Looking Within to See the Light

Despite what you may believe you are perfect just as you are.

What is it that influences the way we relate to ourselves?  Understanding this is vital to creating harmony and peace.  I am not saying we need to be questioning ourselves constantly, but it is important to periodically check in with ourselves and draw our awareness inward.  Without bringing awareness to the seemingly automatic sub-conscious mind we may never realize the perfection of who and what we are.

Are we conscious of what is affecting our mood and our worldview?

Could it be that the accumulation of all past experience strongly influences the way we experience life?  I am not saying that we are not unique and in some way untainted by the past, we are, but how strongly does the past presently exist within you?

Understanding the past and how it affects our perception is key to understanding how we feel and experience life.  When we witness how our relation to the past influences our reality we become aware of our selves in a profound way.  This is the art of self-meditation.

When we give ourselves time to be inwardly aware we start the process of transcending old patterns and belief structures that no longer serve us.

How do we come to understand what it is that holds us ignorant to our perfection?  What is that we should look into?  

We need to look inside and question?

Does our way of thinking enable us to be inwardly aware and sensitive to ourselves?

Does our way of thinking allow us to see each other as we are or do our thought structures create a reality before us that is based in some pre-conceived notion?  If so, does this limit our ability to see things as they are and be grounded in this moment?

If a life goal of yours is to be at peace with yourself it is important that you start to assess these questions.  I myself must do this on a regular basis.  If I do not the past with all of the ingrained modes of discrimination begin to shape my perception of not only the world around me, but also, and more importantly, of myself.  If I do not allow myself to be aware of how I think or behave I default to a way of relating to people or things that is comes up from my past.  In these instances I act on thought forms that are not really my own [because I learned them from others, mainly those who raised me] and I mentally laminate them on to others and other things to witness.  Yet I realize that I do not want to live through the filter of thought forms that are rooted in the past.  Ultimately, I will not find my peace this way.

When we perceive things as they are in their purest form we witness things without definition.  Words and concepts may help us navigate life, but they only do so in the relative sense and not in the ultimate sense.  The ultimate acknowledgment is that life is boundless and cannot be deified.  You yourself cannot be defined and you are amazing beyond any belief or thought you have about yourself.

This realization occurs in the moment when we inwardly witness that we are perfect even with our "self-perceived faults".  We are often hard on ourselves for not being what we think we should be.  But witness...that this is just a thought and not the actual reality as it is.

The thing is, only when we do accept ourselves for who we are, faults and all, do we begin to transcend that which holds us back in self-judgment.  Your "faults" are as perfect as you are.  Without them you would not know which way to grow.  Therefore, be humbly aware of how you relate to the present moment and forgive whatever it may be that holds you in a pattern of being ignorant to your perfection.

To Live in Faith or to Live in Fear...That is The Question

"Every missed step is a step closer...there are no mistakes"

Moving cross country has humbled and challenged me in a way I never would have imagined.  Being in a place where you have nothing to relate to strips you to your rawest core.  In the absence of the aspects of life that once gave me comfort I am forced to confront everything that I feel about myself.  I am beginning to witness that as I seek to see things about my old environment in my new environment what I am actually doing is seeking some sort of comfort or security tied the past.  Thus, to some degree, I am rejecting the present moment.

When I lived in New York everything was familiar to me.  Every street, every skyline, every person seemed familiar to me, even if I did not know them.  I was apart of the community.  For heavens sakes I had grown up there, my family and friends were there.  I felt rooted in the knowing of familiarity.  Yet here now, in the absence of everything I know I am forced to deal with myself in the absence of all of those psychological comforts.  It is humbling to witness how engrained thoughts, thoughts that I believed supported me and gave me a sense of self-worth, are actually debilitating me in this new experience.

My ego is scrambling to find some sense of familiarity.  It is producing all these sorts of automatic thoughts within me in attempts to create the situation it was used to.  In a way my ego wants me to be miserable here so that the ego can find itself back in New York where it believes all is familiar and comfortable.  But oh, how little does my ego want to remember how unsatisfied I was in New York.  And how short sighted is my ego when it feels it wants to recreate the past, something that is known and familiar, to satiate its desire for comfort.

