What are you looking for?

As you participate in this world, you are invited to explore all the sensations and delights you can imagine. This gives life to the dream. Discover what you are truly looking for.

1) Appreciate the element of surprise. Notice you cannot consciously surprise yourself. Yet, it is through jolts of surprise that the most life-changing experiences unfold. Surprises are priceless. Who is the knower- creator of all surprises? Who is the experiencer? 

2) Listen to a sound. The whole point of mantra is that they mean nothing. The idea of repeating what is senseless is to liberate you from the notion that the universe means anything. 

3) Be open to Satori. Be totally selfish or continually altruistic and you come to realize you only come to realize yourself through the other. He that loses himself, finds himself. He that would save his life, would lose it. Revelations all point to the same message. Life is a teacher.

3 Steps to greater happiness

Many people reach out for greater happiness or a deeper sense of fulfilment.  Infinite ways exist to get anywhere and be anything.  Its up to you. Conside these three steps to access:

1) Be aware of your thoughts.  You may underestimate the power of your thoughts.  Being aware is noticing what you think about and beginning to recognize you are not your thoughts.  In fact, they are simply passing ideas you choose to believe or not.  When you focus on something, you come to believe it.  Let thoughts arise and fall away and  they do not control how you feel. 

2) Let go of what you outgrow. You may notice aspects of your life no longer feel right or resonate. As you go through stages of evolution, you lose interest in certain people, places, activities, foods, jobs, behaviours. You may feel the unexplainable urge to cry, change or do something you have never done before. You may be going through a kind of shift in identity, a shift in how and where you live.  Being willing to let go of what you outgrow implies being open and receptive to your feelings and spontaneous impulses.  Listen more closely to the heart.

3) Be happy where you are. When you get right down to it, if you are unable to appreciate something in your life as it is, then you are not going to find happiness elsewhere. The common thread is you. How you feel where you are relates to what is conscious and unconscious.  Your understanding of 'happiness' can make you feel separate from what you want.  Watch what happens as you come to see beliefs as they are.  Allow yourself to feel what you are feeling. As you observe everything as a blessing, joy flows more freely.  Whatever obscures it falls away.

3 Ways to get to the Root

Get to the root of the matter. All approaches have merit. Reflect on these three ways: 

1) Engage in analysis. Some people want to know where to start. They want tools to deal with a situation, to find the way beyond the conditioning that trips them up.  They wish to manage ego.  If tools become the focus, using them can obscure or hide what these people really want.

2) Assume the answer relates to missing knowledge.  Some people seek outside what can take the insecurity of not knowing (self-doubt) away. Everything you think you know or not arises as conditioning. When you do not take this to heart, you allow ego and fear control you.  Be aware of a shift in feeling, the spontaneous recognition of the emptiness that is.   When the mystery of being remembers itself, its not about finding something you do not have or do not know, but accepting what you do not initially allow yourself to be.  Fear is a passing thought.

3) Take a direct Path. Stay with something very simple. The direct path does not tell you what to do with what is not working. It is for anyone who is completely ready. Know that the mind is conditioned to steer you away from this very perspective.  Who is it that suffers? Who has the pattern? What owns the mind? This is going to the deeper root.  Notice whether you are willing to get to the root of suffering, to be at the centre.  Its very different than what you are used to dealing with.  Every moment is an all or nothing opportunity.  From the moment you accept you do not know anything, you accept you cannot know who or what you are.  When you are no longer searching you know yourself by being.  The question 'Who am I?' is not meant to get an answer but to dissolve the questioner.  In truth, there is no questioner, only moving thought.

"The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me." - Meister Eckhart

7 Ways to see through lens of Soul

Nothing and everything is unfolding in this same moment.  Wherever you think you are, all that is unfolding gives you opportunities to connect with and embrace reliable soul guidance.  Seeing through the lens of Soul is being aware of the bigger picture or deeper reasons for your choices.  Ponder seven ways to see life as it is through the lens of Soul or Higher awareness:

1) Recognize whatever you perceive arises with its opposite.  Positive and negative thoughts arise together just as opposite words produce each other and merge.  Each points to the other as a lesson to recognize the underlying message that is revealing itself.

