See through your questions

Pinpoint the questions that linger in your mind.  Focus on the body.  Allow yourself to experience the aliveness and energy flowing through.  The aliveness is held in the body form by consciousness.  The mind is what identifies the questions and seeks answers.  be aware how the mind operates.  It is always thinking because this is its nature. Who is aware of the body-mind? What makes you aware that you think? You really do not know. Let silence answer all questions.  As you explore what is real, you explore the feelings.  The mind cannot answer as it plays tricks.

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

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.

Heed 3 messages from Nature

Tranquility exists in the wilderness.  This differs from the noise and hustle bustle of a busy city.  Feel the difference and feel what is the same. To be in the countryside is to connect with inner nature.  Be aware you slow your pace, calm your breathing, and connect with centre of being more easily.  And yet, the quiet countryside can also seem full of unexpected disturbances.  Notice three messages you receive more clearly while immersed in nature, even a backyard;

1)  The peace often sought does not arise only in the countryside.  It is not imported from outside.  It does not mean to be away from trouble, noise or interaction. It is to be calm in the heart, come what may.  You allow or resist the peace and contentment forever accessible inside.

2) In order to cultivate flexibility and stability, simply stop looking for these qualities in what you view as the outside world. Feel life through the heart. Notice calmness and stability within.

3) Live your life whole-heartedly and you are aware of how you think and feel regardless of where you may roam.  Live life deliberately and whatever you do is fully expressed or not at all.

Notice the shutters are open

Notice the shutters of the mind are open except when you imagine they exist.  Allow yourself to trust more fully what you do not understand.  Be silent.  Feel what is resonating in the heart.  

Part of you may ask how you can open the shutters of the mind faster, wider, more efficiently.  The heart knows that nothing can be done and nothing really matters. Simply be. Do not try to surrender for surrender happens with out you. You may think its a good idea to be more loving, compassionate, kind and tolerant. Yet, from the moment you stop exerting effort, who you are flows naturally.  Every moment as fresh and new. Every person is worthy, lovable, acceptable, embraceable.  Every situation is perfect. All mirrored opposites are accepted and integrated.  The nature of the game is rising to a whole new level.  You are the creator of this game of life.