And I guess it brings up the question of,
Well,
Do I have to work for it?
Initially,
My response is yes and no,
Which is incredibly unhelpful.
Maybe the answer,
Yes,
You have to work for it,
But not in the way you think.
And no,
You don't have to work for it because you already have it.
How do you work for something that you already have?
How do you work for something that you are?
But at the same time,
You have to be available.
You have to show up.
Do you want to call that work?
If you're going to develop a sensitivity,
Let's call it a practice of communion with the sacred.
Might you put that on your calendar?
Sure.
Is that work?
Maybe.
But in the same way,
One could look at meditation through a lens of work.
But what are you being asked to do in meditation?
Nothing.
Is that work?
To do nothing?
Well,
That's interesting,
Isn't it?
So,
In another way,
It's the complete surrendering of work.
It's a moment of complete surrendering of your whole life,
Which is,
In effect,
The surrendering of everything going on in your mind,
Which in one way doesn't ask for any effort.
It asks for the surrender of effort.
Because the thing you're so anxiously efforting towards is something that's already here.
But in the appearance of things,
I understand how it might seem like effort.
Which is why,
Again,
My answer is yes and no.
Which in another way,
As an answer,
Once you see how important it is,
It doesn't matter if it's work or not.
It's just the most important thing.
And this might be a super silly example,
But it's kind of like brushing your teeth.
Maybe as a child,
It seemed like work.
And now it's just something you do.
There's not really much mental deliberation about it.
It's just something you do.
You don't consider it work.
And yet,
In its own way,
It improves the quality of your life.
And I can say definitively that being in communion with the sacred will dramatically add value to the quality of your life.
More so than anything else you do in this world.
Let's say,
As long as it's genuine and you're not simply pretending to be spiritual.
Which would probably be as effective as pretending to brush your teeth.
Which I did a lot of as a child.
I had my whole system in place to pretend to brush my teeth.
Set my toothbrush out,
Get it working.
Wet.
Leave the toothpaste cap off of the toothpaste.
Make it look like I brushed my teeth.
Taking just as much time to pretend to do it as to really do it.
And it does speak to,
In a playful way,
How we sometimes operate in our everyday lives.
We pretend to do the spiritual thing.
Why?
Because,
Sure,
Sometimes it's inconvenient.
Or at least it seems inconvenient.
We tell a story of it being inconvenient.
Which it's the same with being honest.
We know,
In some respect,
It's the right thing to do.
But often it can be quite inconvenient.
Especially related to everything you think you want in the future.
Because,
In order to be honest,
You have to give up control.
But what do you learn,
Effectively?
It's better to be honest.
Which,
My god,
Just in that little example speaks so much about allowing the truth of life to be the truth of life.
You can see it on a practical level in our raw humanity.
Where living a life of honesty is best served for your overall well-being.
Also internally.
But it's directly correlated to allowing the truth of life to be the truth of life.
Which is also the same thing as being honest.
Because you're letting what is real and sincere be what is real and sincere.
Do you see this?
And I love that analogy with simply being honest.
Because in many ways,
It's the same thing.
Do you see this?
Practically speaking,
When we don't live with honesty,
When we lie,
And when we make things up,
We are protecting a particular illusion.
Whether it's we want people to have certain thoughts about us,
We want to make sure we get a particular outcome.
We are living in service of a lie to protect something that we want in the future.
Which,
Effectively,
Is to deny the truth of your own heart.
So that you might gain something in the future.
And it's the same thing related to life.
There is a profound depth of truth to life,
What is real and sacred.
But in our humanness,
We are constantly living a lie,
In service to an illusion that we are terrified of losing.
And,
In a manner of speaking,
This has a disastrous consequence.
On what you might call your soul,
Or the heart of what you are,
Or your spirit,
Whatever you want to name it.
It effectively brings you out of alignment with the truth of your nature.
And that hurts.
In effect,
That's what suffering is.
Yet,
In the very same way,
As it relates to simply being honest,
You can see how scary it is to be honest sometimes.
And the same terror will show itself related to seeing the truth of life and surrendering your illusions.
Which is why it makes perfect sense people are so afraid of being honest.
People run away from it their whole lives.
It can be terrifying.
In the same way,
The truth will destroy a lie.
And if you're holding on to that lie,
The truth is a very scary place.
Which,
You know,
As a way of illustrating,
We can say that if your life is made up of thinking,
Then being invited to be still is a very scary thing.
But the beauty in all of this is,
The thing you're afraid of is simply a misunderstanding of the truth.
Right?
Like in our very real human experiences of being terrified of telling the truth,
After you tell the truth,
You see that,
Oh,
I'm actually okay.
Oh,
Actually,
This is best.
I was scared.
But once you pass through that fire,
You see that you didn't need to be scared.
It's the same as it relates to these spiritual matters.
Oh,
I'm so terrified of letting go.
I don't know what's going to happen.
And then once you let go,
You say,
Oh,
Why did I wait so long?
Everything's fine.
Same with all of these spiritual qualities,
Like forgiveness.
We resist and we resent for days,
Months,
Years,
Decades,
Only to finally,
Let's say,
Allow the truth to be seen and take a big exhale of forgiveness.
And we feel so much better.
Why did I wait so long?
Because I was scared to let go.
Hey,
Thanks for listening.
If you're ready,
Or almost ready,
To embody these discoveries in everyday life,
Then check out my profile for upcoming retreats,
Live broadcasts,
Courses,
And other opportunities to open up,
Fear less,
And love more.
Your life is sacred.
Don't waste it hiding behind an adorable,
But imaginary fear.
It's time.
To show up.
