We often say,
I have so far to go,
And I want to respond to that.
What I want to say can sound strange to anyone who is programmed by a culture where it's all about achieving goals and succeeding,
And building a reputation,
And arriving at some destination point.
That can range from wanting to succeed at business to wanting to attain enlightenment.
We are programmed with this intense drive to get somewhere,
And around mid-life people from such a culture come to the conclusion that after years of working hard,
And doing what they were told they needed to do to succeed,
That they have really gotten nowhere.
And instead of feeling fulfilled,
As society promised,
They're exhausted and unhappy.
They're basically disillusioned.
It can be a really important moment in a person's life,
A moment in which the door to transformation opens.
It can lead to thinking,
And seeing differently,
And opening to what all the mystics and poets say,
That there's nowhere to go because you're there already.
The there that is there already is a loving force,
A divinity that's all around us,
That's always been there,
Here and now,
Like a grace showering down on us,
Producing a condition of happiness and beauty that makes life meaningful when we see it and relate to it.
That loving force is what mystics call reality.
Our cultural conditioning thinks of it as a fantasy.
Let me give you a couple of quotes.
One is from A Course in Miracles,
And it says,
The journey to God is merely the reawakening of the knowledge of where you are always,
And what you are forever.
The Course in Miracles calls it a journey without distance.
It's similar to what the Nobel Prize poet T.
S.
Eliot said.
He said that the end of all of our exploring will be to arrive where we started and to know the place for the first time.
Well,
The place is love,
And the journey is a return to love,
A return to reality,
Which is to this moment right here and now,
Which is where and when the love we are is experienced.
Like Eckhart Tolle says,
Who we are is the very essence of being or presence that is there when we become conscious of the present moment.
If there's a destination,
That's it.
You and love and what we call the present moment are one and the same thing,
Which is why the present moment is a return to yourself,
A return to reality,
Which is a reality of love.
Our capacity to live in the present moment is in direct proportion to loving what is,
Loving what life brings to us.
This moment right here,
Right now,
Exactly as it comes to us,
Exactly as it is.
That's the opposite of fear,
And it all starts with awareness of what's going on inside of us and around us,
Without any judgment,
Without any condemnation.
It's stepping outside of ourselves and looking at our anxiety and depression and shame and also our joy,
And not identifying with it,
Not identifying it as us,
But as an experience we're having,
And just letting it be there in awareness,
Knowing it will pass because everything passes.
It's being in touch with whatever is and letting whatever happens,
Happen,
And just loving the way it is.
This has a miraculous way of turning awareness into a grace that releases reality to change us.
The harder we try to change ourselves,
You know the worse it can get,
But real change comes when it's brought about not by our ego,
But by embracing reality.
It's what Buddhism calls effortless effort,
And by definition,
That's grace.
It's so simple and so kind,
And what a relief when we see that it really is that way.