The ego wants so much, but what it wants more than anything is a re-creation of the past.  It knows that in the past it existed, and in my case I existed without much trouble.  It seems as if the ego has created this sort of addiction within me to make sure that I know that "everything will be fine."  Yet, in the present moment, the only one true moment, "fine" becomes an experience, not something to psychologically hold onto.  Maybe if I can get out of my head I can realize that everything is fine no matter where I am or what is going on.  My higher self knows that it does not need any re-creation of the past in order to feel safe.  Peace and contentment are here now...if I can only get out of my way and fully surrender to this moment without hoping for something contrary to what is happening all around me.

I now know that I came to a new place to confront everything within me that has been hidden from me.  In moving here it was not my conscious intention to go through this process, but I believe the universe and my higher self knew this all along.  This is my faith talking.  And although it may feel as if I have taken steps backward, because not everything is all peaches and happiness, I know that I have taken the right steps.  Because from here I am forced to deal with myself in a way that I never would have been able to in New York, where everything was "known."

In actuality nothing was ever "known" in New York.  That was the illusion that temporality placated the ego while a deepening sense of dissatisfaction was brewing with me.  This deep sense of dissatisfaction arouse out of the sense that my immersion into the known, into the familiar, and into the perception of what I thought I was all about actually pushed me further and further away from my real self.

I still know I have a lot to experience and learn here.  A lot to witness within myself and a lot to shed...but one thing that is helping me deal with uneasy emotions is to ask myself ..."does this feeling arise from spirit...the aspect of self that will propel me to contentment and self-knowledge, or does this feeling arise from the ego...the sense of self that wants what is actually not present?  This is a very humbling question for me because I realize that I am not as "evolved" as I thought I may have been.  In this relative world I then praise myself for being humble and for feeling what may not feel so good.

The more I reject this present moment the more misery I create within myself.  The more I step into the now the more liberated and content I become.  So I must choose...and remind myself...that no matter where I am, all is in right order...

So the next step is simple...yet not so easy... How will I create this moment of now?  Will I choose to live in faith and know that all that is before me is in perfect order, blessing me with the experiences that will enhance my growth as a person...

OR

Will I live in fear in the debilitating effort to defend myself from a life that I feel has not been fair to me...


The latter has us chasing the illusion we create in our minds while the former grounds us in the only thing that is real...the divine beauty of the now...

The power to choose is mine [as well as yours]...

Knowing Yourself

To live completely, wholly, every day as if it were a new loveliness, there must be dying to everything of yesterday, otherwise you live mechanically, and a mechanical mind can never know what love is or what freedom is.  - Krishnamurti

It seems to me that we come to know each other only in reflection to the experiences we have with people, places, and things.  It would then seem plausible to think that we may come to know ourselves in a habitual manor when the people, places, and things of our lives become customary.  But what happens when everything around us changes?  What happens when we no longer witness our reflection the same way?  This begs the question, can we ever truly understand ourselves?

I have not yet reached my final destination and settled into my new home on the west coast, but as I find my self here in Texas, witnessing my emersion into new people and experiences, I feel as if it may have been possible that I really never understood my self.  What I mean to say is that while I was in New York and everything was customary I became tied to the definitions I held and thoughts I had about myself.  In a static environment this happens to us all.

So what do I mean by understanding myself?  Well let me first clarify.  I do feel that there is always a timeless aspect to all of us that transcends all the self declarations of who we think we are.  This is the knower from within that guides us and pushes us to develop our innate skills, but witnessing this aspect of ourself does not mean that we understand ourselves.  For example, you may be a great cook, but that does not define your existence.  Cooking is an act.  Not something definite. because the act is always changing and evolving.  Just like the fact that tomorrow is always a mystery so too is the person we are developing into.  And it seems that this absolute sense of self is as transitory and mysterious as the future.

Our fears typically revolve around the unknowable and it seems that what causes us our greatest anxiety is change.  But change on the exterior of our lives is necessary in order for us to come to witness different aspects of who we are.  I am not saying I do not fear change, but in spite of it I must face it in order to grow.  I feel that we can all relate to this principle.  This is the space where liberation occurs and peace is found.  In letting go and letting change occur naturally.

So if we become liberated by facing change head on without fear we loose the identifications we have built up about ourselves because we no longer resist what is occurring even in spite that it may run counter to what we wish to experience or what we think we should be experience.  This becomes a peaceful experience when we no longer define ourselves with the thoughts we have about ourselves.  So when you feel like you no longer understand yourself, do not become confused, you are moving closer to understanding your true nature as the timeless and undefinable creature that you are.

