Rejoice (be joy[ful], bliss (v.), be bliss[ful]) always.
-I Thessalonians 5.16, Christian Scriptures
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A student went to his meditation teacher and said, "My meditation is terrible! I'm so distracted, or my legs ache, or I'm falling asleep. It's just awful!" The teacher replied, "It will pass."
The student returned to his teacher a week later, saying, "My meditation is wonderful! I feel so aware, so peaceful, so alive! It's incredible!" The teacher replied, "It will pass."
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The spiritual life is not about attaining an enduring emotional state of happiness and pleasure. Instead, one cultivates the seed of bliss within.
Bliss is already present, waiting to be invited to manifest. Bliss is a quality of presence - or soul, spirit; Spirit, God; bliss is not an emotional state. So, spiritually speaking, bliss is not what is meant when we hear of blissing out. That talk is of an exaggerated emotion, not a quiet quality of being.
Another word for bliss is joy. Joy is not happiness. Happiness depends on happenings. With the right conditions, you are happy. Good. In all conditions, you can know joy. Joy is conditionless. Very good.
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You can witness emotions come and go when not identifying with them. You can see how temporary they are. One moment, you can be angry, the next not. One moment, you can be impatient, the next not. One moment, you feel gratitude; the next complaint. One day, you like someone. The next day, you dislike them.
One could ask, "Since you write about peace, bliss, and love, do you ever feel the opposite?" Yes. But I know emotion is not my true self, nor yours. I know feelings are insubstantial. I know I am human, like you, and I aspire to grow where I am freer of unhealthy emotions. To me, the arising of such emotion is a sign that inspires me to continue the spiritual path I am blessed to live. Growth comes through acknowledging the suffering still in us, not denying it in some attempt to live in the illusion of being draped in a holy glow. The trash is compost for the garden, so with our emotional suffering.
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I find it impossible to clarify what bliss is. One knows it, but one cannot describe it. Bliss appears very near to contentment. Maybe "quiet, contented satisfaction" is one way of indicating the quality of bliss. With bliss, there is a sense of okayness. These ideas about bliss work for us only in remembering bliss is within, not in outer circumstances or persons. Nothing outside is the locale of bliss.
Bliss is intimate and unselfconscious, for it is a quality of presence - your, our presence; the God-presence. Bliss is conditionless, for you are conditionless. Joy is a radiance of our true being.
Bliss arises with other qualities. These qualities are who we are but can be repressed in delusion. So, joy, or bliss, is listed among the Fruit of Spirit in the Christian Bible (Galatians 5.22-23). The Fruit includes love, joy (bliss), peace, patience (perseverance), kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and temperance (self-control). So, all these qualities are expressions of that of God in you... the radiance of you and me as lights of the Light.
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We can cultivate the seed of bliss within this body-and-mind; it becomes an aspect of our natural, unhindered, and unaltered radiance. Cultivating entails the conversion of negative mental-emotional states. Cultivating includes, also, non-attachment to even positive states of body-and-mind.
"Rejoice always" is possible for you are the rejoicing. You can bliss. Otherwise, it would be impossible to fulfill that scripture and, hence, futile to have written it. We can only be always what we are always.
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse.
