Bliss Is Not Perfection
“Birth and death are opposites, not life and death. Life is infinite Being.”
Many of us in the West are living our lives with an underlying desire for perfection—the perfect body, perfect job, perfect look, perfect spouse, perfect kids, perfect house, and so on. Even when we outwardly protest this idea, it is often just below the surface and feeds the insecurity that what we are and what we have is “less than” whatever our idea of perfection is.
Intellectually we grasp that no one is perfect, yet everything in our consumer driven world and its daily advertising bombards us with the idea that perfection is attainable if we’d only do more, buy more. We live life as consumers where we accumulate things to feel better about our lives because we haven’t realized that what we really need to consume is our divinity within. Psychology supports the idea that no one is perfect and seeks to assist us in building a sense of self that is able to hold its own in the face of this ever-present bombardment of perfection. This can be a helpful step, but we may still be left struggling – spirit held at bay in a world of duality – since spirituality and leading a symbolic life can go unaddressed in many therapies.
And so, when we read about states of Bliss in spiritual literature, the idea of perfection may come to mind. The word may even be used by the author, as in “reaching a perfected state,” liking it to an ending. This is because Bliss sounds like what we associate with perfection. We may think perfection comes from chasing after good and running away from bad. That’s because perfection is part of the dualism we assume is Life: perfect/imperfect; good/bad; male/female; right/wrong; heaven/earth, and so on. It is also subjective. Just as with good and bad, what you describe as perfect may be different from what I describe, and certainly different cultures would describe it differently. The truth is, there is no such thing as perfect; it is just a subjective judgement. Duality, and the limitations of vocabulary, force us into subjective judgement and a lack of compassion, thereby keeping us separate from the other. It’s not perfection we’re seeking, but wholeness, and it comes only by embracing our imperfections as a part of the whole, not running from, hiding or banishing them. Embracing imperfection leads us to embrace it in all people and things, and to find true compassion. Rather than the dualities of life, which include perfection, Bliss is about coming into harmony with the true fullness of Life (Being)—all that exists.
What do I mean by Life? Life is wholeness, the totality of Being in the moment. The two opposite poles of the psyche transformed by integration and open to an infinite, vibrant, steady stream of learning and growth—not just the growth of our physical body and intellect, but the expanding of our consciousness.* We see bodies and minds grow from childhood to old age and all the stages in between, yet we do not fully realize the degree to which our consciousness can grow, and that this growth needs the same level of care and attention as our physical body. We need to awaken to this awareness. It is this process of awakening to our spiritual connectedness, to Bliss, that does have an end—an end to the process of integration, not to the “steady stream of learning” which is the process of on-going Life.
When you come into harmony with the Universe, you experience a continuous reverence for Life. Through compassionate love, forgiveness, and acceptance of what is, you no longer resist. A tipping point is reached. You live in the moment, flow with Life, and trust its wisdom. This is Bliss. Consciousness continues to expand and learn which brings new information, but there is no struggle: when you no longer experience yourself as separate or identify with duality, there is no resistance, nothing to bump up against—like good struggling as it bumps up against bad.
Doubting yourSelf, the vibrant clarity within, is at the root of all resistance. And there is a significant period of time during this process where much clearing of the psyche and its projections must be done in order for us to know clearly and to trust what we know. For most of us, it is shrouded in debris which hampers discernment, and we become frustrated by pundits saying “the answers are within.” We think, “Then why am I in this predicament?” We are “in this predicament” because our ability to see the answers clearly can be clouded and distorted by our misperceptions. That’s why it’s said, “be careful what you ask for” because we often get what we want, but may find it’s not so great after all – those unconscious distortions effecting our desire. Even so, these misperceptions always place us in situations where we have an opportunity to learn where we are blocked, conflicted and not meeting our needs. We can choose to see this as information to elicit change and move on or pummel ourselves for our mistakes, labeling ourselves victims. Most of us have experienced moments of clarity that we acted on, and they remind us such clarity does indeed exist. When we consciously make an agreement with ourselves to awaken and say “Yes!” to Life, grace comes to meet us. We embark on a process of self-discovery, self-acceptance and loving kindness which culminates in an end to our identity with duality and the struggle between those two poles. We now learn with ease and in peace. The ultimate choice of free will is whether to grow in duality trying to find perfection, or whether to stop resisting and grow into the fullness of Being which is Bliss.
* This is what we call evolution and applies to everything on and in the earth. When bacteria, for instance, become resistant to antibiotics, they have expanded their consciousness and made physical changes to correspond with that expansion.
© 2001 * Barbara Atkinson
