Bliss: Knowing Everything is Okay

Written by Karen BrodyThursday, 01 March 2018 00:00 - Last Updated Tuesday, 19 June 2018 08:53

The moment I love the most during yoga nidra meditation is toward the end, when you’re barelysensing your body. All thoughts fade, your heart opens, and this sense of being connected to auniversal fire emerges. Whether there’s something going on in your personal life or at work or inthe world, you feel all boundaries dissolve, and an unshakeable sense that all is right with theworld infuses every cell and atom, like an intravenous drip of love and compassion. You feel apowerful connection with humanity, a peaceful knowing of your infinite depth. You’re deeplyasleep, often with zero thoughts in your unconscious mind, in some sense virtually dead—andat the same time wildly alive, as if you’re in the transition stage of giving birth. There is a totalabsence of pleasure and pain in your mind. This is the fifth and final body of awareness: thebliss body.

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Following Your Bliss Body

One of my favorite thinkers is mythologist and writer Joseph Campbell, whose work is oftensummarized by his phrase, “Follow your bliss.” Great quote, but when most people think of themeaning of bliss, they think it means they should book that trip to Bali. Nope. Bliss is aboutmore than just pleasure. In the bliss body, you notice that your awareness can expand waybeyond you, to infinity, and it’s this awareness that tears your heart wide open. This is a hugemoment for many people during the practice of yoga nidra, because it’s when the small self inyou steps aside and the big self shows up. You feel a sense of freedom and expansiveness.You start showing up with love and compassion more easily in all situations in your life. In thebliss body, you can access all of the qualities of the heart—bliss, peace, harmony, love,understanding, empathy, clarity, unity, compassion, kindness, and forgiveness.

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Bliss: Knowing Everything is Okay

Written by Karen BrodyThursday, 01 March 2018 00:00 - Last Updated Tuesday, 19 June 2018 08:53

It is rumored that later in his career, as a lecturer at Sarah Lawrence College, Campbell was sodismayed by the misinterpretation of the word bliss that he said he should have told people to“follow their blisters.” The good news is that’s exactly what we do in yoga nidra meditation—meeting and greeting emotional “blisters”—which is why we’re well primed to balance the blissbody.

I nearly did a yoga nidra backflip when I read that Campbell’s concept of bliss came from thesame spiritual teachings as yoga nidra meditation. Campbell noticed that in Sanskrit there is awell-known term, satchitananda, which means “the essence of the divine self that lives withinyou.” This word breaks down to three words: sat, chit, and ananda. Sat means “truth,” chitmeans “consciousness,” and ananda means “bliss.” Campbell believed the easiest concept forpeople to understand was ananda, and he told people to “follow your bliss” because if we did,truth and consciousness would follow. Unfortunately, many people didn’t get it; they didn’t seethat bliss is an inside job.

To access bliss, instead of flying to Bali, the journey you must make is to your inner world. If youdon’t, then bliss is seen through the eyes of ego, and you begin grabbing at materialthings—like a hammock with the perfect ocean view in Bali—and expect they will bringlong-term pleasure. In yoga nidra, every time you practice, you travel to your inner world, andit’s here that truth and consciousness are activated via the wisdom body. You start to see thetruth of who you are and what the world around you is—no more illusions— and this then givesrise to bliss.

The bliss body feeds your big self, not your small self. Women tell me that during the bliss bodypart of a yoga nidra meditation, they feel this floating-on-air feeling or that their heart opensbeyond the boundaries of their body. One woman told me that she felt it “allowed me to see whoI am no matter where I am in work or where I live.” One woman told me that she felt“reconnected to my essence,” and another said she felt “the deepest peace in my body andoutside my body.” Such feelings and sensations are your bliss body being scrubbed clean, thefinal layer of emotional exhaustion letting go. In this moment, you turn on your internal powerswitch, making yourself fully available for health and wholeness.

A balanced bliss body allows you to recognize that the source of love is within you. Thisunderstanding comes because you are in the deepest state of sleep, below the ego and mind,in the unconscious. This place is like a paradise, where unity and oneness flourish. Your body isrelaxed and at total peace. And it’s here you viscerally learn the secrets of achieving deeppeace in your everyday life. Sleep problems, as well as health issues, are resolved herebecause you’re connected to the source within you. You’re an ocean, not a wave anymore, and

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Bliss: Knowing Everything is Okay

Written by Karen BrodyThursday, 01 March 2018 00:00 - Last Updated Tuesday, 19 June 2018 08:53

this understanding connects you to a higher power, turning darkness into light. You’re no longerafraid of your light. Now you are who you are, which is when the final veil of exhaustion lifts.You realize how tired you were from looking for yourself everywhere, and finally you are free.You have calmed your outer senses, and now the inner flame is lit—a deep love within—andyou’re connected to a universal fire, to all humans and nonhumans. As you cleanse the blissbody, all of this is downloaded into your being.

The bliss body is your deepest, most subtle layer of being—your core existence, aconsciousness that’s beyond the limits of the body. It’s here you begin to feel into a state ofbeing that has always existed but was buried by the other four bodies. Accessing the bliss bodyremoves the final thin layer of illusion, and once it is lifted, you are able to see the pureness ofyour soul.

This timeless state of being does occasionally appear to us in our outer world, such as whenwe’re holding a newborn baby, watching a birth, painting, or writing a poem. All of these thingstouch the bliss body. These experiences make us feel alive, full of possibility, open, spacious,and feathery light. Who can look at a healthy newborn baby and not feel their heart open and ahope for the future? Everything feels like it’s OK. Most likely, you’ve had at least a few of theseexperiences during your life.

I tell women who have a hard time with the concepts of bliss and joy to start with noticing in theirbodies and minds this sense that “it’s going to be OK.” What if you could give yourselfpermission to start here? If you’ve experienced trauma or any form of abuse, or you’ve beenworn out for a long time, it may feel like a huge leap to sense that all is OK with the world. Manytimes you can’t go to that kind of bliss right away, but you can slowly feel into this sense thateverything is OK. While not everyone with trauma will have a hard time sensing bliss, somepeople have a freeze response that helps them deal with the moment of trauma, and after thetrauma they stay in a disassociated-reaction mode as a means of coping. Remember to lovinglymeet yourself wherever you are. Once the sense that everything is going to be OK feels normal,you’ll often be able to go a little deeper to gratitude for everything, and then you’ll slowly beginto feel bliss.

Excerpted from Daring to Rest, by Karen Brody. Sounds True, November 2017. Reprinted withpermission.

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Bliss: Knowing Everything is Okay

Written by Karen BrodyThursday, 01 March 2018 00:00 - Last Updated Tuesday, 19 June 2018 08:53

This article appeared in Pathways to Family Wellness magazine, Issue #57. View Article Resources. View Author Bio . To purchase this issue, Order Here .

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