Peace

Buddha allegedly once said "The good stuff, do it. The bad stuff, don't." That is indeed it. When you have reached that stage, peace is yours. When every action, every word and even every thought and feeling you experience is in harmony with the Way, peace, bliss and love are yours forever.

Unfortunately, Buddha's insight is exactly why so many in our spiritual community struggle. You want something. You want to be peaceful, you even try convincing yourself that you are peaceful and happy. Yet you are not. You are "here" even though you want to be "there". You want so much to be "there"  because deep down inside you know how miserable you are.  You mind that your "ego" is in the way to experience the "True Self" and that is why you are not peaceful.

Well, perhaps you can read the previous paragraph one more time. Do you now see the way out? Stop trying to be "there" and start accepting the here and now and you actually have a shot at being peaceful. Make peace with your "ego", make peace with everything that is hidden deep down inside, everything that wants to come out to the surface, ugly and crazy as it may look to you. Accept the here and now, accept everything life brings your way. The "I" that you experience, the subconscious urges that you can recognize in the Freudian slips. Know that with every loving gesture just as with every frown you see, you are looking at yourself that moment. When you can accept everything life brings your way, when you accept what is, the "here"  merges with the "there". You never have to do anything to live in the world the Buddha describes. Just drop everything right now and appreciate the "here". That is all really.

 Cancel all self-improvement classes. Stop reading what notions others have about spirituality for a couple of years. Make peace with yourself first. What is self-improvement? It is your mind telling you how things should be. Believe it or not, there is actually violence in this approach since you neglect where you are coming from. You neglect your psychological demands, the unresolved struggles of your parents that you still have to live through. You neglect your unique personality which may well have been an outgrowth of some previous lives. And you certainly have demands from your manliness or your feminine side that needs to be expressed, not to mention the hunger of the selfish gene - the stuff that got you here over the last couple of million years. But you know what, despite all that you can experience peace here and now. Buddha found his way, now you find yours!

The Way is the realization that life is a mirror reflecting all your tensions, aspirations, hope, desires and struggles back to you. This Matrix knows who you are. More than that, the Matrix knows that you already are "there", so it puts the world as you experience it in front of you so that you can backtrack your steps. Accept who you are and then embrace life and always put your best foot forward. When you open up to everything life brings  you with an open mind, the Way - the Tao - will lead you back to the Source. Sometimes you run fast, sometime you stroll in a beautiful park, sometimes you barbecue with dear friends and sometimes you fight with contractors to get the home improvement you paid for. But in all that you can experience incredible peace because you know that you are walking the Way. May Peace be with you!