One of the awareness movement’s greatest contributions to us lies in the rich treasury of distinctions made about our ways of being.

For example, here’s one from John Enright. According to him, we’re fairly predictable creatures. We follow a round of behavior which he called “the Wheel of Life.”

Before I turn to John, I’m down at the Bridge to Now, but I need to mention that I won’t be reporting events.

I’ve found that, if I do, it skews things in various ways and for various reasons. Often the conversations I have to get to know people can be affected by the knowledge that I’m reporting on events.

I may report on what’s occurring for me, but that would be all. I’d like to preserve the integrity and character of the gathering.

At the event, one of the points I’ll be making in my talk on “The Role of Will in Building Nova Earth” is that, for many of us, our will is not really known or active.

Consequently, the way we make commitments depends on our level of interest.

What John pointed out was the variable character of the mind and the predictable cycles it goes through. It’s in the phase of the cycle where we’re not “digging” what we’re doing that sees commitment fail.

In the beginning of the cycle, John said, we (A) do something and dig it. Because we enjoyed it, we do it again and again and again and again until we reach the point of (B) doing it and not digging it.

Our satisfaction would decrease with each repetition until we (C) stopped doing it were now not doing it and digging it. And thus we would go for some time, until we found ourselves missing the activity. We were now (D) not doing it and not digging it.

At this point we might spin the wheel again, begin anew, (A) doing it and digging it and on and on we’d go.

The problem with this is that it doesn’t lead to strong, enduring commitment.

The role of commitment is to keep us moving forward in line with our promises even if we’re “doing it and not digging it.”

If we’re to be reliable in our work for Nova Earth, we have to be counted on to generate interest in what we’re doing or to persevere anyways through the times of not digging it. An ironclad commitment is what allows us to keep going.

The strength of our word determines what we’re capable of building. I deem it as a part of being a spiritual adult to be good for one’s word.

Another cut at this is the Buddha’s teaching that all is impermanent – anicca, anicca, anicca. Nothing lasts. Therefore our enjoyment with something also does not last.

In this excerpt from my reading with him on Nov. 5, 2016 through Linda Dillon, Archangel Michael distinguishes between bliss and love.

His definition of bliss being a state of being and love having the ability to take action exactly fit my experience: When in bliss, I simply wanted to sit there enjoying; when in love, I wanted to go outside and hug everyone.

Thanks to Linda for our reading and Dana for our transcript.

Steve: What’s the difference between love and bliss, Lord?

Archangel Michael: We are caught in using describers, adjectives, adverbs. Love is bliss. Love is blissful. These words can be…

Think of it in this way. Bliss is more of a state of being whereas love has the ability to take action.

Steve: Yes, that’s it exactly!

AAM: Thank you, my friend! (Chiding me.)

Steve: Yes, that exactly fits my experience. When I experience love I am oriented outward. I want to share it, I want to do something with people and I feel relatively social – for a hermit.

But when I am and bliss, I have no such desire. I just want to sit in the state of bliss.

AAM: That is correct. It is not directive.

Steve: That’s right, it’s not. Is that the only difference?

AAM: That is a very major difference, sweet one.

Steve: It’s like night and day. Both are very enjoyable.

AAM: Of course. Everything from the Mother is pretty enjoyable, my friend.

Steve: You’ve just implied that it’s a multicourse meal here. That immediately gets me thinking: What has me be loving one moment and blissful the next?

AAM: Think of it as the tides. Think of it as the cycles of the moon. Think of it as your cycles of night and day.

It is not the delineation, the polarity, the duality of human experience historically has been either/or, either/or but truly it is an ebb and flow. One feeds the other. One expands the other. They are very interdependent.

They are conjoined in many ways so that when you are in the state of bliss, when you are that state of beingness, there is a sense that nothing else matters and that you want to stay there is eternally and of course eventually you will!

Steve: Is that Fifth Dimensionality – that you will stay there permanently?

AAM: That is Seventh Dimensionality but then there is this human form that you are occupying and so part of your spiritual makeup, part of your spiritual beingness is that you have this human vessel.

It is not that the human vessel, the physicality, has the soul and the love. It is the other way around. And so eventually when you are in the bliss, whether it is the desire to share or to go to the bathroom, you will emerge back into the physicality of existence.

How you maintain that ebb and flow of bliss/love, love/bliss is by maintaining this sense of, “Does it feel like love? Does it lead me back to bliss?”

Steve: Keep coming back to loving whatever manifestation you can know it in in that moment.

AAM: And it is in the moment. That is the operational word of love. It is very present, focused. It is not, “Oh, I will love tomorrow or I will have bliss tomorrow.” It is in the moment.

Steve: It is not “I will remember love,” either. Or “Do you remember Hawaii?”

AAM: Yes, it is in the moment.

Steve: Have you been stretching time Lord?

AAM: Yes.

Steve: I can’t believe it; we still have a few minutes.

I’m not going to speak to you now until January 3rd, I think.

AAM: Well, we will be speaking every day, my friend.

Steve: We must get that connection totally down pat before the Reval. I would like us to be having direct communication. I would like to be hearing your words without doubt in unequivocal terms.

AAM: Then come into the bliss. Prior to doing so, when you are in the love, pose your question to me. Go into the bliss.

When you emerge back into the love, the full knowing – that is, the full answer – will be right there. So let us practice together. I’m pretty good at this! (Jokingly.)

Steve: Yes, you’ve been known to be very good.

AAM: I’ve been practising! (More joking.)