The Point #8

     I think we feel lost to the degree that we are off center. And it seems like the degree to which we are off center is the degree to which we are confused about getting back to center. When we are off, we feel like we need to do something to take care of ourselves. To ensure or provide security. I think this feeling is always an anxious one. And I think the direction it wants to take us is not the way to get where we actually want to be. I think anxiety can be helpful, but it may always be blind. I think we can use it to be reminded of important features of our lives, but we can easily become lost in it and lose our connection to sense and wisdom. It takes listening to it wholeheartedly to properly integrate it's concern. Not that you have to listen to it this way to get any good out of it. I just found myself led astray by it often and feel like I can be dealing with it better. 

     I think my anxious mind tells myself that I need to worry to be ok. I don't think this is true. I think I need to address my worries to be ok, but not fret on them endlessly. This is a kind of neurosis I think. A negative positive feed-back loop. Definitely delusional. I think if I can listen to my worries when I am centered, I will automatically adjust my life to address their concerns. I think in this increasingly technological fast paced world, we forget this and fall into the cycle that I have fallen into where worries dominate your experience. 

     This is just worries generating worries, trouble generating trouble. It's not actually solving any problems, its just postponing and perpetuating them. It's a constant fear of grounding oneself, being still. Because if your still, then your not taking care of your worries when the only way to take care of your worries is to worry and act from a place of worry. To me, this is one of the hell's that I (and we) live in. It's exhausting and always detracting from enjoying the present moment, from being anyway or anything at all. If we can't be still, we cannot be. It's most difficult feature is that we know we need to get off the worry train, but we can't do it without worrying. We are stuck in worrying about how we are worrying. Worrying about how we need to stop worrying so much. This is a nightmare. I think a growing nightmare of our increasingly, or decreasingly, sophisticated society. The hardest part is to stop. We don't know how to stop. For a lot of us, it's getting harder and harder to stop. Less people know how to relax. Or at least relax deeply. I think for a lot of us, we live in chronic stress and anxiety. It just lessens when we flop on the couch and watch tv at the end of the day.

     Even if it's mild, I think we are forgetting how to truly enjoy ourselves, we are forgetting how to forget ourselves. This definitely worries me. It is scary to see a lot of the world lose light. To vaguely see the Light as something that existed in the past and has faded towards the present. I worry for children and I worry for adults. I don't think the Light needs to be what it was in the past, but I hope it can become something stronger in the present. I just want it to take a more tangible form. That people can see and hold on to. That we can guide and steady ourselves and each other by. Things always change, the past will never be again. But we can find joy and integrity in new ways right now. We can be communities, families, and friends wholesomely, even though differently, right now. 

     The Light calls us to grow and change. I feel like many of us are missing out on this. At least we lack the presence to enjoy the change happening to us, to feel fully alive in it. Their is a lot of grayness in our lives. Aching forgotten voids, dreams left in our childhoods. Things won't be the same, but they can be something. And something is better than nothing. When we can't express ourselves we long to, our heart aches. Even if it is for something strange and unsettling to our current consciousness. It's better to be anything than to be a ghost. 

     The point is, that we are something right now. Whatever it is, we are it. We are right now. Discovering what this is, how this is, is the point of our lives. The point exists right now. It doesn't exist in the futures that we worry about. It lives right here. Right now. Inside of you. It is you as you are right now. It is who you are that you won't let yourself see. What this is, is worth being. It is worth being because it is who you are and all that you are. And who you are is worth being no matter what you are. You are worth something. You are worth being. You are beautiful and wonderful however you are, simply because you are that way. You being that way makes it special because you are special. You are special no matter how you are. You are worth something no matter how you are. 

     Being who you are is the key to finding peace in your life. It's not in achieving anything, unless what you achieve is being yourself, by seeing that you already are what your looking for. Nothing you can do will stop you from worrying. Nothing you can do will end the torment in your heart. You can't fill that void by changing. You have to learn to love who you are right now. Love is the answer. 

Love and forgiveness, and acceptance. When you do this, you will see that you are beautiful and wonderful and you always have been. You have always been an incredible human being. Every single one of us is an incredible human being. If you can look truly into any one's eyes you will see this and you will be overwhelmed by the treasure surrounding you. The good, the bad, and the ugly all an indescribably beautiful symphony. The bad makes it as good as it is. It makes it good. 

     The point is that I love you exactly as you are, no matter how much you hurt me. We cannot escape the love that we share. I know you love me even if you hate me. We will not find peace in seeking to change who we are, seeking to change eachother, change the world. We will find peace by loving eachother, loving ourselves, and loving the world. Loving unconditionally all that we are and all that is. This is the radical truth that is liberation. Not only for ourselves, but for our entire species, our entire world. This is the way of Christ, the way of the awakened soul. The way is not out, it is in. We must pass through the world to get to the kingdom of heaven. We must embrace who we are to be free of ourselves. This is the point. This is the present. This is the here and now. Amen