2) Move without teaching. Simply be yourself without the intention to do anything. Watch the mind. You can move physically and be still inside.  Every choice you make is being watched. You never know who is watching, or seeing life differently due to what you say or do.  Imagine every step you take is inspiring yourself in another situation.  Be your own student and teacher.

3) Live such that you possess nothing yet appreciate everything.  Possession here implies thoughts of exerting control and attaching.  From the moment you realize what is real cannot be owned, you relax more in life, welcome what comes and appreciate impermanence.

4) Do not glorify heroes.  Come to see everything as a divine reflection and you are awake to true divine nature.  You no longer put people on pedestals or view anyone as better or worse.  Rather, you see everything as different versions of you drawing true essence to the surface.

5) Live in humility.  Ambitions weaken as they lose your attention. Do what you do without the aim of recognition.  Presume nothing.  Be devoted to heartfelt gestures for no reason.

6) Be empty. When you are empty, you are bottomless and you have infinite uses and paths. It means move in peace.When you do not treasure objects, you do not worry they could be stolen or taken away.

7) Respect natural order.  Notice the divine flow.  Allow nature to be the ultimate teacher.  It only ever reflects who you are at the core.  Everything arises from and disappears into silence.

The Best decisions: 10 Ways to make them

Every moment, thoughts are racing through the mind. You may wonder how to know what are the best decisions for you regarding your personal, professional or other areas of your life.  The buck stops here.  That is, its the perfect moment to take responsibility for how you perceive life to be unfolding, rather than blame someone else for what does not feel right inside or what does not appear to be going well.  Consider ten ways to make the best decisions in any situation:

1) Pay closer attention. Everything in life is connected.  Every synchronicity guides you to another when you are open and receptive.  Be alert.  Every encounter and situation is an opportunity.  Rather than ask why me, why now? Know the 'what' guides you to why & how.

2) Listen to the heart.  Call it intuition, call it what you will.  If the urge arises to turn right, to go to a place you have never visited, let it happen.  There is more going on than meets the eye.  Know you do not have to get your head around everything.  Best things cannot be explained.

3) Use Integrity. Being honest is often conditioned out of people. Notice where you fear telling the truth, fear losing pride or not getting someone's approval. Decisions based on fear never feel right. Decisions based on enthusiasm or heartfelt joy use love as a reliable compass.

4) Know your audience.  Recognize you can find a sympathetic or supportive audience for any choice that feels right to you.  People who would not do what you do only distract you from your inner compass.  Nobody actually knows you better than you know yourself. 

5) Identify core value. Notice the value of any given decision or result is purely personal. You establish your needs and imagine what could satisfy them.  Only you can determine how important some situation, state of mind or being is for you.  You are the measurer and the ruler.

6) Be aware of underlying motivation. Every decision you make has a trigger.  Some are more obvious than others.  You may think you are ready for a life change or notice you are in a position to help others. When motivated by love, you are always making the best choice.  

7) Know the power of surrender. You can create goals, design a path to realize them and still wonder what is going wrong.  To know the power of surrender is to feel that every experience is helping you to grow more conscious of what you overlook about your life.

8) Accept many roads exist. Whatever you would like to experience in life, there is more than one way to do it.  The mind limits your view of what is possible. The heart always sees a way.  From the moment you let go of complete control, options present you had not imagined.

9) Who's decision is it? This may seem funny, but its common for people to make decisions for themselves based on what 'somebody else' or 'everyone' thinks is best.  Discover who in your life is influencing you. Why allow this?  Know you have the courage to listen more to yourself.

10) Lose the inner judge. An amazing thing happens as you cease to judge your prospective options.  All of them appear equal.  That is, whether you attend this school or that school, take this job or that job, engage in this activity or that activity, commit more seriously to this relationship or break it off, take this course of treatment or not, lessons are available for you to learn about yourself and feel happy, peaceful and fulfilled.  Get to know how you think and feel.  The revelation that you can do it anywhere, under any conditions itself, transforms your life.