Blissology

This is a small extract about Hammock Enlightenment from the Blissology Project Book. Blissology is about staying in touch with this Mystical Experience of Unity so we can balance actions fueled by Love with those of Selfishness.  The book explains more about this.

I wish I had a dramatic story about how I had a dark night of the soul and then suddenly discovered a path to happiness, but the truth is it didn’t happen that way. I have always known a deep joy and happiness within. There has always been a place inside my body and mind of quiet contentment that is in love with the experience of life. A place that ignites a deep and profound love. When I feel it, the lines between me and the rest of the world blur. I feel a connection to all life and a peaceful elation.

It is this part of my body-mind that has also always been clear to me. When I
attempt to dissect where it came from, my thoughts turn to my childhood when my father decided not to work in a corporate law firm in Toronto, but moved two and a half hours north to a small amidst lakes and trees. I spent hours drifting silently in canoes on lakes, on the edges of docks under the moon listening to the call of the loon. In other words, I experienced a lot of time in nature.

Much of this time was in the pursuit of rambunctious boyhood activities; building forts and playing war games with my friends, but at the same time I was also drawn to sit quietly and look. What a miracle life was. I was filled with awe and wonder and a sense that I was a part of something infinitely larger.

The spirituality of the First Nations People resonated with what I felt when I was absorbed in nature. I love their idea of the Great Spirit that flows in all places and beings. I admire their connection to animals and their ability to make wherever you are in nature a sacred space. I would look at First Nations paintings for hours, captivated by images showing how the bears and the ravens are inside of us, through lines of connection drawn between people and animals in this art.

As life unfolded, the quest to try and understand this universal connection
influenced my schooling. I studied Eastern and Western philosophy in University. With great zeal, I read texts that asked questions I still contemplate today such as, “What is Enlightenment?”

“It is the absence of suffering,” says the Buddha. In this vague description he does not pin himself down to describe what is really an experience beyond words. He described a mind filled with Contentment, Acceptance and Calm free from desires.

Later I read about the way the Hindus and Yogis described being in touch with Brahman the transcendent world soul. It was called Sat Chit Ananda; the Consciousness of Bliss. The idea is that in all of us there is a consciousness of Deep Bliss that is very real, but you have to get quiet to get there.

I call this the Mystical Experience of Unity. Because it is an experience we feel that is beyond words and therefore a mystery, but the profound feeling we get from it is how we are part of a much bigger whole. From this feeling of connection comes a concern for others, a deep Love.

It is this experience we tune into at the end of yoga in savasana or when we stare out into the vastness of an ocean horizon or the eyes of a loved one. It is there when we contemplate the needs of others on the other side of the planet or generations coming seven years from now. Some thread connects us.

Blissology is about keeping this place alive in us. We tend to think this place is so hard to access.  Enlightenment is a lofty complicated goal, but it is amazing when you get quiet, breathe well and sit under a tree what can happen.  You may just get hammockly enlightened and it is exactly what the world and your body needs!