The Prosecution Rests

We have all faced a great deal of both suffering and joy in our lives. The world of ego is by nature a constantly fluctuating dance of cruelty and beauty. Though we all suffer, each of us carries a unique personal story of how we have been wounded by the very nature of the world created by ego. Yet as Hafiz so eloquently says, "your wounds of love can only heal, when you can forgive this dream."

We can only move beyond identification with "the story of me," which is essentially the story of what has happened to the ego and how it felt about it, when we can forgive the world for being the way it is. And this forgiveness is only possible once we feel that the story of our personal suffering has been heard, understood fully, and met with compassion. We must testify as witnesses for the prosecution, have the world be found guilty, and then decide in our hearts to grant it a full pardon.

Many of us have had experiences of temporary awakening. Each time we thought it would be the ultimate one, that it would last. Yet each time we were eventually pulled back into the world of ego identification. That happens because something is left undone. The ego identity is still being clung to for some specific reason, not just as a general state. That is why some people are able to indeed let go and stay let go. They let go and there is nothing that snaps them back. They are truly done with the story of their ego identity. It no longer holds any power over them, anymore than a movie they once saw does.

When your "story self" feels that he/she has been fully represented, that the criminal called "world" has been exposed, and that he/she is the one who has decided to forgive the world its sins, then it will be able to let go of you. It won't need to keep you carrying around its story, lest it be forgotten and never given its due.

The Trial
Write out the story of your suffering. Start with your earliest memories of childhood and go through your present life. See if you can identify any patterns to your suffering and any beliefs you have come to accept even though they cause you great pain. For example, I have dealt with an anxiety disorder my entire life and as part of that I developed a belief that this world was a very frightening place. I realize it isn't that frightening to everyone, just to people with anxiety disorders. But that doesn't make it any less true for me. So that is a part of the story of suffering that I carried through life, that I was a defenseless being in a terrifyingly violent world. See if you can identify not just the details, but the thematic beliefs of your story. This is necessary before the ego identity whose story it is can feel it has fully been understood.

Once you have written out the 3-10 pages you are likely to wind up with when you are done, find a trusted, loving, and supportive friend and ask him/her to help you with a healing ritual. Since you'll be asking a lot of the person, you may want to present it as a mutual project you are doing together, where they help you one week and then you meet again the next week for you to return the favor to them.

Send the friend your story in advance, with them committing to read it before your meeting, so that you can be sure they have had time to sit with it and fully take it in. Then when you are together, read the story aloud to them, so that you are testifying to them. After you have read the story, ask them if they understand fully or if they have any questions. If they have any questions, answer them as best you can before proceeding.

Ask yourself internally if you are truly ready to release the story of your victimization by ego's world. If you get a "yes," then burn the pages of your story, with your friend as witness. As you watch the pages burn, announce your love and compassion for the person who is being destroyed by the flames of love. Speak whatever words you feel moved to speak, and open your heart with full compassion for the story of suffering that once was your "home" and that will never be seen or heard from again.

Bury or scatter the ashes somewhere outside. That's it. It's over. May he/she rest in peace. Just don't go back to visit the grave.

I Love You

I love you like the horizon loves the sky and the shadow loves the dark, inseparably. I love you like breath loves the lungs and a smile loves the corners of your mouth, interdependently. I love you like a journey's end, and then beginning, and then end, as life takes form, endlessly.

I love you like the clay loves the vase, and the sun stays up late to catch just a glimpse of a rising moon, do you see?

I love you in endless ways, for endless hours, of endless days. Infinity is the very essence of my love for you.

There was never a time I loved you less, nor will there ever be a time I could love you more, for perfection in love is unwavering.

I do not write this to make you feel a debt, and truly love requires no payment, nor could any afford the value even if it did. I write to remind you, so that you will recall just how much you love you too.

Dare to be Perfect

In the previous article I talked about self-love and how self-love is essential in order for us to feel the sense of security we need to relax into the present moment. We cannot be fully present if we think mental vigilance is needed to guard against impending threat, and we cannot stop expecting threat if we believe there is something bad about ourselves that deserves to be punished.

Hopefully you have been sitting each day in meditation on self-love and are beginning to see some progress with your reprogramming. Now I want to extend the focus of the discussion to also include another aspect of your journey of self-healing and your embrace of full self-love.

"You are originally unlimited and perfect. Later you take on limitations and become identified with the mind. Mind is consciousness which has put on limitations." - Ramana Maharshi

You are perfect. Your life is perfect.

