Follow Your Bliss
Advice to Students in Budapest

by Gregory Allen Butler

The other day I received an e-mail, asking for advice, which forced me to reflect back on an earlier chapter of my life. As a young man graduating from college, could I could have benefited from any words of advice? A simple question that provided me with some invaluable soul searching.

I have reprinted the e-mail which is followed by my response:

Dear Greg,

We don't really know each other, or maybe I can say I know you better than you know me.

I'm an educator in a dormitory (Schonherz Kollegium, it belongs to the Budapest University of Technology and Economics) here in Hungary, Europe.

The situation is that some of my students will finish the university this year and leave the dormitory.

We've spent 5-6 really fine years together and I'd love to give them some tip-off before they enter Life.

I'm a reader of your blog, Holistic-Personal-Development.com, for quite a while, and, because I like the way you think about life, universe and everything, I finally decided to write an e-mail to you.

I would like to ask you to answer one simple question:

What is the thing you wish you'd been told when you've just left school?

All I can offer in exchange is that we, I mean the students and me, will send you a dedicated postcard right after the departure ceremony.

Your help is really truly appreciated.

Hope to hear about you soon,

Andras

Andras, the most important piece of information that I have now but that I didn’t have when graduating college, was the importance of heeding Joseph Campbell‘s dictum: "Follow your bliss."

My experience showed me that by not following my bliss, I lost my bliss. I was a writer who stopped writing, forced by circumstances to earn a paycheck doing work not conducive to my soul’s longing.

So my bliss, and I had a lot of it, disappeared. Once it was lost, life became less inspired. Purpose was lost. Passion was lost. The meaning of my life, not totally, but to a degree, was lost. I forgot what fulfilled me. Worse than that was the fact that I didn‘t even realize it.

To follow your bliss is to whole-heartedly givie yourself to that which you makes you feel most alive, the most purposeful. It’s not doing as you please, it’s doing what you must, as it is commanded to you by your higher self. It is a fulfillment of your soul’s expression, the reason that you were born.

The passion that one can bring to this duty is what makes it possible to live completely in the present moment, full of life, with passion and awareness. And only by living in the present moment are we free from the enslavement of the mind that keeps us tied to the past or to an imaginary future that never comes.

The people who dedicate their life in such a way do not become deadened to life after 30, 40, or 50 years. Quite the contrary. Each day is a deepening of awareness, of consciousness, of joy. Each day deepens the meaning of being alive.

Why is this so important? Because it is what we are born to do. It is our soul’s expression. Ignoring this is to live a life of an empty promise -- a promise to our self.

Bliss is not a self-indulgence. It is a knowledge of the soul’s essence. It is that which makes us feel the most alive, the most purposeful. It is that which inspires us to put more energy into a project than anyone else would ever dream.

I like how Joseph Campbell connects following his bliss to finding consciousness and being. Here is what he said in the Power of Myth:

Now, I came to this idea of bliss because in Sanskrit, which is the great spiritual language of the world, there are three terms that represent the brink, the jumping-off place to the ocean of transcendence: sat-chit-ananda. The word "Sat" means being. "Chit" means consciousness. "Ananda" means bliss or rapture. I thought, "I don't know whether my consciousness is proper consciousness or not; I don't know whether what I know of my being is my proper being or not; but I do know where my rapture is. So let me hang on to rapture, and that will bring me both my consciousness and my being." I think it worked.

So Andras, my advice to your graduating students is for them to follow their bliss. Whatever they do in life, if they give themselves whole-heartedly to it, their consciousness will ripen by virtue of being focused in the present moment. And with consciousness comes the connection to the source of being. With consciousness, being, and bliss, not only will they succeed in their work, but they will brighten the world just by being truly alive. They will avoid being one of the countless sleepwalkers going through the motions of life, but will navigate life with passion and inspiration.

My best wishes for their success.