interpaul
USA
28 Posts
Posted - Sep 24 2019 : 11:41:55 AM Show Profile Email Poster Edit Topic Reply with Quote View user's IP address Get a Link to this Message Delete Topic
I was listening to a podcast and they were discussing happiness. Daniel Gilbert, an expert in happiness, spoke about how we are wired to return to a baseline. He pointed out our nervous systems are not designed to sustain happiness but rather return to homeostasis after reaching peaks.
Prior to AYP I found two messages in the spiritual community. One is summed up by the title "after the ecstasy, the laundry". Jack Kornfield points towards spiritual life as a series of peaks and then we return to a stable middle ground. The other message is one delivered by Eckart Tolle who, after his awakening, claimed he remained in a state of inner bliss.
I've been wondering since I started AYP if Yogani's claim of 24/7 ecstatic bliss is a fantasy or if the scientists who study this just haven't looked at people who do these types of spiritual practices. Curious if anyone has been in a prolonged state of ecstatic bliss.
yogani
USA
5156 Posts
Posted - Sep 24 2019 : 2:04:30 PM Show Profile Email Poster Visit yogani's Homepage Edit Reply Reply with Quote View user's IP address Get a Link to this Reply Delete Reply
Hi interpaul:
We can get used to anything. In the case of ongoing ecstatic bliss, the getting used to it is the homeostasis. It becomes normal and ordinary, freeing us to do whatever needs to be done in life with greater joy and creativity, including the laundry.
Yes, science should be studying this much more than they have been. It is, after all, the key to finding permanent human happiness and an end to suffering, regardless of our circumstances in life.
The guru is in you.
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interpaul
USA
28 Posts
Posted - Sep 24 2019 : 2:37:20 PM Show Profile Email Poster Edit Reply Reply with Quote View user's IP address Get a Link to this Reply Delete Reply
Yogani, I feel honored to have received a response directly from you. I wasn't sure if you were still active on this forum. I want to personally thank you for AYP, it has truly changed my life. You have offered a tremendous gift to the world with these lessons. The medical profession doesn't handle studying this stuff well as it focuses on objective facts. The subjective experience is much more meaningful for me as I get older. As a medical professional I am hoping to find some way to study some of this when I retire.
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kumar ul islam
United Kingdom
684 Posts
Posted - Sep 24 2019 : 5:25:51 PM Show Profile Email Poster Edit Reply Reply with Quote View user's IP address Get a Link to this Reply Delete Reply
in answer to your question about prolonged ecstatic bliss, for me there have been peak moments but in general a flowering an opening of the spirit a more accepting more equal look at life in general no silver bullet no one way but all ways ,scripture of all faiths any look inside at our behaviour motives ect an accepting of ones self and other selves ,a movement towards higher needs creative ect ,in the gita a person of yogic presence or attaiment is described this outlines what you may want to see in somebody who practices ,in total the new normal is the new baseline the new baseline being whatever has been exsperienced or seen felt leading to new plateaus and further climbs, practice makes perfect whatever your level of perfect may be .
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interpaul
USA
28 Posts
Posted - Sep 24 2019 : 5:57:48 PM Show Profile Email Poster Edit Reply Reply with Quote View user's IP address Get a Link to this Reply Delete Reply
Thanks Kumar ul islam. I like the idea that one achieves a new baseline from which the world is experienced differently.