This is a life long process that has no end, but liberation is not an end, it is a journey.  So understanding yourself becomes as mysterious and divine as life itself.  This is the beauty of life and the eternal experience that creation has set up before us.  This is why the healers talk about letting go.  New experiences and challenges help you do just that.  So why not take the internal road less traveled and push your boundaries?  You have your whole life to do it.  And you have your whole life to die to your yesterdays and live anew today.  This is more refreshing than you may have imagined.


Image created by Willow Arlenea: The Visionary Art of Willow Arlenea

I Found Myself in Everything

By Rachel Durling


In this age where knowledge is praised ignorance is frowned upon.  Yet ignorance is often essential in order to have a completely pure experience in this world.  It may sound paradoxical, but sometimes greater self awareness can only come by yielding ourselves to non-awareness.  When we have an idea of ¨who we are,¨ or go on a quest to find that person, we create duality.  In defining ourselves we separate ourselves from the core of existence, and as a result we are denied the joy, liberation, and free falling love that submission to that pure existence grants us.

A newborn baby`s eyes are clear, wide, and sparkle with wonder.  Instead of observing this and concluding that it`s something unique to babies and young children why don`t we ask ourselves, what is it about the way they are experiencing the world that makes them shimmer?  We were all babies at one point – we all know how to glow.  In most adults we see that the light has dimmed.  Is this because we have forgotten something, or could it be that we have learned too much?  

Very young children radically accept everything they encounter because they have no basis of comparison.  Children do not yet rationalize their experiences and so they bumble through this rough and tough and beautiful land like mini-Magellans…endlessly testing their minds and bodies with trust and amazement.  They never stop exploring and the greatest gift they don't know they have is that of ignorance.  The simple fact that they don't yet define these things as 'minds' and 'bodies' grants them the freedom to use them in their own terms.

When we become self aware we are met with a huge challenge; to observe our thoughts, actions, and interactions with the purpose of learning and advancing in our personal and spiritual growth while not identifying with these things.  The moment we identify ourselves as anything; a wife, a businessman, an artist, a yoga teacher, a father, a writer, etc, we contaminate ourselves with expectations.  When we free ourselves of the notion that these labels have anything to do with who we are we become more apt to connect with our own true nature and that of the things and people which surround us. This goes as far as liberating ourselves of the pressure that accompanies the anticipation of the outcome of our work and our creations.  In everything we do we must add a touch of ignorance, as if we have never done it before in order to live the experience in its entirety.  

Since a truly unique creation is born in the exact moment of execution, we never really have done it before, have we?

There is so much life that passes our periphery, beauty lost to our awareness, because we have drawn borders around ourselves.  What if we were nothing?  We would still exist, so would that in turn make us everything?  We did not come into this world incomplete.  Self awareness is something that is learned, so we know that without it, we are still complete.

An animal in the wild is not bound by a sense of self and so is free to be exactly what it is.  While hiking through the Bolivian Amazon I encountered a group of wild monkeys calling to each other and swinging through the trees.  The sound of their call shattered all barriers between me and pure existence and I stood in frozen amazement, tears streaming down my cheeks.  It was something that I can not recall ever experiencing, and realized that what had happened was that by observing other beings living in this state of consciousness I was transported back to my birth, to that innocence that allows us to experience everything in its entirety, in the exact moment, as it is.  

This state of consciousness also liberated me from all fear.  I had no fear of death because I did not even identify with my life, rather, there was just life all around me, and I was that life in itself.  I did not identify with my body, so I had no fear of losing it.  I did not identify with my memories, thoughts, and feelings, so I had no fear of losing the ones I love.  This does not imply an indifference to those things.  On the contrary, it brought me closer to everything and everyone I care about.  The monkeys were a bridge.  A bridge is a thing unique in its form, but it is also something that unites one side with another.  So, the monkeys were a bridge that connected me with their state of consciousness, and in my connection with that, I was part of them as well.  

I lost myself to me, and found myself in everything.

By stepping out of ourselves we step into another, and then another, and into an untamed, fresh, world united.  Forget about who you are and relax into the bliss of being, and you will experience this world as the jungle child. Innocent. Free. Wild.


