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The difference between bliss and lovebliss
Question: I experience bliss when meditating. It's like an explosion and my heart races wildly. Is that lovebliss?
Jan: No, it is ecstatic bliss. Ananda.
Q: What's the difference?
J: You have to make a distinction between joy, basic bliss (called ananda) and supreme bliss (called paramananda), which is lovebliss. Basic bliss comes when you are still identified with the small self. It can be peacefull, which is actually supreme joy rather than bliss, or it can be ecstatic, which is sometimes called a cosmic orgasm and which is ananda. Once you no longer identify with anything and you have become the Self, then lovebliss will begin to manifest in you and you won't get ecstatic anymore. Lovebliss is silence and peace, it way beyond ecstasy.
Q: When I experience bliss, it goes up and down and it changes its flavour from being sweet and gentle to being fierce and deeply transforming.
J: Lovebliss is silence and stillness and it is stable and unchanging. Once you reach it, it just goes on and on in the same peacefull way. What you are experiencing is ananda, or basic bliss, not supreme bliss.
Q: OK, but it feels great! Should I try to avoid it?
J: No, no! By all means, go for it! It is a symptom of good kundaliniarousal.
Q: So is that why you say it is transforming?
J: Yes, kundalini is transforming you and a by product of that process is ananda, or cosmic orgasm. It is very fine and a very good experience to have. Also it is very enjoyable. If you experience it to such a degree, that it's ecstatic, that is all the better, but you should make a practice out of going beyond the ecstatic bliss into stillness without loosing the bliss. The ecstasy of ananda will then go away and there will be paramananda , which is lovebliss.
Q: I wish I could.
J: The more you get used to ecstatic bliss, the sooner you will be able to slip through it to supreme stillness-bliss. So it is fine to make an intermediate practice out of bliss in order later to be able to transcend the ecstasy and reach lovebliss.
Q: My master told me to avoid bliss and go for satori, or pure being. He said bliss was a distraction.
J: It depends on what you want to reach. If your goal is simply to reach pure nothingness-being, or satori, then yes it is a distraction. But if your goal is to go beyond that, then you can enjoy bliss as much as you like.
Q: Should one not take it one step at a time?
J: It's not a matter of one step at a time. It is simply different paths and different goals. If you opt for a path which includes bliss, then you will surely reach nothingness-being (satori) also but in addition you will have opened the door to lovebliss. Those in pure satori have a hard time understanding lovebliss and that there are states above their nothingness-being.
Q: What do you think of the bliss of sexual orgasm?
J: Hehe, in what respect?
Q: With respect to getting enlightened and whether that bliss is usefull in that process. Is it the same as ananda and can one reach ananda via tantric sex?
J: No, sexual orgasm is not the same as ananda. The problem is, that in order to use sex and orgasm-sublimation as a means to ananda, you have to know basic ananda very well beforehand. in fact so much so, that you can slip into it during the orgasm and then go beyond it into lovebliss. Then you automatically will not ejaculate. You have to be spiritually very advanced in order to do those practices and your kundalini has to be awakened and aroused at least to the throat. I have met many who do tantric sex, but none who knew what it was about. They all merely practiced prolonged pleasure, extended sexual orgasm or orgasm sublimation. They misnamed this intense pleasure as ananda and believed they were in samadhi. This makes it all the more difficult for them ever to get enlightened even in the basic degree of nothingness-being.
Q: Why does it make it more difficult?
J: Because when their kundalini gets aroused, they will immediately become extremerly lustfull. So much so in fact, that it may be impossible for them not to give in and attempt some tantric practice, even with them selves if they are alone. This will keep kundalini stuck in the lowest chakras. Or at least it will become harder to get it further up.
Q: So do you believe in celibacy?
J: No. Not particularly. Just don't confuse sex with spirituality. Mixing them is asking for trouble, but the trouble can be overcome with strong willpower, of course. If you don't have that, then be carefull.
Q: I experience bliss when singing bhajans.
J: It can either be supreme joy if you are calm, or it can be ananda if you become ecstatic.
Q: Why not lovebliss?
J: Because the bhajan itself is a distraction. If you want lovebliss, you have to go beyond all distractions just as you have to go beyond ananda. This means that you will have to experience ecstatic bliss, then stop singing the bhajan and go beyond the ecstasy into paramananda. That is surely possible. But since you have to stop singing the bhajan, you can't say the lovebliss came because of the bhajansinging.
Q: Have you done this practice? Or is it merely theoretical?
J: I have done it. Once a week I attended a Mata Amritanandamayi bhajan group and spent most of the time not singing bhajans but being in samadhi. In the end I decided to stop singing bhajans alltogether and just sit at home in samadhi.
Q: In lovebliss, do you see this lovebliss in everything?
J: Yes. No exceptions. But you have to be in it to recognize it in everything around you. If the lovebliss recedes, then you will not see it in anything, but you will still see nothingness-being in everything. That never goes away. However, once lovebliss breaks through for good, then it will never quite disappear, only recede into the background of awareness if some transformation is going on in your mind or heart that grabs your attention.
Q: What's it like? A tingling sensation in the body?
J: No, it is way beyond that. Every cell of the body screams in love of the Self. Every breath is a pulse of lovebliss. It is ecstasy without agitation. The Self experiences itself in itself and by itself. This is felt in every cell of the body as immense bliss, but it is calm and peaceful. And it just goes on and on and on.