By perfect, I do not mean, "very good, great, almost got it, just one more thing to fix." By perfect, I mean, PERFECT, as in no where to go and nothing to do that will provide any actual improvement. That heaven you've been looking for, that promised land? This is it.

Right here, right now, this is what you've been searching for. You have been a drop of water immersed in a great ocean and looking everywhere for a glass of water. Finding no glass, no outer shell to delineate where the water begins and ends, you say "it must be somewhere else." And so the hunt goes on.

This is it. It's here now. There is nothing to achieve to improve upon what is. Your life is already perfect.

It can be very attractive to live in search of a better moment. To embrace what is can seem like a tremendous let down. Yet once you accept the perfection of this moment, you won't stop going to work. You won't stop bathing and become a homeless vagabond with a begging bowl. If you don't feel drawn to that, then it is not your soul's intention, and so the path of surrender will not carry you there. (Though it could happen if you keep resisting whatever IS happening.)

If what feels good to you is physical comfort and mental stimulation, then when you surrender the future to the future, and accept that you are on a path that not only is perfect in every step, but also perfect in its destination, then you will increasingly find yourself in a life situation that has all those features that make you feel good. Ramana Maharshi felt utterly at peace living in a loin cloth and lived in a cave at one point, but if you are not drawn to the simplicity of that, it is not what surrender will look like for you. You don't need to ward it off. Just clarify what you do intend.

Maybe right now there are some very concrete things that are undesirable in your life. You don't like that you are sick and don't want to be that way anymore. You don't like that you don't have a job. You want that to change. And so on. I for one would like to live in a home with more rooms so I could entertain without having people walk through my bedroom to get to the bathroom, not to mention wishing I had more clients for my bread-and-butter tech consulting business so that I wasn't always living on "just enough to break even" within a very modest lifestyle. I'm not saying to pretend you like things you don't like or that you don't want things that you truly do want.

When I say your life is perfect right now, I mean this moment is a perfect opportunity for the highest peace, joy, love, and sense of well-being that is humanly possible. This moment holds just as much potential for that experience as any other moment ever could. You could have all the things you desire and none of the things you loathe, and still not feel contentment in your heart. Or you could be just as you are, with a mixed plate of bitter and sweet before you, and yet dwell in a complete state of bliss. You could, but do you intend to?

If you are like many people, you are suffering under a wrong belief that if you give up your war against what is, you will be forever deprived of the things you want and in fact sink deeper and deeper into poverty, obscurity and lack. You will be loved less, fed less, praised less, and happy less, if you don't keep grasping and fighting and climbing with all your might.

Or else you give up. You're exhausted, can't do it anymore, who needs it. You accept that not only is your life imperfect, it will never be perfect. Who are you to have the audacity to believe you deserve a perfect life? Who said you even deserved a single perfect moment within this life?

I am saying it now, and I invite you to listen to the words of many who have come before me who have said the very same thing. They said it about you and about themselves, and they were right about both.

"This that I have done, you too will do." - Jesus the Christ
"When you realize how perfect everything is, you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky” - Buddha
"You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection. " - Buddha

Note that there is a difference between acknowledging and embracing the perfection that is present versus striving for perfect outcomes. Perfectionism is the endeavor to create perfection in ourselves or situations or things. What I am talking about involves no endeavor, and indeed not even any creation. I am talking about a surrender to the force of creation our intellects cannot manage, and a willingness to call its creation absolutely perfect.

Breathing in, we drink deep of what has been created for us. Breathing out, we pour ourselves into it and let the drop disappear back into the ocean, as the mind empties into silence. Breathing in and breathing out, you are perfect in this very moment. Dare to envision your life as a series of perfect moments, each one worshiped fully as it arose, and I assure you that in time this truth will be fully revealed within your external circumstances as well.

As above, so below. As within, so without. Your decision to proclaim lack or perfection as reality is so powerful that all the Universe will obey it.

Buddha is quoted as having said that in terms of our human experience of life, it is what we do with our minds that will determine what we experience: “The mind is everything. What you think, you become.”

My life is truly perfect right now. There is still plenty of room for improvement in areas like wealth, social life, even health, and I spend some time each day clarifying my intentions around what I want to experience in those areas, but I also experience this moment as perfection. Nothing needs to change before I can relax into this moment and give it my full attention without any resistance. I can "be here now," because there is no war with the present moment.

