Commentaries and Perspectives, practical and personal insights on living a spiritual life in a physical world.

The life we're living here is very short. It's meant to be enjoyed. You can choose otherwise, but I will argue against that, and try to convince you to take the brighter road. Once you've really found it, you won't want to be anywhere else.

We human beings tend to choose a path for ourselves that somebody else has recommended, usually one that has been successful or profitable for them, or perhaps one they have taken because of tradition or obligation. We want success and prosperity, but we want to be happy doing something we enjoy. So off we go. Running, jumping, stumbling, dancing.

Sometimes we choose our way of being, habits, or actions for the worst of all possible reasons: because "Everybody does it." Like running stop signs, running red lights or gunning the accelerator at the yellow (which is the signal to slow down..) That's how it begins. But when we sell out our integrity in little things, other things are bound to follow.

Whatever path we take will always lead to another, and another, and another. But where you go is never as important as how you go. You have not only the right but also the responsibility to choose for yourself the paths that are true and joyful. If you want real success in life, Go honestly and joyfully as much as you possibly can.

If something is habitually troubling you, whether it's a hurt or sadness, disappointment, resentment, anger, or a need for perfection (from yourself or anyone else) give it up and let it go. If you don't, it will certainly eat like acid through your mind, your spirit, and eventually through your body. It will internalize and damage you from the inside out. Heart attacks, strokes, and cancer all are outer manifestations of inner anguish and stress.

Either you will internalize your negative emotions and hurt yourself, or they will externalize in fear, resentment, hatred, violence, murder, or destruction toward anything you perceive as "other." ALL of the violence in our world is rooted in fear, jealousy, or anger.

At this time in our history all over the world, violence is literally the fashion of our times. Ninety percent of our movies, TV shows and TV commercials feature acts of violence, dangerous, reckless car driving, crashes, crashes, fires and explosions, even just to advertise things like cars and household cleaners. The Media does this because that's what people are "buying into." You don't have to follow the fad; you have a choice. You can simply not buy that. Whatever we stop supporting, responding to, and buying into, will die out on it's own. We won't have to kill it or go to war with it. Violence is a reaction to inner conflicts that we externalize, where they multiply. You have the power and the right to choose something else.

We've all heard the expression "Don't get mad; get even." There is another way - get clear, and get clean. Any time you believe you must do something because of something someone else did, you are not clear. You are buying into the deadly illusion of the endless circle of hatred, pain, and self destruction. Do you really want that? I have a very strong intuition that this is not want you really want, now or ever.

If you are caught in that circle, give it up, step out, and choose differently. It may not be so easy to do - to just let go of the resentment, and refuse the ego's demands for "getting even." But in this world we can never "Get even" because there is never a last word or a final action; it goes on and on. In this world there are two basic choices in regard to this: We can incarcerate ourselves in the swarm of madness, or we can choose to "Rise above the battlefield" as Maryanne Wiliams said it so well.

For most of us, our lives are stressed not just by the healthy energy of living our own lives, but also by an extra load of beliefs and values that are not even our own, and we may not even realize we're carrying them. They have been transferred onto us by our parents, our personal/professional peers, or "society" without our ever having really examined them for validity.

Things like prejudices. We all have them. Little ones, big ones. We are all infected with these in childhood, and exposed to them like deadly bacteria throughout our adult lives as well. Sometimes we think we have healed them, but they can lie dormant for years and then crop up again. Or they may continue at such a diminished strength and low level that we think they're gone. And yet many of our unconsciously-held beliefs are continuously creating an undercurrent of conflicts with what we consciously feel and believe. Even if they were useful at some time, they do not serve you now. Root them out; choose, decide, and commit to to letting them go. How do we do that? How can we change?

One of life's most common and difficult challenges comes from the dichotomy between "what I should be" and "what I am." This is a universally unwinnable, unsolvable conflict for many reasons. One: most of us (possibly all of us) do not really know for sure What and Who we really are. The seeking of that knowledge alone is enough work for a lifetime. And two: the question of what we should be is an invalid question to ever ask. Since we already are what we are, What We Are, for better or for worse, is true and valid. It has come from inside of us, from the Source, this Soul, our own essence. And all the "shoulds" come from outside.

We can change anything about ourselves, if we ourselves want to. But trying to do it because we think we should, simply doesn't work. And that is rightly so. No one else can live our life for us, and we must remember too that we cannot live theirs. Then how can we know what to do or to be? Turn off the shoulds, and look inside of your own secret heart, where nobody else sees or judges, where the truest, deepest parts of you are, and listen.

It may be new, and subtle at first, this tuning-out of the ego-mind and tuning-in the gentler, quieter voice of your soul and spirit. Take care to be sure this is the voice you're listening to. The ego-mind will be always be louder, pushy, stubborn, and relentless. The ego loves shoulds, excuses, side trips, switch-backs, detours, and obstacles. These can be entertaining, and you will learn from them too, because we learn something from everything we encounter in this life.

But if you really want to live your best life right here right now, tune-in to the truth, unclouded by your ego and the egos of the world. Seek and find that "still small voice within" and consider deeply what it tells you about yourself and your life. It will always cut through the clutter and tell you the truth. It may take a while, some asking and listening, but you will recognize the truth when you hear it or see it. There will not be any doubt, even though what it tells you may frequently, profoundly, surprise you.

You may find (as I have, more than once) that after years of work, dedication, and love, you have "built your house" on a foundation that has shifted, and now you must leave it, to live in the gatehouse for awhile, and begin to build a new home in a better place. Even though "the house" itself was solid, and still has a physical or financial value, when it no longer has a foundation that is grounded in your soul, sooner or later it will fall. You don't have to fall with it.

Lately I have found "my house" swaying again. And it's not the frequent small California earthquakes I'm feeling (although there are some of those too.) It is the movement of my life, and my soul is shaking it, to let me know it's time to start packing. "Who I am" is changing, by growth and by the process of living a life. What I am needs to make some matching changes, or else become a more and more uncomfortable, even painful, miss-fit.

I'm feeling an enormous resistance to this - to change. Something powerfully rooted in me does not want to let go of anything I have worked hard and long to achieve. I know I cannot just "toss out everything" and start again from nothing. Fortunately that is not required. The most important parts of all our life-learning and experiences, always come with us. The external manifestations of them are much less important. We can always manifest new ones, and they will not be as difficult to create as the earlier ones were.

So I stand now at the the door, looking out. It is the dregs winter; I hate the cold and wet, and I love the warmth and comfort of where I am now. But Spring will come on schedule, and it will bring more than new green growth and kinder weather. Spring is scheduled for the Move.

I am sorting and packing now, giving away things I've saved "in case I ever need them." I have not needed them. Probably I never will. I'm lightening my load and my heart. I'm letting go of some ideas and things that no longer serve me. When I left graduate School in 1985, I kept my psychology books for years before I finally donated them to a library. I still have a few, and some study tapes I made. I think it's safe to let those go now, don't you? Whatever I have learned is on the inside of me now.

Glorious morning, thank you for showing up without rain. Good day to clean up mess. Sort out "things." Clear the space for what really matters. Clear the path for Who I am to move ahead toward Who I Will Be.

Why don't you come too?

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