something is being given freely, with no strings attached

I need this post too as a reminder for my Self.

"A miracle worker is not geared toward fighting the world that is, but toward creating the world that could be." - Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love (thanks Nikki Ann)

"The power of myth can snare us into believing that the journey entails sacrifice and effort. [BTW, The Power of Myth aired originally in 1988. Much has happened collectively since.]

The mind quickly passes "follow your bliss" off as a great philosophy but not the literal truth. The eye will jump straight to the next sentence to find out 'how' in it's inability to comprehend those three little words - that we need only follow what makes us happy in each moment.

Maybe the dark night of the soul is unavoidable... I don't really know... by it is definitely of our own making." - Nick Smith, Life 2.0,  in comments to follow your bliss...happy Independence day

My reply, much elaborated since original comment: Yeah, you're right. The idea of the descent in the Hero's Journey is a pretty well-known narrative, for Story, and for Soul. So too in Kabbala, so too in Tarot: the arduous journey given to us from Fool to Universe is fraught with a few days we might not feel like skipping and rejoicing. At least that's the way myth goes.

Utimately that 3D adventure's about recollecting the hidden parts, the shadowy parts, especially the "golden" shadow. We hop out of the see-saw of dark/light, bad/good and burst onto a field of bliss that only knows raw, direct experience without necessitating an overlay labelling to judge the experience as anything, including "good" or "bad."

I don't know if the Abyss (as Kabbala likes to deem "dark night of the soul") was or wasn't avoidable in past; it was definitely there in vivid technicolor epic movie slow frame by excruciating slow frame for me prior 2006. Until I realized 'I' was watching a projected movie!

And it's darkest before dawn they say ;-)

Things have gotten so much brighter, radiant, let's say since.

There is a planetary world soul, and a cosmic soul, and well, that's enough for now. And they've evolved through their Hero's Journey too. I've this felt sense that the classic descent is no longer necessary. We've all been there, in this lifetime and lifetimes past. The prison door is wide open, it is ours to choose to walk through. Even the gathering of our discarded soul fragments and shadows isn't prerequisite to spiritual awakening any more (it happens of its own, there is nothing that is not embraced).

There is much to be learnt in the acts of intentional play and creation, so the journey is far from over when the peace that surpasseth all understanding prevails. There is more unfurling! Journeys of a differing frequency that are not attuned to suffering and efforting, and they expand into an infinite playground of universes upon universes we can hardly imagine - we need to venture there and experience it ourselves.

Too many (me at times) stuck in old patterns of drudgery and efforting, which is keeping us from the way the movement wants to flow now, today, this era, this year, this month, this day, this minute, into greater and greater magic and miracles. We're entranced by looping back into same old, ancient patterns for story, insteading of evolving and inventing fresh ones.

This is a snippet from one of my teachers:

"Even many spiritual seekers still think in terms of effort, of trials and tests. But there is no longer any key needed to open the door. It cannot now be closed.

This change is so simple and fundamental it is easy to overlook. It is not a problem to be solved. There is nothing to be learned, no steps to success. Something is being given freely, with no strings attached. All that is required is for each of us to say "yes."" - and these words published 2002, Sufi master Llewellyn Vaughn-Lee, Working with Oneness (from post: the Initiation beyond our Wildest Dreams, worth re-reading)

While nothing else is required, the 'yes' is required to honor the creator capacity of Will (otherwise, you'd be given something against your own will), you must welcome the wisdom, power, and love of your highest self for yourself.

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. [I started with asking what to ask for, also called 'guidance'.] - Matthew 7:7-8

Art: Unio Mystica, by A. Andrew Gonzalez; Galadriel (detail), by John Howe (btw, orbs like this oft how faerie twinkle to peoplings)

Comments

[Dan]

"The prison door is wide open, it is ours to choose to walk through."

This seems like the very center of the message to me...