Will you walk a little further?

It isn't what you do. It isn't even how you do it. It is who you are. And you are becoming who you are. And how, exactly, does that happen? You come to realise who you are, and as you realise who you are, you come to experience it. There is no other way.
This is the way. This is life. And you are walking it. So come, walk a little further and experience even more of what you already know to be true. This is the place to be. How else would you have it?

Who are you, baby?

"I think therefore I am", said the much-admired French thinker Rene Descartes. But he could have said "I feel therefore I am", and avoided narrowing the focus of fellow philosophers ever since.
At the risk of sounding like a mystic, he could have simply saying that "I am", without focusing on any one particular sense. That would have been enough.
Or even more illuminating by remarking that "I notice that there is a thought and a thinker who is having the thought" and he could have got game set and match if he had noticed that there is not only a thought and a thoughtholder but there is also someone or something who is noticing the process. That's you, baby.

Purposefully on purpose

You cannot help yourself: you are born into this, you fly through it, and then it is no more; or rather you are no more in it. Actually, it carries on very nicely, so where are you?
Rejoicing in your temporary sojourn, gnashing your teeth that it is all so brief, or avoiding the question. But you know, you have to face it sooner or later; the here and why question, for without purpose there is only happenstance. Would you want to leave it until the last minute to discover what it was that you are here for?
A whole life lived off purpose is not so easy to explain. Or maybe you are hoping there will be no need to explain anything. Just banking on oblivion. But if you did live your life on purpose, what purpose would that be?
There's a time to live and a time to die, and this is the time to live.

The myths of your life

You are imagining all kinds of things: Telling yourself your story and then living it out. But it's hard to change the story, and anyway it's quite nice the way that it is. In my story, I am fighting demons only to discover they aren't really there. Then imagining they are within and saying hello to them here. In time, discovering they weren't really here either; just figments.
But it's hard not to be sucked back into the story, and even when you escape from one, there's another bigger story. In my bigger story, I am a Knight riding to the rescue of something. If there were no story, what would there be? Just what is: no interpretation, like the purest ice-cream with nothing added. Just a space to be glorious. For now, we are living the myth.
In my story, I am fighting demons only to discover that they aren't really there. Then imagining they are within and saying hello to them here. In time, discovering they weren't ...

The riddle of life and death

You cannot have life without death and you cannot have death without life. Destruction begets creation and creation begets destruction.
Each cell's death precedes another's birth, each new thought ushers out an old one, and each life has a beginning and an end.
With change there is death. Without change there is no life. For life is change. And therefore, life is death.
Yet, and yet, throughout all of this, as you pass through every fire, is you, glorious you. Thoughts come and go, your cells are born and die again and again, and yet you are, the core of you is. Mind changes, body dies, sprit remains, constantly recreating.
Of course everything changes, and the part of you that is changing is constantly being born and dying, but you bestride like a collosus.

Whole lotta soul

What is the soul? And can you encounter it? Let's proceed from what we know to what we are about to discover.
The part of you that you encounter in this life is a constant vortex of change, a shimmering shard of consciousness gliding through the world. At any moment in time it exhibits only some aspects of you.
Even looking at this life as a whole, it still manifests only a part of the totality that is you. However big you are currently being, you are only being a slice of the bigger cake.
You may regard the soul as being that part of you that has not incarnated into this life, or for that matter into any other life. It stands above the you who you are routinely experiencing. It knows you in this life, it knows you always. Now, here's the thing: you can get to know it. It's ready, what has to be present for you to be ready? And that's OK.

Life's a gift. Then you live

Another extraordinary year and more. So far as I know, I did not create the year, for I did not even create this life, which makes it a gift, and I am the receiver. Boy, am I grateful, for it has been great.
And you know what? Another one has started. A big, hunkering 2010 is approaching, and I sense it could be amazing, even more than this one. Wouldn't that be glorious?
It's taking shape already.As receivers of all of this gloriousness, how can we not live up to it, by giving, giving, giving. What else to do with it all? Keeping it is obviously impossible. Time is forever slipping through our fingers. Nothing can be held in this space. Give everything before it is snatched from you.
All one can do is love every moment. Love it and let it go in this dynamic, supercharged, light-electric world.

Oooh, it's alive

It really feels like the whole thing is alive. Not just every thing that surrounds us but the whole darn thing. One life surging around us. One life inside us.
A part of the whole discovering that it is not apart at all; nor even really a part; it never was. But separation had its own delectable joy and sorrow: The ups and downs of an exciting if not quite sustainable separation. So much drama along the way. It's fun making this up.

Objectifying the Self

What if you just feel good anyway? Suppose you can call up any negative feelings that you may have picked up along the way, and thank them! And as you thank them for having been there, you notice you feel good because you are experiencing thankfulness, the elixir of happiness. The negativity that you thought was in a negative feeling only existed in your response to it.
Now the negative feeling has apparently lost its power, because you - the subject in this little drama - have, as it were, objectified it. And as you objectify everything, mind, body and even spirit, you gain an awesome freedom to feel fabulous.
You are no longer wedded to who you thought you were, because you are discovering a little more of who you really are. It's enough to be, enough already.

Ready, steady, here

What if you were absolutely and completely and divinely protected every step of the way. If all of your life you were learning to make this faith walk, until you could make it effortlessly, for it is effortless.
Everything else requires effort: seeking and striving. Trusting requires just a little attunement. Surrendering to the moment is so easy that it can seem unreachable.
Viewed from a trusting perspective, life is soooo easy. Reach into the knowing. It's coming for you as soon as you are ready. Ready, steady, here.

There's something about leaders

Leaders stand for ... what was it? There's something about leaders. You may not know where you are, but you sense they know where they are.
And that is because they are deeply connected with the world around them. They sense the world's sufficiency and its insufficiency, and they respond.
You may not know where you are going, but you sense that they know where they are going. Whether or not they have made it known, you sense that they have a purpose. Otherwise, why would you follow a purposeless person, even or a moment?
And whether or not it is yet known by a soul, they know that there is a way. How do they know? Because there is always a way. There are as many ways as there are moments, and there is an infinity of those.

This and thatness

The Hindu sages have a saying: "I am that, you are that, this is that, and that is all there is". That's true as far as thatness goes, and it helps to understand that there is only one soup, and we are all in it.
However, as well as that - the object - there is this - the subject that is viewing the object. Philosophically speaking, we have the seer and the seen, or if you like, the seer, the seen and the process of seeing. In Christian terms, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
How can you apply this in the moment? When you see your hand, who do you sense yourself to be: the hand, the observer of the hand, the process? You can see yourself as the seer - this - and soften your attachment to the unseen, as you unclench your hand. Whatever you can see is not you. As the unseen seer, and with the greatest of respect to the Hindu sages, we could assert that: really, there is only this.

Loving the one who needs it most

How do you see yourself? You can love or not love the self that you see; your self-image.
But what if you are not the self that you see? What if, instead, you are the seer of the self. Now you can view that self-image and give it what it needs, which is usually love.
So when you aren't feeling good about your self-image, don't try to change it! Don't even try to change how you feel about it. Focus instead on your real self, the part of you that is beyond the ups and downs of the world.
And so the soul comes to love the ego: the human condition; a perfect marriage.