follow your bliss.....

Having any sort of hate in my heart or ill-feelings towards another makes me feel self-conscious. And I can tell when I am self-conscious because it becomes hard for me to move/speak/act and dance fluidly. And when I am not fluid then I am participating in the achievement of life rather than achieving life. I know this because if there is hate in my heart then it is because I am measuring another person up against some standard as if I, myself am somehow justified in making and passing such a negative judgement, as if I myself have been measured against the standard and have proven to be so much more. Being preoccupied with negativity/jealousy/bitterness/loneliness… any such emotion or negative state forces me out of my authentic, transcendental self and into an ego-driven flytrap that needs feeding. It means that I am focused on achieving things, which means I can’t relax and be affected by the ebb and flow of life’s many forms and affect them authentically as well. And then I won’t be able to follow my bliss because I’ll be unable to open up my mind enough to figure out what it is.

Anyway, I am slowly learning why nurturing a spirit of love/empathy/compassion is important. Before it was because someone/thing/doctrine told me so and then it was because putting something loving out into the world was usually reciprocated with something loving in return (made me feel good - and if I'm only acting a certain way because I know i'll affect someone else in a way that will turn around and positively affect me...... ). Both of these things are predicated on recognition, on achievement. The first involves achieving acceptance and appraisal by whomever/whatever it was that was telling me that I should act a certain way. The second involves achieving a desired emotional state. This latest reason feels like the most selfish reason of all, but really it is the least because it does not require anything of anyone/thing; it requires no recognition or achievement, no celebration, or faux reciprocation. It's simply what makes me feel the least self-conscious and therefor the most deeply happy- feeling like myself. 

What is the secret of the timeless vision? From what profundity of the mind does it derive? Why is mythology everywhere the same, beneath its varieties of costume? And what does it teach?