I’ve experienced intermittent periods of bliss and tranquility, perceptions that everything is perfect and whole just as it is, and a visceral feeling of expansion beyond my small self, but as groundbreaking and wonderful as these experiences are, they inevitably descend back into the realm of suffering and confusion. These episodes of bliss become stronger and more frequent, and the suffering and confusion seem to be slowly dissipating, ever so slowly. Nevertheless, I haven’t yet achieved a sustained blissfulness.
What I do discover during such periods is that I cannot pin down who I am as an individual. Nothing about me as an individual is solid enough to grab on to. I feel almost dizzy, because there is nothing about me to hold onto, nothing to hold onto, nothing to hold onto. There is no individual me! I am not a separate entity but a facet of the whole. I am only a facet. When the whole shifts, the facet shifts, and I am different. I cannot avoid it. Changes in the whole generate fundamental changes in “me.” And anything I do, say, think, or feel as an individual is inextricably woven into the whole.
Because we are facets of the whole, the pursuit of individual bliss is akin to getting one side of a rubix cube to be all one color. I am just one side of a rubix cube. If the whole wants to be complete and blissful, in other words, if everyone in the world, every consciousness, or the collective consciousness or universal mind is striving towards a state of bliss and harmony, the experiences of any particular individual or facet may undulate as the system rearranges itself. My state of bliss gets messed up, problems arise, confusion takes over, and I make mistakes. My side of the rubix cube gets disturbed. The colors are all mismatched again. I lament it thinking it means that all has gone bad again.
If you grew up when rubix cubes were popular, you might remember that you can’t get all of the sides of the rubix cube by focusing on one side at a time. The sides are too interdependent. Instead, you have to focus on the whole. When you focus on the whole, it’s easier to see why one side needs to be messed up long enough to get other elements in the right place.
Perhaps my problems and mistakes are elements of the whole slowly rearranging itself. When I focus on my awareness of the whole and feel the ephemeral quality of my small self, I begin to experience a very deep okayness in my problems and mistakes. Sometimes I can even see the logic. I can imagine from a hypothetical standpoint how my problems might assist in the development of other “facets.” I can’t abandon responsibility for the wholeness of my particular facet, but I can let go when, despite all efforts, the peace I attain is interrupted by life. Everything is always okay. Things are always getting better, even when they seem to be getting worse.
