The term bliss in our characterization of P-A is a synonym for the term “feeling” or for living in the present moment. One of the best descriptions of this experience is found in the book entitled Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. People throughout human history have had this experience but find it difficult to incorporate it into P-B. For example, Plato as quoted by Albert Elsen: “In his Laws of the 4th century BC, Plato wrote, ‘Life must be lived as play, playing certain games, making sacrifices, singing and dancing.’”[i] In other words life becomes like play when we lose awareness of the passage of time and find ourselves existing in the timeless NOW.
The psychologist Abraham Maslow speaks of “peak experiences” which was his label for the joy-filled “feeling” of being a perfect being in a perfect universe. His studies revealed that the vast majority of Americans had had these peak experiences but did not speak of them to anyone else. Many of us keep the experience to ourselves, we think others will doubt our sanity. And so it is, we hide in the darkest corners of P-B denying the best within us because the dominant storyline will not accommodate it.
People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning of life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive so that we actually feel the rapture [bliss] of being alive.
— Joseph Campbell
Perhaps what Joseph Campbell is referring to is that life can only be truly experienced or “felt” in the present moment. Feeling as opposed to emotions is attained only by shifting from P-B to P-A and then we can bring bliss into the everyday experience of our life. If we can do this, we won’t have to hide or be embarrassed about our true nature as human beings because then we can affirm that bliss is our natural state.
[i] Elsen, Albert E. Purposes of Art. New York: Holt, 1981, p. 61.
