Finding Happiness in the Face of Hardship
An Introduction to Living the Questions
by Raphael Cushnir
(copyright 2000)
Chapter 16
Bill of Goods
Most of the literature of bliss is written by mystics. The mystic vision is remarkably similar across religions, cultures and centuries. It asserts that the glory of God is present in every object, every experience, every being and every moment. Our job is to pierce the veil of illusion that keeps us from living this truth. When we do, shattering our egos in the process, a direct perception of divinity suffuses us with radiant bliss. We come to see that all existence has been created by God, out of God, and that nothing is more or less divine than anything else. Joy and sorrow, good and evil—they’re equal expressions of All That Is.
This mystical orientation is not the same as pantheism, which holds that God is present in all things. The latter is a belief, while the former is said to be an experience, something which happens to an individual whether invited or not. It’s as if being shattered brings a mystic closer to the source from which all energy springs, and that from the new vantage point things appear in a state prior to form, prior to the countless particularities that make up the world as we know it.
In a state of mystical rapture there is no self and other, no subject and object. Instead there is only God, or Void, or whatever name we give the nameless. Witnesses to this state, attempting to voice what can’t be spoken, have nevertheless compiled an inspiring record of their attempts. There’s Rumi the Moslem, St. Theresa the Christian, Reb Nachman the Jew, and scores of Buddhist and Hindu sages. In each generation new voices emerge. Our own is full of them, and with like-minded explorers who’ve found similar testimonies in lesser known native traditions.
Returning to the source of creation is tantalizing for many. The suggestion that we might live to tell the tale is almost irresistible. It fuels the use of psychotropic drugs, and is said to be the deepest cause of most addictions. Yet, as we’ve come to know, the signature feature of addictions is that they can never deliver what they promise. Their bill of goods seems too good to be true, and it is.
Sadly, I believe mystical declarations bear a perilous similarity. The problem isn’t that mystics have deliberately mis-reported their experience. If anything, their courageous attempts to share the unshareable are a gift to be treasured. The problem is that mystics often become so overwhelmed by their taste of divinity that it’s all they describe. Meanwhile the other half of the story, about their continuing life as human beings, is either relegated to the background or glorified to the point of irrelevance.
One who is blessed by mystic bliss still has to eat, sleep, go to the bathroom and make a living. There might be a monastery to escape to, which solves some survival issues, but usually such retreats are just as rife with social conflict as most “real world” locales. While ecstatic testaments serve to entice and uplift us, they imply a ceaseless type of rapture that no mortal can ever sustain. It’s impossible to be high all the time, whether on ayahausca or God’s grace.
So what does all this have to do with our own investigation of bliss? The answer lies in how we might actually expect to experience it. I began this book with the claim that bliss is ever-available. I still maintain that to be true. But with each contraction that occurs, we unconsciously turn away from bliss. It’s available, but not chosen. However, once we’ve located our contractions, as well as any resistance layered on top of them, we’re free to accept all that’s been denied and welcome bliss back into the fold.
Once we learn to live the questions, our experience of the present moment is like an alternating current of contraction and expansion, resistance and bliss. With practiced attention, the periods of contraction and resistance grow shorter and shorter, while the periods of expansion and bliss stretch out longer and longer. In addition, the causes of contraction continue to diminish. What once seemed like huge traumas soon come to appear rather trivial. With less to trigger contraction, bliss is much freer to flow.
Living the questions is never about getting “blissed out.” Nor is it about abandoning the material world, or everyday consciousness, or the entire realm of embodied experience. Rather, it’s about total, unconditional presence. It’s about showing up, and opening up, completely. When we’re truly ready to do that, with every cell in our bodies, bliss is part of the natural outcome.
Unlike the promise of eternal mystic rapture, this bill of goods isn’t too good to be true. It is true. Better yet, it costs nothing and demands no sacrifice. Instead of giving up something, the only requirement is to accept everything. Furthermore, all of this can be verified by paying attention to our own lives, just as they are, without subscribing to a belief system or a program or any type of spiritual austerity.
There is no right time to begin asking “What is happening right now?” Every time is the perfect time. In the middle of an argument, daydreaming at the office, beset by a sleepless night—each of these common occurrences offers another opportunity to return to the present, to come home.
But perhaps this process of questioning and accepting serves its greatest function when we’re stuck, or challenged, or facing one of life’s inevitable trials. These are the experiences which cause us to contract the tightest, to resist the hardest.
When we truly hate what’s happening, as previously discussed, our instinct is to flee from it like a house on fire. But if we can learn to turn around and enter that fire, to let it burn all our resistance away, then we find ourselves arising from the ashes with a new sense of power and freedom. If we’re able to accept that, the logic goes, then everything else is a piece of cake.
In Chapter Seven, I touched on the story of my wife’s suicide attempt. I wrote about my trip to the hospital, and all the fear and anxiety which arose inside me. I described the way that acceptance of all that fear allowed bliss to surge back into my being. What I couldn’t communicate then, before laying the foundation in succeeding chapters, was the way that bliss arrived alongside all my fear and anxiety.
Throughout my experience at the hospital, I kept asking “What is happening right now?” The answer kept coming back “I’m nervous, terrified.” Then I’d ask “Can I be with it?” Thankfully, the answer was consistently “Yes.”
Despite this constant awareness of my shaky state, and a full acceptance of it, all the fear didn’t go away. I felt afraid, then blissful, afraid, then blissful. Sometimes, it seemed, I felt them both at the exact same time.
So there I was, showing up for my life when I could barely tolerate it. What made it tolerable, even more than the bliss, was my rock solid commitment to accept everything, even the parts of me that didn’t want to accept anything.
This commitment to life, to whatever it brings in the present moment, is the essence of Basic Bliss. It’s possible for me, for you, for virtually anyone who’s willing.
What is happening right now?
Can I be with it?
Our commitment to vulnerability, in a sublime paradox, is what renders us truly invincible.