Bliss.txt

BILL MOYERS: Do you ever have the sense of... being helped by hidden
hands? 

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: All the time. It is miraculous. I even have a
superstition that has grown on me as a result of invisible hands coming
all the time - namely, that if you do 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. When
you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of
bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don't be
afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.

* * * 

My general formula for my students is "Follow your bliss." Find where it
is, and don't be afraid to follow it. --Joseph Campbell, The Power of
Myth, pp. 120, 149 

Joseph Campbell was a life-long student and teacher of the human spirit
and mythology -- not just the mythology of cultures long dead, but of
living myth, as it made itself known in the work of modern artists and
philosophers -- individuals who searched within themselves and their
societies to identify the need about which they were passionate. He
called this burning need that they sought to fulfill their bliss.
When Campbell died, just months after recording the interviews with Bill
Moyers that were to become The Power of Myth, he had no idea how these
interviews, and, in particular, this idea of following one's bliss would
resonate with the public. Within months of airing on PBS in the United
States, the phrase "Follow Your Bliss" had become a catchphrase.
In 1990, the Joseph Campbell Foundation was created by Campbell's
colleagues and his widow, choreographer Jean Erdman. Its mission was
(and is) to keep Campbell's work moving forward, helping people learn
about myth, and its relationship to religion, art and psychology, and
trying to help them follow their bliss.

Yet it is important to note that following one's bliss, as Campbell saw
it, isn't merely a matter of doing whatever you like, and certainly not
doing simply as you are told. It is a matter of identifying that pursuit
which you are truly passionate about and attempting to give yourself
absolutely to it. In so doing, you will find your fullest potential and
serve your community to the greatest possible extent.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 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.

* * * 

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.  --Joseph
Campbell, The Power of Myth, pp. 113, 120

<http://www.jcf.org/bliss.php>

Wed Jan 18 12:16:20 EST 2006

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Learning implies Learning with Certainty or Learning without Certainty.
Learning across a Distance implies Learning by Being an Effect.
Learning by Being an Effect implies Learning without Certainty.
Therefore, Learning with Certainty implies Learning, but 
not by Being an Effect, and not across a Distance.