About the author: Rachel is one of my dearest friends. We met in college almost a decade ago. Her perspective and passion for life connected us from the very beginning. Since our college days Rachel has challenged herself by taking the path less traveled. After spending a few years on the west coast she moved south and has been spending the last 4 years of her life in both Central and South America. As a dancer, artist, yogi, writer, and musician she beautifies any environment she finds herself in. Thank you Rachel for your sincere friendship.

Moving Past Uncertainty

As of lately, the realization of the responsibilities that lay before me has stirred up some fear within me.  I worry about how my arrival in the bay area will be.  I do not have a job lined up and I know very few people there.  My companion, my girlfriend, is in the same situation. I am grateful for our partnership as we take on this endeavor, both together as a couple and as individuals.  Still, at times, I feel anxious, uncertain, and I wish I knew how it will all unfold.

In times like these I need to remind myself of why I am doing this.  I ask myself, "what does it feel like when I think of not taking this opportunity and just staying in New York?"  Upon observation...I just begin to feel uncomfortable.

My higher self knows that everything is in its right place.  This inner acknowledgment is what I am holding onto to sustain my courage.  I feel passionate that the move will influence my development and help me grow.  I also feel like I have nothing to lose.  And as some of my teachers remind me, the world does not have to be a scary place.

I am also, at times, finally feeling what it is like to let go of all the worry.  Preparing myself for this move has taught me this in a unique way.  There is a part of me that is feeling confident that everything will happen peacefully and naturally.

------------------ 

Challenging ourselves pushes us to redefine ourselves.  In these bold pursuits we are pushed to broaden our emotional understanding of life and of ourselves.  To me this is the most important process of my life.  I feel that this process helps me understand not only myself more, but existence itself.

When we feel uncertain about a particular situation try to remind yourself of what brings you passion.  When feeling lost seek to reinvigorate yourself by following the hero within that challenges you to take the high road.  Allow what brings you passion to dictate the course of your life.  There of course will be challenges along the way, but these are the experiences that push you to expand the understanding you have about yourself.

Maybe you cannot understand what it is that you are passionate about?  This itself is part of the journey.  If you always knew everything about the direction of your life path you would not have to go through the inner work that helps you navigate this path.  You may have an inclination about what may interest you, but without getting involved and acting upon this inclination you will never truly know.

To know what you want out your life you have to be brave by doing things that are completely new to you and to get involved with new people.  You may never know exactly what you want in the abstraction of the future, but I do bet there is a feeling within that knows exactly how you feel about the current situation.  Assessing your feelings in this moment will bring you into your awareness.  And only in awareness can the next big revelation begin to unravel.

Whether we decide to control of the process or not, we all project what we feel into our intentions in a way that influences the manifestation of our reality. 

Moving West

Cleaning out and preparing for a big move can be an emotional experience.  The objects that I feel connected to contain the story of my past.  And in 18 days I take only a very small sliver of my past with me.  Too much baggage will make the path more labored and tiresome.  It is time to accept the fact that I must create a new life for myself in a place I felt connected to since I first visited.

As sad as it has been for me to go through all the old material I know that whatever is going to come out of this move is necessary. Come May 20^th, the morning after my brother and his fiancé’s engagement party, I say goodbye …yet the fire of excitement that has been growing within me gives me the courage to keep the faith and get on with it.

As of last week I resigned from my job, tuned up my car, and made my reservations.  A man I had yet to meet has cashed my check and sent me the keys to his apartment, my 2-month sublet, in Berkeley California.  I can’t wait to drive this great country again!  I guess the third time is truly a charm.

I do get nervous at times when my fear triumphs my faith, but I must say there is something about all this uncertainty that makes me feel liberated.  Yet before I do get to ahead of myself I feel it is important for me to honor the past so that I know in my heart where I am coming from and and what I am leaving behind.

Looking back through all the photographs, reading all the journal entries, and taking heartfelt note of all of those amazing people who have come into my life makes me realize that life is extremely precious and that I have been blessed. The love I have taken part in, with all of my family, friends, and lovers, has helped me come to love and understand the hardest person there is to know, myself.  So to all of those whom I may be leaving behind, you will always be with me.

Journeying forward now into the next chapter of my life!

