state of eternal bliss

I always enjoy it when J invites a work friend over for dinner. His friends are an eclectic bunch, a group of counselors working with a difficult population and inevitably I find them to be an interesting group. E was no exception. He's a world traveller and a film-maker who just landed a full length documentary project. He's been enlisted to make a film about a guru who has a large number of disciples and a few ashrams in different parts of the world. His disciples are paying for the documentary, so of course I was wondering if there would be freedom in filming or if there would be pressure to film it in a certain way - a question on E's mind as well.

So being the inquisitive woman I am, I continued to pepper E with questions while plying him with wine. Apparently this guru dude was born in the states but said Jesus came to visit him when he was a little kid and told him some important stuff. A while later he claimed he had some other visitors, Mother Mary, Jesus again, some other spiritual bigwigs too. They made it clear he was the reincarnation of some other really important spiritual leader and the rest sort of spiraled from there. So today he's got a bunch of followers and a bunch of spiritual teachings on the oneness of us and God and you know, it all sounds ok enough because far be it from me to judge the spiritual lives of others anyways. E swears the man has an intense spiritual power, that in his presence you are filled with a constant state of bliss, a bliss so intense that you are unable to focus on anything else, even sleeping. (How he'll film the movie while in this state is yet to be seen).

To be honest, that's a bliss I've never felt but you know, it sounds kind of cool, too. So after E left I googled the guru and found some of his teachings and saw some of his disciples and some videos of his lessons and as I watched I was waiting for the bliss. The Bliss! But it never came. So I went to bed lacking the bliss and life continues on as normal.

But I can't wait to hear how this film project goes.