Here's a theme that's frequently repeated in this book: it used to be that a mythological system would nurture us from birth; but these days, there's much less of that. You're not necessarily assumed to be under the protection of so-and-so, or forbidden from doing such-and-such. So it's hard to center yourself and unscramble your labyrinth into an orderly mandala. Or in other words: the feeling that used to be called a mid-life crisis has expanded to encompass our entire lives.

But, Joseph says, it's still possible to figure out what it is that fulfills you. All you have to do is listen very carefully to what's happening in your head, watch for certain telltale signs, and then pounce.

The first guide to watch for: "a personality in your youth who seemed to you a noble and great personality." I personally think it's a bit narrow to only look for personalities; in fact, I find it more useful to examine books and movies and fictional characters. The things that called to you as a kid do generally call to you still.

But what about the stuff that you revisit as an adult, only to be disappointed? I had that experience with Count Duckula, which I loved when I was 8 but was not so excited about when I was 20. In those cases, I think it's important to think about them not necessarily as you currently perceive them, but as you remember them. When I was 8, there was something that I loved and remembered -- in the case of Count Duckula, it was simultaneous exploration and mayhem and silliness; and even though the show wasn't quite sophisticated enough to age with me, I still love silly exploratory mayhem.

The second guide to watch for is a bit more vague: bliss. Er, okay, what exactly does bliss mean? Well, it's like art or porn; you know it when you see it. Joseph calls it "doing what you absolutely must do to be yourself." For me, it's stuff like cooking dinner for the person I love, or Mario Kart, or explaining, or putting things in alphabetical order. You have to avoid the trap of thinking about what bliss means to you, because then you unavoidably start thinking about what you think bliss should be. Instead, think about your happy happy feelings, and then bask in them for a while, and then snap yourself out as suddenly as you can and look around and see what you were actually doing.

Following this guide requires a certain vigilance. It's hard to find; but give it some time and it'll come to you. And the moment you catch yourself doing that perfect thing, you have to seize it and never let go, no matter where it drags you. That's how I wound up in San Francisco, and thank God I did.

At this point in the introduction, there's a bit of a tangent relating to Hindu Vedantic tranditions and the Taittiriya Upanisad. I can't figure out how it relates to what we were just talking about; but since this book is a heavily edited compendium of talks and papers, I'm just going to chalk it up to a weird editorial segue. Anyway, it's interesting stuff, so let's take a look.

There are lots of myths about levels of consciousness; in this case, the metaphor is of "sheaths," five of them surrounding the "atman," the fundamental element of the individual.

1. Annamaya-kosa: the food sheath. This refers to physical bodies; that which eats food, that which becomes food, and the process by which one becomes the other.
2. Pranamaya-kosa: The sheath of breath. I'm a little fuzzy on what this is supposed to be, but the general sense that I get is that it's the spark of life that distinguishes a living body from a dead one.
3. Manomaya-kosa: The consciousness sheath; your inner monologue
"Then there is a big gap," writes Joseph.
4. Vijnanamaya-kosa: the "wisdom of the transcendent" sheath. This refers to how natural processes appear to have a "wisdom" -- the immune system, reproduction, the tendency of a tree to wrap around rocks or fences as it grows.
5. Anandamaya-kosa: bliss and transcendence -- the sheath that your conscious sheath should strive toward, rather than toward the more immediately attractive food sheath.

So, the key in this system is not to be tricked by the seductive food-sheath that tethers us to the lowest of life functions; but to give all that up for the blissful sheath, which looks empty and nonexistent but is secretly blissful. It's one of those "give it all away" religions.

Joseph illustrates this system by describing Tutankhamen's burial coffins: three boxes, one inside the other; then a stone coffin; then the beautiful sarcophagus; then a solid gold coffin -- an amazing achievement, considering the technology of the time -- and inside that, the body.

What's interesting about this is that I had imagined the sheaths progressing in the other direction -- the food sheath closest to the atman, and the anandamaya-kosa furthest away. But in this example, the food and breath is external, and the bliss squeezed right up against the individual like golden spandex.