The Archaic Revival: Evolving through the Survivalist Mentality to the Unity Mentality

For the sake of our own collective survival let us all give our full attention to the following questions:  Is it possible to thrive in this survivalist society, where one most become ambitions and competitive, where one is trying to out do the next person all to secure what they fear they cannot do without?  Or can we begin to feel how much more harmonious and productive we could be, how much more peaceful we could be, if we secured the needs of the community first as opposed to securing what we need as individuals?  I am definitely not talking about communism and I am not talking about any type of government intervention either.

When we, as a human society, come to know what trust is to its highest degree, we will no longer need governments dictating the way society operates.  Essentially the concept of property rights, the imaginary lines we place around each other to separate one another, is an example of how we do not trust each other.  But trust is the backbone to the social evolution needed to create harmony on this planet.  If we trust each other we will develop a society from that trust.

The number of people who want to build a more harmonious society with each other and with the Earth is growing.  But only when the majority of people see that humanity is one organism will we move closer to thriving on this planet.

Observe and question the main stream avenues of social influence.  Observe the main stream media, observe government, observe religion, and observe big business.  Do these institutions disseminate views and objectives that support unity and harmony or do they keep the illusion alive that we, above anything else, are different and separate from each other?

Be observant as to what you watch and listen to, your mind is registering everything, even those things which it can not readily discern.  Be careful to see that maybe the major avenues of social dissemination are subliminally telling you that you are an individual who is not good enough, not pretty enough, not strong enough, and not rich enough to be labeled a "success."  What is a success anyway?  Is something a success when it proves that you are "better" than another person at something?  What was that magazine trying to tell you about beauty and how you relate to it, what is the hollywood star telling you about how wonderful it is to be rich, popular, and influential?  Are these people really better than you?  Better yet, are these people fundamentally different than you?

There is no such thing as "better" only as far as you believe something or someone can be better.  Do you fear you must be better than someone else in order to secure your piece of the pie?  Is there not something fundamentally wrong with this way of life?

How are we to move from the survivalist mentality that has us competing against each other in a race to the bottom of consuming Earth's last resources to a more harmonious society that thrives and allows the Earth to function optimally?

I will leave you with one hint...in nomadic tribes there is no mental illness, rape, or hideous activity.  People depend upon each other because they know that even in their individuality they are a part of a greater functioning organism...the clan...Their individual survival is dependent upon the collection intentions of the group.

Yes, we live alone in our apartments and homes.  Yes, we commute alone.  Yes, we eat alone.  But aren't we just a clan inhabiting this planet?  We are humanity.  And only when we act to bolster and support each other will come to thrive on this planet.  Until then our fearful and individualistic nature will have us consuming the remaining resources of the Earth in pursuit of securing this resource for that country or this resource for that person.  What humanity needs now more than ever is an a archaic revival.  We will thrive upon this planet when we combine the ingenuity of the technological era with the intuitive knowing of the eras past that had us knowing without question...that we are one.

The Simple Things

The last six months I have been working in a group home for developmentally disabled adults.  This job has had a tremendous impact on me.  I have been through some very tough challenges.  Yet I have learned so much about life by observing the joy that these folks take in the simple things.  For example, just last night one of my favorite residents waved goodbye and blew a goodnight kiss to the basketball hoop in the backyard.  Despite his inability to walk on his own he nonetheless feels alive and powerful when we shoot hoops together.

I have been working in this house 32 hrs every week.  There are six full time residents in their late twenties to late thirties.  They display a wide range of diagnosis.  Some are severely mentally retarded, some have profound autistic tendencies, and one person, on top of being mentally retarded has the physical limitations that come with having cerebral palsy.

Simply put, these guys, at times of course, are some of the most grateful human beings I have ever come across.  They absorb themselves in the simple things that bring them joy.  While we tend to over complicate our lives with things that usually do not have much importance we tend to miss out on the profoundness that comes with fully enjoying the simple things in life.  I do not attribute their "absorption into the simple things" as being part of their condition, but rather I see it as their innate ability to be fully present in each moment [even if they cannot reflect on the situation the way you or I can]. 

Could you imagine being completely content by staring out the window for hours and hours, watching the cars go by, or by making a basketball shot, or by simply taking a car ride to put gas in the house van?  Believe me, these guys are no angels.  They get in fights with each other, they at times become defiant in response to staff recommendations, and they have me cleaning up things that you would rather me not talk about.  But here me out when I say this; I believe these guys are brave spirits that have walked into this life with these severe limitations to experience a life of profound challenge thus automatically enhancing their rapid self evolution. 

