ALL THINGS ARE BORN OUT OF BLISS THEY LIVE IN BLISS AND DISSOLVE INTO BLISS ANOTHER ASPECT OF SELF IS ANANDA OR JOY THE ANANDA ASPECT OF THE SELF ENCOMPASSES MANY DIFFERENT KINDS OF EXPERIENCE INCLUDING LOVE,
BLISS AND ECSTASY ANANDA IS ALSO THE SOURCE OF ALL TRUE CREATIVITY THE IMPULSE TO MAKE SOMETHING,
TO DO ANYTHING,
ACTUALLY COMES OUT OF OUR INBORN JOY,
EXCITEMENT AND DELIGHT One of the first things that we read or hear when we start becoming aware of this view of life is that our experiences of happiness are possible only because happiness is already inside us.
In short,
It is not the other person,
The blissful scene,
The film or the tiramisu that creates joy.
These things may trigger it,
But the joy is intrinsic to us.
In fact,
The pleasure we experience through the senses is literally a shadow of the joy we have inside.
Instead of exciting the mind and creating a craving for more,
The experience of Ananda feels complete.
That's because the Ananda of the Self is self-sustaining.
It doesn't come and go according to conditions of our lives.
Once we learn how to call forth the pure bliss within us,
It often rushes up from inside all by itself,
With no sensory trigger at all.
Ananda is there when things are going well for us.
Ananda is also there when things are falling apart.
The experience of deep joy which deepens through our meditation practice is one of the ultimate gifts of the spiritual journey.
Love is itself the highest goal of meditation,
Because the very fabric of the absolute is love.
The love you feel,
Any love,
Is,
At its core,
Divine love.
Love is what God feels.
It is also the substance of everything,
The inner ground of experience.
Everyone who pursues the path to the ultimate reality discovers this eventually.
Though different traditions give it different names and attributes,
Most agree that the nature of the ultimate reality is love or bliss.
Because joy and love are intrinsic to the Self,
We can enter the experience of the Self's expansive happiness through the doorway of our ordinary feelings of happiness or affection.
All of us have moments of spontaneous joy in our lives,
And whether we are aware of it or not,
Those moments give us profound and significant glimpses of our deeper truth.
The key is to separate the experience of happiness from its internal trigger.
If you think that being with Susan is what makes you happy,
Then you will seek out Susan and the expectation of feeling good,
Even though you may be aware that being with Susan doesn't always do that.
However,
You can enter the moment of immediate enjoyment or happiness,
The moment when you feel love and hold onto that feeling without attaching it to the person or sensation that might have triggered it.
The feeling itself can expand and allow you to enter the Self.
In our final lesson in this course,
We'll be focusing on the experience of love and how we can use that experience to contact the Self.
As before,
Sit in your usual meditating pose,
Make yourself comfortable,
Close your eyes gently and focus on your breathing,
Following the breath for a few moments to let your mind calm down.
Now think of someone for whom you feel love or whom you have loved in the past.
Imagine that you are with this person.
Visualize them before you or beside you.
To anchor yourself in the memory,
You might become aware of the setting or notice what this person is wearing.
Let yourself feel love for this person.
Open yourself to that feeling of love.
Once you are fully present with that feeling of love,
Let go of the thought of the person.
Focus entirely on the feeling of love.
Allow yourself to rest in it.
Feel the energy of love within your body and within your heart.
Once you have experienced how the felt sensation of love and happiness remains,
Even after you let go of the idea of the person inspiring it,
You'll begin to realize that your love is actually independent of anything outside yourself.
This is one of those insights that can change your relationship to other people and certainly to yourself.
