Bliss is now.
Campbell: In heaven you will be having such a marvelous time looking at God that you won't get your own experience at all. That is not the
place to have the experience--here is the place to have it.
Moyers: Do you ever have this sense when you are following your bliss, as I have at moments, of being helped by hidden hands?
Campbell: All the time. It is miraculous. I even have a superstition that has grown on me as the result of invisible hands coming all the
time--namely, that if you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life
you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open
the doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.
Moyers: Have you ever had sympathy for the man who has no invisible means of support?
Campbell: Who has no invisible means? Yes, he is the one who evokes compassion, the poor chap. To see him stumbling around when all the
waters of life are right there really evokes one's pity.
Moyers: The waters of eternal life are right there? Where?
Campbell: Wherever you are--if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time."
I suggest watching the interviews on video, whether you rent them from Netflix or find them online; they are quite compelling and Campbell is a joy to
listen to.