I do not write all this to you because I want you walking around thinking, "I'm perfect." I do want you to know that, but only so that it will then be possible for you to relax into this moment and let the future take care of itself.

Your bliss exists in only one place and time, here and now. If you refuse to find it here, you will never find it at all. I invite you to see perfection. I invite you to dare to embrace your perfection, and the perfection of your life. And I invite you to do it right now.

Namaste

What have you been looking for that is so much more rewarding than what is here right now? Is it a dream of accomplishment you seek - affirmation that you are valuable and needed? Is it for the world to love you more, this time enough for you to actually feel lovable? Do you need the roar of the crowd to feel it, or is even that not enough? Is it the security and freedom that you believe more money will buy? Is it the promised impenetrable bliss that enlightenment is said to provide?

Are your distractions from your present moment experience more of the variety of entertainments or defenses? Are you grasping or pushing to get away from here -- to get away from "right now?"

I ask these questions because I see myself in all of them. As I sat in meditation at the Buddhist center yesterday, all these questions kept arising in my mind. In short, "Why exactly is it that I keep chasing after something in my mind instead of appreciating what is here within my experience right now?"

I am a smart woman. I know full well that happiness can only be had as an experience. The thought of happiness is the basis of hope, but actual happiness is better than the hope for future happiness. Unless there is dread of future suffering that is stronger than anything else within one's awareness. And I think that is the root of the issue for me. You should look within yourself, within the lessons of your life, and see what the root is for you. I share more on mine now, in case we are alike in this way.

Having identified this root, I next seek out the genesis of the root so that I know how to uproot it and make sure it never takes hold again. Seeking this, I recognize the programming of my childhood and early adulthood. I was programmed for self-hatred. The world often tried to convince me that I had no value -- because I was a girl, because I was black, because I was poor, because... fill in the blank. Society rarely comes right up to your face and speaks those words, though sometimes some of us have even experienced that.

Actually it is easier to be defended against it when it does say it plain. It's when the lesson comes from people's behaviors and the situations they thereby create, that the programming is particularly effective. You never even realize a lesson is being learned. You simply embody and then repeatedly re-create the beliefs that are carried by the lesson. There is more that is taught like this than merely self-attack, but that is the lesson I particularly want to focus on now. It is the one that leads to this ever-present anxiety about what lies behind the next corner.

Within us all is a sense of justice. I believe this in an inescapable human trait. That is why criminals always do stupid things that eventually get them caught. A part of them wants to get away with it, but another part wants to be punished, because they are convinced they deserve it. I tend to agree with the criminals that they deserved to face the legal consequences of their behavior, but what about you? You have never shot, stabbed, robbed, beaten, swindled or otherwise preyed upon those around you. Why do you deserve to be punished?

If you protest, "No, I know I don't deserve to be punished," then go back to the start of this article and begin again. Now, tell me, why is it that you believe you deserve to be punished? What is it about you that is so bad it must face pain and suffering in order for all to be right in the world?

Yes, and there is the pain, is it not? There is the tear, and the agony, and the why, and the not fair. There is that wounded child, a little bird that was ripped from its shell too soon. And I cry with you. And I cry for you. And I cry out to you, "Please stop."

Stop punishing yourself for the crime you never committed. Stop accepting your programming as truth. Recognize that all you believe is something you were taught, and that now, as an adult, it is your responsibility alone to conduct your reprogramming.

You must program yourself for love, or you will not be able to settle into the peace that is here within this moment. You will not be able to surrender the future to the future until you no longer believe that assuredly some great harm awaits you there -- a harm you must take action or expend thought to ward off now, instead of simply being present with what is.

Breathing in, think, "I love myself." Breathing out, think, "I embrace what is." Breathing in and breathing out, over and over, we proclaim and attend to the truth, and thereby create a new mental habit, one that works in harmony with our peace instead of obscuring it.

Notice that I say, "obscure," not "prevent" or "interrupt." There is nothing that ever prevents or interrupts your peace. Your peace is eternal, ever-present, and unshakable. Your peace is right here right now, as it always is. But are you present with it? Do you take it for granted, or do you worship it with the full holy awe to which it is due?

If there has ever been a small infraction by you that might warrant any suffering, I would say it is this. That you do not exhibit the proper gratitude for the sacredness of your life. You fritter away the moments thinking about the past or the future, regretting this, wanting that, warding off some other thing, and meanwhile moment after moment of life comes and goes unacknowledged by you with so much as a nod. You should be on your knees.

