Do you find bliss distracting? If so, read on.
I've had issues with bliss from the beginning. I find it distracting; it's hard to let go into silence when the greatest ecstacy the human body is capable of keeps showering you (many years ago, I
asked Yogani about it).
I find that silence is easily available even with dogs barking or sirens wailing - even when I'm hungry or when life's got me down - the only thing capable of distracting me is bliss. And the big problem is that increasing silence increases bliss. It's like a Chinese finger trap; the further you go, the more stuck you get.
It's standard in yoga (and I believe Yogani himself suggests it in one of his lessons) that if automatic yoga movements get out of hand, you can simply release an intent for it to stop, and it usually does. Similarly, I discovered fairly early on that you can also release an intent for bliss to disperse....and it usually does (it's funny how ardent prayer for, say, a new camera or a job promotion is an iffy proposition, yet
these sorts of requests are so diligently accommodated!).
But you need to keep repeating that intention, or the bliss rebuilds. And it was disruptive to my practices to constantly attend to this. So for years, I've simply plunged in, trying not to get distracted - sometimes with more success than others.I considered the bliss to be the ultimate "test" of the sincerity and depth of my desire to let go (which matches up well with the concept of "koshas", if that's something you're into).
Today I figured out the trick. It came out of my musing about how bliss is wasted on yogis. We develop equanimity, so we really don't need the opiates! The world, by contrast, is full of grim, pained, grasping people who could use some relief! So this morning, before practices, I released an intention not only to disperse my bliss, but to let it go - however thinly spread! - to anyone/anything in the world that might possibly make use of it (including people I don't know or even like!). I didn't think about it much; I just let the four winds handle it. Not my job!
Understand this: I don't imagine myself to be a vast spiritual furnace capable of "saving" the world or anything like that. I don't have such newbie delusions at this point. I accept that whatever I'm donating is ridiculously inadequate for changing, really, anything. But merely that
spirit of "donation", attached to my intention to disperse, seems to be the magical combo. The smoke disappeared, just like that. No more of the moaning and writhing and drama.
And I don't seem to have to keep reminding myself, either (it may help that I always do my practices in a general spirit of "donation", anyway...without any conscious recipient, or, again, delusions that what I have to donate is anything special. I imagine this might be what Christian "faith" is about).
Perhaps this will help someone out there someday.