Joseph explains this as a "mistake," that the Egyptians mistook the preservation of the physical body as achieving immortality. Hindus, in contrast, keep the body at as great a distance from bliss as possible, and this seems to be regarded favorably by Pathways to Bliss. I'm not totally sold on that evaluation. Yet. I suppose it makes sense that placing importance on grandeur and magnificence is spiritually preferable to survival instincts.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more logical it seems to call the Egyptians mistaken in formulating their mythology. If we're going to be using those Vedantic sheaths -- and why not, since they seem to be a rather good system of looking at things -- then you need to facilitate a discourse between sheath 3 and sheath 4; between your inner monologue and the "wise" processes of life. It's easy to have thoughts about food and self-preservation; but understanding The Way That Life Goes takes some serious contemplation.

I wonder what Egyptians thought about when their minds wandered? Did they think about the eternal as some far-off cloudy non-corporeal peace, or a gross corpuscular spa? Ah, the internet tells me that it's a bit more complicated than that. Apparently the post-mortem Egyptian ideal was a state called "Akh," and interestingly, it required cultivation through physical offerings. This is quite different from the Hindu divorcement of body and bliss.

Paul said, "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me" (Gal 2:20). That is, we live to reflect the eternal. But in this Egyptian system, it seems like bodies are prepared so that the eternal will reflect our lives.

I wonder which is better.

So, yesterday, I was writing about how in the introduction to "Pathways to Bliss," Joseph says that you can really crack up if you hear that siren song. So, what do you do when you hear it?

Follow it. Duh.

In olden days (which are the days with which the book is primarily concerned) people had shamans to enact rituals and rites that would release the tension of the calling. Nowadays, we're not lucky enough to have traditions like those simply handed to us. But fortunately, we have the sum of all human knowledge at our fingertips, so when we're feeling tugged, we can go out and explore and find someone else's rituals that work for us.

Next time, I'll write a bit about the five sheaths of the atman, the body, as described in the Taittiriya Upanisad. Joseph felt it significant enough to mention in the introduction, so it must be really important.

"Make your god transparent to the transcendent, and it doesn't matter what his name is," says Joseph. (Good grief, we're still just in the introduction.) In other words, make your myths emotionally permeable.

Luke Skywalker's an easy example; he's the God (or the Hero, at least) of a science fiction film that's enjoyed even by people who don't enjoy science fiction. Which is to say, it doesn't matter that his name is sci-fi; he's transparent. (Haven't we all identified with some aspect of Luke from time to time? Or Lindsay Weir? There's moments where they're hard to tell apart.)

Of course, you have to wade through the sci-fi before you get to the Luke, or the 80s before you get to Lindsay. But what is all that junk? Adolph Bastian called it "local," in contrast to the "elementary" emotional resonance of the characters and plot. If you shine an x-ray through the local stuff (which, I pointed out, could be a religion, or World of Warcraft, or gays in the Castro) you see something there on the other side that means something. The "magnificence" that K. G. Durkheim talked about; that basic human need to slip ourselves into a bigger-than-us stream.

In olden times -- like, when we lived in caves -- there were shamans who could step over boundaries and see freely through the local stuff. They were crazy. Such is the effect of passing through your local commitments. Young people often tiptoe up to the cusp of that craziness; there's what Joseph calls a "shivering, neurotic sickness." You remember what it was like to be 16. Everywhere you went, it felt like there was a song calling you further.

And then, still in olden times, they'd go through rites and rituals to reconnect themselves to the magnificence of the society, so that they wouldn't go completely off the deep end or run away forever. Ignore the call of the song, says Joseph, citing suicides among shamanism-called indigenous Siberians, and you'll fall to pieces.

Here's a trailer for a movie that's basically about the different ways that people can crack up:

So when you find yourself gripped by that distress, whether a shaman or a teenager, how do you re-center yourself? I'll write about that next.