In the 970’s Joseph Campbell would tell his students at Sarah Lawrence College to “follow their bliss”. This statement resonated so deeply with the general masses that to this day, it has become a mantra for many.
Campbell taught at Sarah Lawrence for 39 years, and in the latter years of his teaching there, students misunderstood Campbell’s bliss statement to mean an invitation to a life of hedonism, to which he reportedly responded snidely: “ I should have said follow your blisters”!
In fact Campbell derived his most popular and probably most misunderstood admonition to “follow your bliss” from the Upanishads:
He said:
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 to the ocean 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
And he added:
If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are—if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time
Clearly to Campbell the ‘hero’ is the one who possesses the courage to follow her (or his) calling. This involves obtaining the knowledge and skills required to follow the bliss and to use that wisdom and experience for the benefit of others, a sacred and heroic journey.
So I was thinking of Campbell when I visited a Monastery in Myanmar, especially since tourists were allowed to ogle and watch the young monks during their meal time. I found this quite extraordinary and contrary to the monastic lifestyle I thought would be the hallmark of their life.
But the young monks went on with their rituals in spite of the small band of tourists and never spoke a word to us. It was a fascinating event.
Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble. Joseph Campbell
The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature. Joseph Campbell
The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are. Joseph Campbell
Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths. Joseph Campbell
I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive. Joseph Campbell
Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy. Joseph Campbell
Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls. Joseph Campbell
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