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Dipped in Bliss
No drives, no compulsions
No needs, no attractions
Then your affairs
Are under control
You are a free person.
Chuang Tzu wrote those thoughts in Chinese over 2300 years ago. The concept that less is more is now age thought at its finest. Just the idea that I could live without feeling the pressure of modern life is a goal worth achieving, for no other reason than to just be. I know I live in a free world or at least that’s what I have been educated to think; the definition of free contains different aspects of human experiences and beliefs. Certainly I do have freedom as long as I conform to the rules that society has enacted and set in motion. Society is me and a group of me’s who live to pursue happiness and abundance, and society’s definition of freedom is necessary in order to accomplish those desires.
The belief system that has been established as free, in terms of political unity and social righteousness, is nothing like the freedom that Chuang Tzu thought about. It is like daylight and dark. His words are so foreign to my thinking that they are hard to understand. How can I not be driven or compelled to push and fight in order to get what I want? If I left my affairs take care of themselves, I would have nothing but broken dreams and loneliness. I would watch the world pass me by, as I sink in the quicksand of doing nothing. Life would be unbearable and my misery would overshadow any thoughts of changing my situation. No action is what I call death in this modern society and that is the end of everything. Some say it’s another life, but that doesn’t count because this is reality; the reality of power, of righteousness, of control and conformity. My freedom depends on my ability to believe in that social structure. Without it I am nothing but an outcast; a misfit that is off balance, confused and distorted.
Chuang Tzu didn’t buy into any of that. He believed that I innately create my own freedom. It is not something to be earned by external acts of compliance; it is within me and always will be. By believing that I must think and act a certain way to achieve freedom is an illusion created by me. I consider my self a human and only believe what is humanly real. I forget there is more to me than my physical system and I live strapped to chair of a three dimensional world.
I begin to incorporate Chuang Tzu’s approach to physical freedom by becoming aware of my beliefs.
Joseph Campbell the 20th century mythologist said it best:
Follow your bliss.
Bliss is awareness. My inner consciousness is the doer and the driving force on the road to bliss. The external world is nothing more than a picture of my own thoughts and beliefs. I create it in order to expand in awareness. Bliss is a taste of another consciousness, which is the true nature of my being. It’s understanding there is an aspect of pleasure in all the things I create. This is what’s known as effortless effort; the spontaneous activities of inner consciousness manifested physically. My body consciousness dissolves into this aspect of self which is free; all striving and doing drops away in this stream of awareness.
Lao-Tzu, who lived before Chuang Tzu, explains this inner doing without doing this way:
Less and less do you need to force things,
Until finally you arrive at no-action
Where nothing is done, nothing is left undone…
The Master does nothing
Yet… leaves nothing undone.
Bliss leaves nothing undone, but does everything freely. When I dip my self freely in bliss I find freedom.
www.shortsleeves.net
http://halmanogue.blogspot.com/
No needs, no attractions
Then your affairs
Are under control
You are a free person.
Chuang Tzu wrote those thoughts in Chinese over 2300 years ago. The concept that less is more is now age thought at its finest. Just the idea that I could live without feeling the pressure of modern life is a goal worth achieving, for no other reason than to just be. I know I live in a free world or at least that’s what I have been educated to think; the definition of free contains different aspects of human experiences and beliefs. Certainly I do have freedom as long as I conform to the rules that society has enacted and set in motion. Society is me and a group of me’s who live to pursue happiness and abundance, and society’s definition of freedom is necessary in order to accomplish those desires.
The belief system that has been established as free, in terms of political unity and social righteousness, is nothing like the freedom that Chuang Tzu thought about. It is like daylight and dark. His words are so foreign to my thinking that they are hard to understand. How can I not be driven or compelled to push and fight in order to get what I want? If I left my affairs take care of themselves, I would have nothing but broken dreams and loneliness. I would watch the world pass me by, as I sink in the quicksand of doing nothing. Life would be unbearable and my misery would overshadow any thoughts of changing my situation. No action is what I call death in this modern society and that is the end of everything. Some say it’s another life, but that doesn’t count because this is reality; the reality of power, of righteousness, of control and conformity. My freedom depends on my ability to believe in that social structure. Without it I am nothing but an outcast; a misfit that is off balance, confused and distorted.
Chuang Tzu didn’t buy into any of that. He believed that I innately create my own freedom. It is not something to be earned by external acts of compliance; it is within me and always will be. By believing that I must think and act a certain way to achieve freedom is an illusion created by me. I consider my self a human and only believe what is humanly real. I forget there is more to me than my physical system and I live strapped to chair of a three dimensional world.
I begin to incorporate Chuang Tzu’s approach to physical freedom by becoming aware of my beliefs.
Joseph Campbell the 20th century mythologist said it best:
Follow your bliss.
Bliss is awareness. My inner consciousness is the doer and the driving force on the road to bliss. The external world is nothing more than a picture of my own thoughts and beliefs. I create it in order to expand in awareness. Bliss is a taste of another consciousness, which is the true nature of my being. It’s understanding there is an aspect of pleasure in all the things I create. This is what’s known as effortless effort; the spontaneous activities of inner consciousness manifested physically. My body consciousness dissolves into this aspect of self which is free; all striving and doing drops away in this stream of awareness.
Lao-Tzu, who lived before Chuang Tzu, explains this inner doing without doing this way:
Less and less do you need to force things,
Until finally you arrive at no-action
Where nothing is done, nothing is left undone…
The Master does nothing
Yet… leaves nothing undone.
Bliss leaves nothing undone, but does everything freely. When I dip my self freely in bliss I find freedom.
www.shortsleeves.net
http://halmanogue.blogspot.com/
Tags: Awareness, Bliss, Campbell, Chuang-Tzu, Freedom, Insights, Joseph, Lao-Tzu, Short, Sleeves
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