A Zen Master once attended a Beethoven concert. When asked for his opinion, the Zen Master commented, "Not enough silence!" We hear music because of the silence or pauses between the notes; without silence there would be no music. Likewise, in our life, pauses for silence can give meaning and clarity to our activities. If we are always on the go and never take time to pause, turn within and silently listen to our innermost self, we may feel that our life is too frantic and overwhelming. When we relax, slow down and take time out of our busyness to just let go and be still, even if it's just for a little while, we feel a calmness and centeredness that helps us sustain ourselves in the midst of all our activities. So, in our own symphonic unfoldment, our own life process, let's allow the pauses for silence that can give harmony and order to all that we are and all that we do each day. 

A prominent art collector once brought a painting to Picasso and asked if it was a genuine Picasso. After one swift glance, Picasso replied, "It's a fake." Sometime later, the same collector brought another painting to Picasso and asked if it were genuine. Picasso replied, "It's a fake." "But sir," protested the collector, "I happened to have watched you paint this picture, personally." "It's true," Picasso replied, "I paint many fakes." Indeed Picasso is said to have created over twenty thousand art works throughout his life, many of which were mediocre, but many others of which were masterpieces unlike anything done before or since. We have a tendency to feel that whatever we do should be letter-perfect, or we shouldn't even bother to try. Yet creativity is expressed through trial and error just like anything else. Let's try our best at what we do until, like Picasso, we realize the genuine in the midst of everything. 

We sometimes are too apologetic about who we are and why we are here. There's an East Indian story about a prince who is discovered living in a very humble village. As a small child he had wandered away from the court and had been found by villagers who raised him as one of their own. The point of the story is that even in humble circumstances, the prince was still a prince. Each of us, no matter what our circumstances in this life, is still an important and precious child of this universe. We belong here. We deserve and are entitled to the best this life has to offer. Let's not be too shy or timid in claiming our good— let's step in and claim it quickly, because we belong here. 

William Blake said, "Gratitude is heaven." When we are grateful, we receive the blessings of this life. We tend to think that first we have to get something, and then we can feel gratitude. It's perhaps an unusual idea to put gratitude first. But when we are really thankful, we appreciate everything, and out of that appreciation comes our fulfillment. Martin Buber tells the story of a man who was admitted to Paradise. But since he had felt no delight on earth, he feels none in heaven either. Finally, he grumbles, "And they make all that to-do about paradise!" And hardly have the words left his lips when he is thrown out. Gratitude is the way to find the delight of this life. Picasso said, "Everything is a miracle." When we give thanks from our hearts, indeed everything is a miracle; everything and everyone blesses us, and we see and feel the beauty of this life. When we see through the eyes of thankfulness, the world is filled with blessings. 

The legendary Sufi, Nasrudin, was reminiscing with a friend in a tea room. "Why did you never marry?" the friend asked Nasrudin. "It's very sad," Nasrudin sighed, as he took a sip of tea. "You see, I spent my youth looking for the perfect woman. Yet each woman I encountered seemed to have a flaw. One was charming and intelligent, but she lacked beauty. Another was beautiful and well-mannered, but she lacked intelligence. Another was intelligent and beautiful, but she lacked social graces. And then, finally, one day, my search seemed to be over. I met a woman who was charming, beautiful and intelligent— finally, the perfect woman!" "And what happened?" Nasrudin's friend asked. "It's very sad," sighed Nasrudin. "It seemed that she was looking for the perfect man, and so we parted." If we are too intent on finding perfection in this life, we may well miss all the good that is here for us. 

A businessman who was near death asked that his remains be cremated and the ashes sent to the IRS with the following note attached: "Now you have it all." Is there ever a time in our life when we feel we have it all? We go through school thinking, ah, when I graduate, then I'll start really living. We graduate and find ourselves needing to find a job. When we find a job, we have so many responsibilities that we begin to say, ah, when I retire, then, then I'll really start to live. Or we say, when I have the right relationship or when I make enough money or when I get spiritually enlightened, then, then, then I'll start to really live. When is enough, enough? Each of us can decide right now, today, that we have all we need to be happy and fulfilled. We really don't have to wait around for some ultimate realization or event to happen before we can begin to feel great joy and peace in just the sheer fact of being alive right now. Let's decide to claim our allness right now, and let's be thankful. 

There is a time of processing and enfoldment, and there is also a time of completion. When I was in graduate school, I almost made a career out of being a graduate student— for awhile, I forgot that the point of graduate school is to graduate. We can get stuck in procrastination and spend long periods of time postponing coming into our own until we remember that we are not just here to travel but to arrive at our destination. While it is good to initiate processes and to begin new things, it is also good to complete what we have started. Sometimes we feel a sense of exhaustion and inner depletion because we have unfinished business to attend to. When we arrive at completion, there is a profound sense of release and relief, and all is right with us and our world. 