The greatness of who you are in this very moment is so awesome, so beautiful and radiant and powerful, you should be on your knees.

I bow to you. I salute you. I embrace you. I thank you for coming to Earth. And I do it all, now.

The Right Kind of Independence

Yesterday was the 4th of July, an American holiday celebrating our liberation from Great Britain so that we became a separate country instead of a collection of British colonies. It is sometimes referred to as Independence Day.

Some friends of mine at a barbecue yesterday kept greeting people with "Happy Inter-dependence Day," and I definitely find that more appropriate a wish given what is needed in the journey ahead if we are to survive as a species. We need to recognize our interdependence and begin working together for the common good, instead of trying to climb over each other's bones for a personal "win."

Yet a deeper interpretation of the word "independence" offers a promise for even greater human triumph than that which social interdependence could bring. The independence of which I speak is freedom from the tyranny of a mind that criticizes everything you or anyone else does, is impossible to keep happy for long, and which seems to feel it has something of value to say about every little moment of your life.

Do you ever find yourself thinking, "My head hurts. I need to get some sleep. I need some peace and quiet. But these thoughts keep running through my head, on and on?" Do you ever tire of the constant judgment flowing through your head? Wouldn't you like to be free of all that?

Well I sure would, and that is what I want to invite you to cultivate in your life. May you find independence from the tyranny of your chattering mind. May you be at peace. May you close your eyes in just a moment, take a deep breath in, think "I accept myself" as you breath out, then pause on empty and allow your mind to go blank. Then breathe in again as such, and begin the cycle again. May you do this over and over for the next 10 minutes, and opening your eyes, find yourself immersed in an all-pervading clarity and peace.

Be well.

The Schizotypal Shaman

If you have a spare 80 minutes, check out this fascinating Stanford lecture video on the Biology of Religion, which could more aptly be called, "How religiosity is the healthy trait expression of schizophrenia and OCD."

Not being a follower of any ritual based religion (my Tibetan lama has removed the ritual aspects of the religion from our sangha's practice), I don't myself see the benefits of the traits linked to OCD. But for those people who find peace within ritual and believe in its transformative power, hopefully you find no insult in the linkage to OCD. You really have to watch a good chunk of the video for the connection to be clarified, but he is definitely not pathologizing religion.

In fact, he starts with examples of how biological traits of physical illnesses also have valuable protective abilities within a society. Sickle cell anemia results from a trait that protects against malaria. Cystic fibrosis from a trait that protects against cholera. Tay-Sachs traits that protect against tuberculosis, and so on. It is the small portion of cases where the trait is excessive that disease results. Because the trait normally expresses in a healthy way, it gets passed on to future generations (many people with the trait still reproduce).

The need to "get it just right" is the key point of the lecture. In traditional tribal cultures, the shaman who goes into a trance, speaks to spirits, and thereby draws in healing energy in a ritual that the next day has the sick person get up from their sick bed totally well, or allows them to forewarn of the need to make a change in the tribe's behavior which months later turns out to save all their lives, this shaman is using the best of the traits of schizophrenia to benefit everyone. The schizophrenic who babbles to himself during a part of the hunt where everyone needs to be quiet in order to catch the game, gets exiled. There is a world of difference between highly well adapted traits that make super capable and maladaptive disorders that make one incompetent when it comes to personal survival and tribal survival.

As someone who possesses some such traits (channeling healing energies like Reiki and Johrei, having some truly miraculous healing experience in my treatment of AIDS patients, etc.) and who has also experienced some of the more difficult aspects of them within modern culture (the need for personal isolation within a culture that demands constant social contact in order to achieve), this lecture had a particularly strong resonance within me. It makes me feel both vindicated and condemned. Great to think my biology falls in that "just right" range where I can use the traits beneficially, but still so very hard to live with Shamanic ability within a culture of skepticism. And to have it be biological means that like the autistic, there is really no amount of trying and learning that will ever get me to a point where I don't need to be alone so much just to be at peace.

Fortunately, a tendency towards religious belief also seems to be a very strong buffer against depression. It is thought to relate to religious belief's ability to soothe the pervasive human need for a sense of control over one's environment. Humans don't like it when cause and effect relationships are obscured so that they have no sense of what they need to do to get what they want and avoid what they do not want. In fact, an internal "locus of control" is a well-established psychological determinant of mental health, as opposed to feeling buffeted about by circumstances beyond one's control or a victim of fate.