Imagine how much you would grow if you were "forced" to make peace with life if you couldn't even speak normally [even if you knew exactly what was going on around you], or if you couldn't walk without the assistance of a staff member while all that you wanted to do was be an independent and self-sufficient man, or if you had to have someone wipe your butt because you could not do it on your own?

In a bittersweet moment this weekend I gave the house manager my resignation letter.  In 4 weeks I leave New York in search for a new life in Berkeley California.  But now I will take a sense of perspective and gratefulness that I could have only acquired though living with these brave individuals.  Throughout my time working in this house as a direct care counselor I have learned to be grateful for the amazing abilities life has granted me with.  I can see!  I can walk!  I can think!  And oh yes, I can wipe my own butt!  Oh the simple yet profound joy of being able to roam this beautiful world...and to take in the sights and sounds of this amazing life....

Joy is as simple as that; Perceptual absorption, a moment to moment awareness, on the what is that is occurring all around you.  This could be the most joyful and liberating experience any person could ever have.  I have to thank these brave spirits for teaching me this in a whole new light.

The Role of Relationship

The reward of any successful relationship is the experience of love, joy, trust and comfort, but the greatest reward is the experience of coming to know yourself in a whole new light.  Think of relationships as reflective mirrors into your own self awareness.

Wether we become aware of it or not, intimate relationships give us the ability to understand ourselves in a deeper way, in a way that accentuates our current self understanding.  But keep in mind: a successful relationship requires a focused attention within and the willingness to be humble during the times that challenge your perspective.

I was having a discussion with my girlfriend about something that reflects this process.  She stated that "each and every person understands and experiences you in a different way, so therefore there no definite version of who you are."  This got me really thinking.  My first thought, a defensive one at that, was that maybe people just do not fully understand who we are and that their different experiences of who we are cannot touch the absoluteness of who we are.  Yet, in the awareness of my reactive defiance I attempted to see that I often become reactive and defensive when my girlfriend's perspective challenges my world view.  This is what I mean that relationships can become mirrors into our own self awareness.

[*All relationships offer this gift, even relationships to non-persons {for everything is in constant relationship}, but I believe that within the context of an intimate relationship the reflective mirror becomes potent, because a successful relationships requires that we become vulnerable to a degree that no other relationship requires.  Thus our emotional body is most highly sensitive within this type of relationship].

As our conversation continued, I wanted hold onto the notion that I already knew myself and that others just could not understand me in the way I know myself.  But then I realized I needed to humble myself with the same type of medicinal perspective that I write about in these posts...

Yes, I may declare to have a solid defined existence within my own self understanding, but can I really know exactly who I am?  Could the very declaration of "knowing who I am" keep me within this definition and thus keep me from experiencing myself in the realm of deep experiential understanding?  Could this declaration of "knowing myself" only stagnate my own personal evolution?

In my humbleness I stated back to her, "maybe you are right, but what is it that unites people in intimate relationship if everyone you know knows you differently and thus could bring you something unique and different?"  She wisely stated, as she always does, that "you stay with that person because they not only push you to become a better you, but you enjoy those aspects of yourself that become illuminated throughout the course of the relationship.  You enjoy the person you grow into with the aid of that partnership."  I smiled, and in that moment I realized that maybe I have been unconsciously holding onto ideas about myself that I have attached to as opposed to letting life evolve through me.

If you do not believe your relationship is pushing you to grow into the person you want to be, into the person you want to come to know and experience, than I suggest you look deeply into this.  What is going on within you and within the relationship that is stagnating your own evolution?  Maybe your own psychological defenses are disabling you and your partner from seeing how the two of you make each other better people.  We all become defensive from time to time.  I know I do this at times.

Maybe we don't have all the answers, maybe we will never know exactly who we are, but maybe there is someone out there who cares to come to know and experience who you are beyond all the ideas you have about yourself.  Maybe there is someone who simply wants to be with you because of how you make them feel, not because of "who you are" [who you think you are].   If you are currently with someone who pushes you to become a better person, who pushes you to go beyond your fears, and who feels and appreciates the greatness that you are [and are perpetually evolving into], be bold, and tell them you love them...if you don't feel love this person, I suggest you look within.  Something may be blocking you from feeling this love, the love that is inherently there.

