Bliss Station

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Tonight I was showing my new friend Jay Govinda (a Krishna devotee of the Gaudiya Math) around Shenzhen, and we ended up at my pal Murli's 1947 Indian Restaurant. (I wanted Jay Govinda to meet Murli as he thinks about offering some yoga and other lessons in Shenzhen.)

My new pal Jay Govinda

As usually happens, talk came around to spiritual things, and I ended up suggesting to Murli that he reserve a little time each day for meditation or contemplation. In his case, this would be telling beads in his family's tradition, but for others it might be another formal exercise, such as the Christian rosary, Indian japa, or Buddhist chant or meditations. But it doesn't have to be; it could just be (as the cliché has it) stopping to smell the roses.

I remembered as I was speaking that Joseph Campbell refers to this by the wonderful phrase "bliss station":

[Bill] MOYERS: You write in The Mythic Image about the center of transformation, the idea of a sacred place where the temporal walls may dissolve to reveal a wonder. What does it mean to have a sacred place?

CAMPBELL: This is an absolute necessity for anybody today. You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don't know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don't know who your friends are, you don't know what you owe anybody, you don't know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen.

MOYERS: This sacred place does for you what the plains did for the hunter.

CAMPBELL: For them the whole world was a sacred place. But our life has become so economic and practical in its orientation that, as you get older, the claims of the moment upon you are so great, you hardly know where the hell you are, or what it is you intended. You are always doing something that is required of you. Where is your bliss station? You have to try to find it. Get a phonograph and put on the music that you really love, even if it's corny music that nobody else respects. Or get the book you like to read. In your sacred place you get the "thou" feeling of life that these people had for the whole world in which they lived.

[The Power of Myth]

Another teacher, Koyo Kubose, refers to one's home altar as the SPOT: the "Special Place of Tranquility," of which he says:

Your SPOT can be a secular (ordinary) place that is made sacred (spiritual) through your attitude. Conversely, your SPOT can be a sacred or religious place that is intimately related to your secular or everyday life. In other words, your SPOT need not be labeled as a solely sacred or secular place. Our approach is the Way of Oneness. In the present context, this means that such dualistic terminology as sacred versus secular can be transcended.

Although both of these seem to be locations ("station" and "place"), perhaps more essential is time. Note that Campbell says, "You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day..." For many, this is a morning hour, just after rising. (But not for me! I usually do my quiet time at night). Some people even take a part of the lunch hour.

On the SPOT

But whenever it is, the point, as Campbell somewhat slyly suggests, is to go to that place (which is not a place) "where you don't know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don't know who your friends are, you don't know what you owe anybody, you don't know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be."

Exactly. If you don't have such a "place," I encourage you to create one in your life. As I told Murli tonight, don't wait until trouble comes. Develop this discipline now, in the good times, so that you will be strong to face difficulties when they come.

One more note: When Campbell mentions "the 'thou' feeling of life" he is referring to an idea espoused by Martin Buber in his book I and Thou. As described at Wikipedia: 

Buber's main proposition is that we may address existence in two ways: that of the 'I' towards an 'IT', towards an object that is separate in itself and from us, which we either use or experience; and that of the 'I' towards 'THOU', in which we move into existence within relationship, without bounds. One of the major themes of the book is that human life finds its meaningfulness in relationships. All of our relationships, Buber contends, bring us ultimately into relationship with God, who is the Eternal Thou.

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