Lastly, the lecture points at one other pathology whose traits offer some positives when expressed in a mild and adaptive form: temporal lobe epilepsy (to be distinguished from other forms of epilepsy). With TLE traits the person may have a tendency to write a lot and to be fascinated with philosophical/metaphysical topics. It's not that they are necessarily moved by the subjects or applying them in their lives. They are simply fascinated by the mental musing and synthesis of ideas about the subject through writing.

This is a trap of the religious life that many good teachers will point out. Many Buddhists I think particularly fall prey to the down side of this one. They get stuck at a love of the ideas, but do not practice them in their daily lives. They can ruminate and theorize endlessly about the value of compassion, and then be rude to every single person they meet without seeing any incongruity between the two. Yet surprisingly, the same could be said of many atheists. They are just as fascinated by religious ideas, simply from the standpoint of refuting them. They can go on for hours (or write volumes) about all the reasons why religion makes no sense, and they will if you give them an ear.

Similarly, Catholic spiritual leaders back in the 16th Century could be found warning about the practice of empty ritual and how it was important to not let the meaning and spiritual experience of the ritual be lost. Congregations were told to guard against the people who would be attracted to the religion by the structure of the ritual but essentially have no heartfelt embrace of it.

I suppose we should also add to the list of "warnings of pathology masquerading as the healthy balance that produces a benefit to the community" the new age teacher who wants to convince everyone they are speaking for God (the one and ONLY God) as a unique and special messenger. This would be the distortion of the shaman role in the community. The traditional shaman is never thought of as having a special relationship with God. It's more that they have a job that few people are needed to fill, and that few can fill, but it's still just a job within the community.

I can't really present you with any conclusion from all this that goes beyond what has already been said. I think the point is just to present these ideas for you to reflect on with your own experience. For me, I think it leads me to a place of greater acceptance around my solitary nature. I had recently begun thinking I really needed to somehow overcome that, but this research suggests continued attempts would be just as futile as past ones have been. Rather, I should see the value in having the other traits that go with that, and commit myself to making good use of them.

If you find any of yourself reflected in this post, I hope you find an insightful yet empowering conclusion as well. Peace and blessings be with you.

Update 9/14/09 - Comments have just been added to this blog, and this article can now accept reader comments.

More Than Meets the Eye

There is more here than what meets the eye. There are more eyes seeing, more hearts beating, more beings being, than the human mind can grasp.

There is more truth hidden within even the greatest misunderstanding than what we let ourselves see. There is complete and total perfection lying quietly behind every scene of our lives. There is complete and utter peace, the most tender caress of grace, belly laughs, joyful songs, and ecstatic dances of wild abandon, swirling around just beyond the limits of eye, ear, nose, tongue, or touch.

I write this as a reminder. Let your perception relax and expand a bit. Open to an awareness of not just what is there for your senses to encounter. Let yourself be breathed by this moment, through the lungs of the trees and the clouds and the Earth and the air. Let even the rush and whiz of motor traffic sing your true name back to you.

There is more here waiting for you than what was intended for your senses. Take a moment now to unwrap the ultimate gift.

Reveal yourself in this moment. Strip off all the gauzy layers of confusion and accept what is there, just as it is there, as you. Do not confine yourself behind a cloud of foolish separation, clinging to an idea of an immortal, separate self whose interests can be promoted or hampered in any way. Give up the idea that this reality is anything other than your most trusted lover. Indeed, all of life loves you with infinite embrace, for it knows itself through you, as you.

Give up your struggle for a better moment, a better dance, a better song. You are everything that is possible within this very moment. You are the songs that have yet to even be sung and the poems that have yet to be scribed. What is missing is not your creative action, but only your willingness to surrender to a broader point of view that holds all of who you are, eternally.

Happiness

Are you familiar with Abraham-Hicks writings, the movie The Secret , or any of the many other works on spiritually based manifestation methods? Even the first chapter of my book, Being Bliss, focuses on the laws of manifestation and how we can use spiritual wisdom to create the material enjoyments we believe will make us happy. Thereafter, my book focuses on other sources of happiness, but still, it does also cover materially based happiness and spiritual methods for manifesting the things we want.

Despite the reasonable desire to seek material well-being so long as we are sensorially experiencing life through a physical body, it is vitally important we understand that if we equate success in acquiring or achieving anything material with justification for happiness, we will never enjoy lasting peace.