We need to be humble to realize how another makes us better because in this understanding we need to see ourselves for what we really are...as a person that still needs to evolve...  This is the path of life.  Realize that any defensiveness that may arise does so because we unconsciously believe that there is nothing about us that needs to change.  Remember, the path is all about changing and evolving. This is how nature works, and you my friend, are as natural and pristine as mother nature herself.

Desiring Something New

There comes a time in one's life when the same patterns of your life simply make you feel dull.  A feeling brews within you that seems to drag on and everyday seems to be as repetitive as the last.  The cast and crew of your life revolves, but the feeling within you stays the same.  The same struggles, the same strife, the same internal response.  Do you yearn to be free from the monotony of every day living?

You may want to escape into some new endeavor.  Yet, regardless of what you are doing on the outside of your life you can truly never run away from yourself.  No matter where you are you will always be here, within yourself.  The feeling of you will always sit within you.

Although I believe that a new relationship, a new location, a new job, or a new hobby could reinvigorate life, the same sense of dullness becomes of us when our new endeavors become ritualistic.  So then how do we create our lives without the need to appease compulsory ritual?  For me, even writing this blog at times becomes ritualistic and dull.   So I must look within, I must challenge myself...how do I write new material if I myself do not become "new?"  The artist, the musician, the  homemaker, the builder, etc., only come to reinvent their work, their creations, when they themselves change on the inside.

Do you want to live day after day distracting yourself from that dull feeling within that screams..."I need something different!?"

It seems that there must come a time when you must seek something extraordinarily new.  To reinvigorate your life you must challenge yourself.  The challenge is beneficial to you because it teaches you to expand the boundaries of who you thought you were and what you thought you could handle.  This challenge does not require that you change something about your life, but it asks that you change the way you relate to yourself and to the things you do in relation to this inner feeling of who you are.

Doing something new may indeed force you to grow and reinvent yourself...but watch that these new endeavors do not become your escapes.  Identifying yourself within one particular change will keep you stuck in that change and block you from knowing more about yourself [the act of evolving]. Ground yourself in knowing that life presents you with opportunities to grow and that these growth periods happen within cycles. You will know when a cycle is complete, but it is up to you to intend for something that builds on these cycles as opposed to identifying with the changes that occur within that cycle.

A refreshing internal awakening comes about by pushing ourselves into something new, something that builds upon the foundations of who you are and who you continue to become.  Life is a perpetual practice of becoming...within the cycles we become, we grow, and we come to know and feel this growth.  So to finnish a particular life cycle we challenge ourselves by letting go of what we became and we consciously move into something new.  This is the art of living in the now.  Flowing...

Of course life from time to time can feel boring.  This is only natural.  But take time to reflect on this.  Seek what it is that is making you feel stagnant.  This is your inner self saying that a change is necessary, but do not force this change, allow it to flow into your life naturally.  Patience helps it all develop.  Look for the signs and signals that direct you to the next step along the path...

If you feel your life lacks purpose then question that possibility that the reason is your intentions are not pushing you to evolve.   How do you choose to live?  It is the toughest question anyone could impose upon themselves. Personal evolution is a subjective experience so I cannot tell you how you can change or what you should do.  What I can say though is that if you feel dullness, if you feel stagnant, it is time to do something about it.

Before you go on and make changes on the outside of your life seek what it is within you that desires change.  Sit with it.  Be patient.  Make changes with the awareness of knowing that you desire to experience a new aspect of yourself.  Consciously direct this.  This will enable you to come across something truly new and exciting.  This is how you move into deeper elements of who you are.

I am not going to sit here and profess how exciting and invigorating my life is, it is boring at times just like yours, maybe more so now than ever.  But what I will attempt to do for myself now in this moment of restlessness is attempt to become still and to let new intentions come into me as opposed to forcing it.

If you are feeling restless, bored, and the rest of it...give yourself space to be still and to become aware of what it is that is brewing within you.  Move towards whatever feels light and right.  Discover clarity through sensation.  Bodily awareness is a source of knowledge and insight in and of itself.  Could understanding yourself through your body evolve how you live within your environment?  Could understanding yourself this way direct you into something new?  Would you change your approach to life?

This is your journey and only you will both direct and witness as to how your life proceeds....But why not go forth with the yearning to know what it is that you want at the deepest level of your soul.  Why not move into that...