Dear Brave Soul,
Every day you wake to seek a little more,
For what will bring you closer to joy,
And what will take you further away from pain.
This is the way of the world.
This is what you have known.
To flow in between the shores of pleasure and pain,
Never able to stay on the side that offers relief,
And always finding yourself stranded to the bare and barren shore where current seems to prefer.
And what fearlessness has your search brought you?
How much closer are you now in controlling your life's experience,
In navigating your little vessel between the two shores?
After all these years of seeking through the great waters of life,
How much closer are you now to the island that offers you refuge?
In every search,
You seek for yourself.
It is all your search for more and better has ever been about,
But there is a way to paddle downstream,
Neither staying too long in the shallows,
Nor losing yourself to the deep.
It is the way of discovering that you belong to neither and have the power to travel this life between the two banks,
Meandering through the white water toward home and open sea.
Come back.
Come back to the sea and the soul of who you are,
In every search,
In every desire.
Come back to the birthless and the deathless core of who you really are.
To return to yourself and the source of all contentment is to let go of what keeps you away from it.
You are already love.
Let go of fear.
You are already guided.
Let go of the outside noise.
You are the embodiment and expression of joy.
Give up and let go of past and future.
You are healed.
Let go of the pain.
You are the I Am,
Without the preceding identification of I Am This or That.
To return is to unclothe yourself,
To strip and tear and pull and unthread all that keeps you tightly woven to your own ideas,
To your preferences and the expectations you have for yourself.
To return to your flow and center is to let go of both shores,
Reminding yourself that you are not confined to the banks of promise and fear,
That although you are water,
Your body is not confined to oxbow lakes and marshes but to expansive ocean herself.
Let go of who you think you are and return home,
Because as beautiful as it is at times to be dressed in the cloth of who you think you are,
It does not touch upon the silk spun gold that lies beneath,
And as confident as you may feel at times seeking and striving towards what you think you need in life,
Your small efforts do not touch upon the blueprint of bounty that the universe has planned for you when you surrender to it.
Give yourself up to the current that ebbs and flows in the direction of truth.
Let us come home now to this truth.
Let us be taken by it,
Let our bodies rise to the surface,
Ridding ourselves of our ideas and expectations,
Allowing us to come back to our center and seeklessness.
Close your eyes now and fall into the rhythm of your breath.
Let your whole body know your intention to come back to yourself.
Let your body become soft with this knowing.
Blow the breath inward like wave and then out like a disappearing tide.
Keep lapping your breath within your body,
Soothing yourself into stillness.
The mind is what it is and will always be restless.
Allow it to be.
Gently bring your attention back to the breath.
You cannot try and attain peace here because you are peace itself.
Come back to yourself by letting go of the disturbances.
Come away from mind and travel toward heart.
Place your attention there to its warmth,
Its openness,
Its contentment.
And rest here for a while,
With one hand placed over chest,
Head tilted upward.
And let go of heart too,
For freedom lies in going beyond all identifications and of settling back into pure awareness.
Beyond thought,
Beyond heart,
Beyond body lies this pure awareness.
The changeless,
The birthless,
The deathless and the seekless omnipresence.
Beyond all matter and thought lies who you truly are.
It is not a state to find,
But to rest in.
After all,
You cannot find what has never been lost.
Keep being here.
Keep being now.
Anchor yourself in the breath.
There is nothing to be done here.
It is all a letting go and a leaning back into your true nature.
Aware of all,
Attached to nothing.
Deny existence to everything but your true self.
When you find it difficult to stay in this state of pure awareness,
Repeat the words I am to yourself.
I am without identification,
Without separateness.
I am everything I need.
Find your oneness in the I am.
Find the soul in the I am.
Deepen the breath and allow your practice to come to a close.
Come back to the tide.
Let the wave of breath carry you back into your body,
Into the room,
Into your heart.
Finding harmony in all.
You may open your eyes.
You see your world through the idea you have of yourself and imagine yourself as separate from the world.
This is why you experience desire and fear,
But see not your separation and come home to love.
The root of all pain is the not knowing who you are.
The root of all desire is the urge to find yourself,
For forgetting yourself is the greatest injury.
To watch the universe emerge and subside within your own heart is truly a wonder.
Come back to yourself.
When you feel the past too close and the future too far,
Come back to yourself.
When you lose your life to the hurriedness of living,
Come back to yourself.
When you feel your choices are limited and your problems abundant,
Come back to yourself.
When you feel wind swept from life's resistances,
Come back to yourself.
Whatever makes you return is your act of homecoming.
Whatever makes you feel untethered and wise beyond measures of time is who you are.
Come back to yourself,
To the essence of you,
The heart and the soul of you,
The love and the wonder of you.
For all else is a dream.
Thank you for this journey today.
Your kindness and support is appreciated beyond measure.
May we continue to inspire each other upon this wilder and wiser path,
Back to heart and home.
And may we connect again soon.
