19) Sustainable Ecstasy

To me ecstasy is when endorphins flood my brain to an exceptional level.  “Sustainable” ecstasy means that I can repeat the experience.

This is not about the drug ecstasy, but the emotion.  It is disappointing to me that a drug fad has the same name, but oh well.

From what I understand about the 3 higher levels of consciousness, there is a joy involved in those levels just from existence, and the Source Consciousness is emanating the highest ecstasy.  So my thinking is that since I would like to become as close as possible to my own soul, it is important that I match my consciousness to that of my soul, in other words to remain in a state of ecstasy as much as possible.  Of course I have to live on the 3 lower levels, so there is business to attend to and other people to deal with, business and people not in ecstasy, but through practice I allow them to bring me out of my joyous state as little as possible.

I think pain is caused by 3 things:  1) an incorrect decision, 2) paying off bad karma, or 3) getting old.  The Tao Te Ching says that having a body causes pain, the soul doesn’t experience that.

Pleasure is caused by following my own Tao, being at the right place at the right time doing the right thing.  Pain is caused by deviating from my path.  It’s a simple carrot and stick system.

Laughter helps.  You remember those old science fiction stories about the robot which is causing trouble.  The way out was to convince the robot that it was flawed.  It is relatively easy to point out contradictions to existence, and that is what the hero did, convince the robot that it was flawed, which was impossible for a logical being.  It ends with the robot repeating, “Illogical, Illogical…”, and then its brain starts smoking and it falls over.

That is what I think laughter is, the recognition of the illogical and instead of our brains going into a death spiral, we laugh.  Comedians know this; they say it is all about the timing.  Not sure what that means, but I think that it has something to do with the brain and how slowly it can come to the conclusion that the joke is illogical, and then we laugh.

Nature encourages us to do that and releases endorphins when we laugh, a sign that we aren’t supposed to get too carried away with logic, which of course is necessary for our physical existence, but enough is enough.

I get ecstasy from meditation.  When I get in that state, I feel slow waves of endorphins sweeping through my brain.  I am not sure that is the purpose of meditation, but I sure like it.

Eating food gives me ecstasy.  They used to think that there were regions of the tongue that had the 5 (or 6?) tastes, but they now know that every tastebud contains all of them.  Anyway, there are levels for each flavor in a bite, strong to weak, and therefore there are millions of different taste-combinations---we will never experience all of them in a lifetime, but it is fun to try.

Sex is very very good for me, a quite natural ecstasy experience.  I always say “yes” to sex, but there is a refractory period afterwards that gets longer as I get older.

There are many paths to ecstasy.  I was driving down a busy highway decades ago when all of a sudden I had an epiphany, the overwhelming feeling of joy at just being alive---it was quite memorable.  Fantasies are an excellent source of ecstasy, not all of which should be actually accomplished in real life.  Usually the fantasy is better than can be actually performed anyway.

Getting high on drugs is wonderful too:  nicotine, caffeine, alcohol, marijuana, psilocybin.

All of these activities produce endorphins and the brain rearranges itself to get more, to want more.  It seems that we have been designed to get more and more ecstasy.  The trouble is that some people have what is called “an addictive personality”, they can’t say “no” to more and more.  This leads to making wrong decisions and the inevitable pain that follows and the ecstasy is no more. 

That’s why I say, “Sustainable ecstasy”.

How did it come to pass that some high-producing drugs are illegal?  Was it the Christian belief that if we are having fun, we are ignoring our true path to heaven?  Or is it the subjugation of the happy people by the unhappy people?  Maybe.  Don’t unhappy people usually rise up in the power structure of the time in a vain attempt to be happy?  Happy people don’t need to rise up---already there.  Could be.

Some people don’t seem to have the ability to say “no” to more and more.  We say that these people have an addictive personality---not capable of stopping the more and more.  The highest consideration is to follow your own Tao, but then for them being addicted takes precedence.  So an addictive person needs to either learn to control the addiction or to stay away from the activity that causes the addiction, unfortunately sometimes replacing one addiction with another.  It sounds like a brain disease to me, and the cure is probably meditation or medication (another addiction).  Even if the solution is medication, if not too debilitating, it is better than the alternative.

There are some people who get joy from hurting someone else, but that creates karma, not sustainable ecstasy either in the instant-karma short run or in the long run.

Also worth mentioning is the fact that a lot of ecstasy activities are illegal, probably that way because of the devastation it has caused the addictive.  So best to take the laws into account and be careful---not sustainable getting caught.

But for people who are not addictive, as long as they can say “no” when deviating from their Tao, there is no ecstasy-producing activity that they cannot indulge in.  So for them I advise saying “yes” to anything which creates ecstasy.  And repeated ecstasy leads to a life even more full of ecstasy. 

Closer to the soul.