Now many of us can hear this and instantly believe it at a theoretical level, but we'll still secretly hold the hopeful belief that acquiring certain things and situations will lead to happiness. That's why we're working at manifesting those things. We want to be happy.

Hard as it is to accept, the bottom line is, if we feel like what we have right now is not enough for us to be happy, no matter what we have or lack, we will be locked in a mentality of insufficiency and unhappiness. Additionally, if we justify our current happiness by looking at what we have materially, we are still taking refuge in something unreliable.

For example, it's fine to say "I'm grateful for a peaceful, beautiful home and health and good food," but what if there comes a time when you have none of those things? Then what do you say if you've already justified your happiness in those terms when you did have all that? So then you have to be clinging and trying to avoid loss even in good times, if you believe this is a world in which your happiness depends on having some condition or thing. Consequently, gratitude practice isn't enough to sustain peace.

The only thing one can take refuge in for lasting peace and contentment is the present moment as an experience, not an idea. Whatever you can find when you simply attend to the present moment, that's all you really have.

You may be hot, cold or just right in temperature. You may be in a quiet place or a noisy place. You may be alone or with people you either like or dislike. You may have debts or wealth. You may have a wonderful home you own on 2 acres by the sea or be staying in your family's living room. You may be healthy or in pain and fatigue. You can't control these things, though you can safely hold intentions about them. And time will either reveal those intentions come to pass by virtue of your efforts, or that they do not, regardless of your efforts. Either way, you only have this moment, whatever it contains, in which you can possibly find true reason for happiness.

The way I see it, that I have (or am) consciousness is the only reason I have to be happy. I am aware. That's the whole party. There is nothing else I get to keep. Either awareness is enough reason to be happy, or I'm shit out of luck no matter what happens.

So now, how does one shift to a belief system that says that consciousness all by itself really is enough for a person to be happy? It begins with giving up hope that any idea about happiness will ever cause happiness.

We can be amused, entertained, and enlivened by our ideas. Our ego can get a big boost of energy from the right ideas, ideas like: "I'm important, successful, and well-loved." "I'm financially secure," or even, "I'm rich." "I'm beautiful." All sounds great. Sign me up.

But even if I truly believe all these ideas, they still cannot cause actual happiness. How many successful, rich, beautiful young models do you know of who OD on drugs? I rest my case. Clearly these things do not cause happiness.

Happiness can exist in the presence of wealth or in its absence. Happiness can exist in the presence of beauty or in its absence. (Don't try to feed me any crap about "everyone is beautiful in their own way" either.) Happiness can exist in the presence or absence of even health, as challenging as that can be.

Happiness depends on our making the mental decision to drop all further decisions about whether we should or should not be happy.

When we decide that no matter what happens, we are going to joyfully embrace our experience of being alive and call that reason enough to be happy, we've made it. That's happiness, as it is found.

Keep your visions of grand homes, loving families and spectacular careers, or whatever else appeals to you. Definitely envision your health and vitality. Continually clarify those visions, gaining ever increasing understanding about what it is you want as you gain life experience that helps you make better and better choices. But do not base your happiness on the fulfillment of those visions. You may live this entire life with none of those visions ever manifesting in reality. That has to be good enough.

In order to make spiritual manifestation work something that truly blesses your life, you don't hold the hope that succeeding in making your vision real is going to give you a reason to finally be happy. You embrace happiness right now, but create the vision for the sheer joy of exercising your creative ability. It should be joyful when you are envisioning possible futures. That joy while you are envisioning is the payoff and creative force, and it happens while you are delighting in your present moment experience of being a conscious being who can imagine.

If you do this, over time many of your visions will manifest into physical form. That's just how energy works. But it doesn't work if you are grasping at it. It doesn't work if you are trying to make it work because you believe you need it to work in order to be happy. It is such a subtle difference, yet that slimmer of a divide keeps so many people from actually creating lives of joy for themselves.

You are a perfect, unlimited being who is fully abundant. You are all that exists. There is nothing apart from you and nothing you lack. Only when you allow yourself to feel the truth of this will you be satisfied.

Could the ocean ever be satisfied to live the life of a glass of water, no matter how big you made the glass? Nothing less than infinity will ever satisfy you, since you know in your heart that infinity is your true nature. So don't delay any longer. Isn't it time you rested in your true nature? Well then close your eyes and rest for a moment. This is It.

Update 9/14/09 - Comments have just been added to this blog, and this article can now accept reader comments.