Biss Balls: A Radical New Message for Anxiety Sufferers

This is the most important article I will ever write because it concerns something very important to me, something very close to home ... Anxiety, Arrrrrgggghhhh! (I think as I pull what is left of my hair out).

A fearful and paranoid state has been the theme of my life. As background energy, it kept running and controlling all of my actions and my state of mind. Its power appeared all encompassing and unbeatable. It seemed there was nothing I could do but stay scared and afraid.

What was I afraid of? Practically everything, but here is a small list:

• People

• Public speaking (two or more people and I would get choked up and couldn’t speak)

• My image

• School

• Tests

• Relationships

• Success

• Money

• Failure

• Sharing

• Going outside of the house

• The alarm clock

• Escargot

• and bugs

I was irrationally paranoid all the time. Why? At the time I had no idea. Was I crazy? Probably yes, I thought.

We all have our stories and of course to me at the time mine was the only one that mattered and my anxiety was the worst case in the world. Maybe that is how you feel or felt about yours too? It wasn’t until later on while teaching courses in meditation that I started to see other people who suffered from the same intense energy. I felt relieved; “Oh thank god I am not the only one,” or “ mine is not the worst case scenario.”

Some of these students labeled it “anxiety,” others “depression” but each had their own story and was either trying to get rid of it or hopelessly stuck in it. How can we get rid of something so powerful and something so real that we base our entire identity around it? Bliss balls?

Let me be very clear with you. You are not an anxiety sufferer¬¬¬—you are a bliss sufferer. In fact, anxiety is bliss!

This is not just a nice idea (or a stupid one) or a clever way to twist words … it is the truth. I understand that no one would agree with that including you, probably. All the experts would certainly disagree with that statement. It goes against common sense, logic and even our own experience. How could billions of people be wrong about anxiety? The simple answer is they have not yet seen through the story into the reality of the energy of anxiety. They have not seen the energy as it is without the mind’s label and the ego wrapped into it. This is understandable since it is rare for even the seasoned spiritual practitioner to see it. But regardless of the reason, I am indeed saying that a billion people are wrong.

They are all bliss sufferers. An anxiety sufferer (as well as bliss sufferer) is a made up term to explain the unexplainable and we all eat it up because we’re provided a reason why. Okay I suffer because of genetics, a bad brain, my family, too much Starbucks etc.

I know this is a very dangerous thing to say but somebody has to say it. I can hear the anxiety sufferer say; “How could you say that, I have been suffering for 30 years and diagnosed with social anxiety disorder, you don’t understand!”

I am not trying to argue with or convinced you but just simply pointing out the possibility of another view. That is your story and believe me I understand its “reality” for you. I understand because I truly believed my own and I would defend it and get it enraged if it was challenged. You will have it and believe it as long as you do. Let me share another story that, if true, would point to something other than the anxiety story. It would point to the energy before the story of you and your anxiety. What happened before you identified with being the anxiety sufferer? The truth is you never suffered from anxiety, you suffered from pure Joy. Crazy … but true.

What I am going to share with you cannot be understood conceptually but can only be seen by exploring the Silence. By exploring the silence (Our true nature) the story is seen through. In my own case it took many years of being aware to see it. The truth is you can see it right now.

Let’s start at the beginning, before the energy becomes anxiety.

Every time you experience anxiety it starts out as energy—without a label or identification. As an energy there is no problem because it is not taken seriously... yet. Then comes the label, “Here is the anxiety, I can’t breath, etc.” The mind out of habit labels it because it is familiar with the story, “I have been experiencing anxiety my whole life and it will never go away,” etc.

This habit was not always there, yet was learned, probably early in childhood. Before that, the energy was unlabeled and experienced purely through the nervous system. That energy we could label childlike joy.

Then what happens with all of us (whether we call ourselves anxiety sufferers or not) is we start building up a filter (ego, identity, separate self, separate subject). This filter contains concepts, opinions, ideas, programming, and positions and is not just mental. This filter also becomes experiential in our nervous system so that we feel everything in relationship to what we think our “self” to be based on this mental filter. Both the emotional/energetic and mental/psychological filters are reflections of that separate self. They seem permanent but they are not. They are more flexible than you can imagine.

The apparent permanence of the filter stems from the habit or “settling” for reality as you think it is instead of seeing how it actually is. This is why a billion people think they are anxiety sufferers (in one way or another). They are indeed conditioned to be that way and the experts will also confirm their position because they also have been trained to see it through these filters. Even though they all are wrong, there is nothing wrong with seeing like this because, after all, we are only human. (Some of us are human, anyways).

Through the practice of meditation and being aware of the Silence, we can start to experience the energy of anxiety in a new light. This comes from seeing the energy without the filter and therefore without seriousness. This can happen anytime you allow and let go into the unknown silence that does not think. The silence of your true nature is beyond the story, period. This is the case now and is why I can say with confidence that the energy you think is anxiety is only your perception from the story of “you,” that you think you are.

From the perspective of the Silence, that energy has no label. It is infinite and all-powerful, which has been translated as “fearful and anxious” since the filter simply cannot contain the energy within its limited idea of what “you” are. This filter thinks it will explode and die. It cannot handle the energy of infinite Joy which is why you experience what you think is anxiety. You suffer from Bliss that is unbounded and if allowed to move, the suffering starts to dissipate. Resisting infinite bliss will hurt. Resisting this energy causes you pain and anxiety.

The invitation of this energy is to see another possibility. It is to allow a shift in perception from the known to the innocent unknown.

Once you begin to see this energy without filters, it does not necessarily disappear. It remains and may be even seem more intense at times. What changes is the relationship with it. This is where a path of Joy begins. The allowing of energy that has always been Joy. The possibility is that through gentleness and awareness we can see through the “filter” into the eternal Silence of being. This is your right as a divine expression. As a human you have the right to both anxiety and bliss, but only one is eternal. Bliss is beyond the filter and has been pushing up against the resistance of the filter of “you” your whole life. The mind says; “Here comes the panic attack, here comes the anxiety.” No, here comes the opportunity to see that the energy is not what “you” think it is. Breathe into your stomach, like a baby, and keep allowing.

This practice takes bliss balls. It takes the bliss balls to see through the filter. This can seem to be and probably is the most challenging thing anyone of the billion can do. Do you have the bliss balls to do it?

The practice is to see the anxiety balls as nothing more than bliss balls.

Bring on the Bliss…

Paramananda was born in Calgary Alberta in 1975 and currently lives in Vancouver British Columbia where he works as an Electrician. He first learned how to meditate in 1999. Since then he has dedicated his life to exploring and sharing the freedom of this path. In 2003 he began to teach meditation and offer retreats based on the teachings of The Bright Path. These teachings reveal all that is required to walk this path with joy. He teaches that the silence and the humility of not taking yourself seriously are the foundations to seeing that you are already free. He is the author of A Path of Joy Popping into Freedom and The Way of Nothing Nothing in the Way www.paramanandaishaya.com