Let's stop looking for what isn't there; let's begin with what we have and more will be given. Jean-Paul Sartre, in Being and Nothingness, describes the condition of a man who is rushing through a crowded restaurant looking for someone who isn't there. Sartre says that, for this man, the restaurant is full of nothingness. We have all had the experience at an airport of watching passengers arrive who aren't the one passenger we are waiting for. Sometimes in our life, we are so preoccupied with looking for who or what isn't there or what hasn't yet happened, that we miss all that is happening, all that is there for us. Let's remember to connect with what is here for us right now.

Frank Lloyd Wright, the great American architect, once designed a house to be built over a waterfall. Engineers tried to dissuade the man who had commissioned the house from going through with the plans. They presented him with drawings showing grave problems with Wright's design. The would-be owner got in touch with Wright to show him the engineers' criticisms of his design. Wright dismissed them and said, "If you don't have faith in me to build this house, you are not worthy of it." The owner decided that Wright was right. He had the engineers' drawings buried in one of the cornerstone columns of his new house and went ahead with Wright's plans. Today, the house over the waterfall is one of the great architectural wonders of the world. Yet the idea could have been squelched so easily. When we are tempted to back away from a great idea out of fear, let's remember Frank Lloyd Wright and complete what we start out to do. 

Idries Shah tells a story of Nasrudin, a legendary comic figure of the Sufi tradition. One night, in a dream, Nasrudin saw a hand magically counting out gold coins to him. The hand counted out: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and then abruptly stopped. Nasrudin became anxious and began to remonstrate with the hand— "ten, where's the tenth, I must have ten—" He became so agitated that he woke up and the hand and all the coins disappeared. Closing his eyes, Nasrudin lay back in his bed and, with resignation, he sighed, "OK, I'll take the nine." Sometimes in our life, when we have pushed things as far as we can go, we can settle for what has been given and be happy and thankful for all that we have. 

The first time we plant zucchini, we are in for a shock. From a handful of fairly small seeds, come these giant plants that produce seemingly endless zucchinis. When we plant a seed in the ground, we have to be patient and allow the natural process to unfold. If we become too anxious for results, we are liable to dig up the ground over our seeds to make sure they are sprouting. When we uncover the ground, we may also be hampering the process of growth. When we make decisions and plant seeds of growth within ourselves, we need to give ourselves time, be patient, until our new thoughts of greater life can bear fruit— like the zucchini plants— in their own time. 

What do we think of when we think of fulfillment in life? Achieving our career and life goals? A happy and fulfilling relationship? Family satisfaction? Financial security? Travel? Or perhaps we have a spiritual goal— enlightenment or self-realization? It's interesting to observe ourselves when we think of fulfillment to see if we are thinking in the present or if we are thinking of 'someday' down the road; the time that is yet to come. Too often we postpone our acceptance of fulfillment because we can't imagine this present time without some problem we have yet to solve. If only, we say, things were finally settled, then we could be fulfilled. But our life is a process of unsettlements. Perhaps it's not only possible, but inevitable, that we find our fulfillment not some time later when we have it all together, but right now, right in the midst of all the issues of our life. This really is the only time we have for our fulfillment, so why not let ourselves be fulfilled and happy now? 

There's a song that goes: "These are the good old days." This is a good time of year to think of fulfillment: the fall harvest is here, and so is the inner harvest of the heart. Sometimes what is standing in the way of our moving forward in our life is the idea that something more is yet to be given. The thought that we already have all that we need can be a powerful motivating force lifting us beyond where we've been up to now. When the Buddha was dying, he told his disciples, "I have given you everything; I have held back nothing." In other words, we've already been given what we need to realize our good and to come into our own in this life. Jesus also affirmed accepting our fulfillment in the now when he said, "Look up, for the fields are already ripe unto harvest." Now is the time of our completion, fulfillment and realization. 

Ramana Maharshi, a great 20th century yogi, once said that a day will dawn when you will laugh at all of your past efforts at attaining enlightenment or freedom or liberation in this life. But that which will be on the day you laugh is also here and now. What he meant was that we spend so much time and effort trying to figure out what is holding us back or keeping us from the good we seek that we miss what is already right here before our very eyes. We can't attain the real because we already are the real. 

One definition of prosperity is: freedom in time and space to do what you want or need to do, when you would like to do it and as you would like to do it. So, by this definition, prosperity isn't just money, though money may be one of the ingredients of prosperity. Someone may have money but not have the time or not have the health to enjoy the money. A truly prosperous person is free to use the things of this world with neither attachment nor aversion. Many of us don't feel prosperous because our desires seem to far outweigh our means of their attainment. Perhaps the way of coming into real prosperity is to release our seemingly endless need to accumulate one thing after another. Perhaps the prosperity we seek is really freedom. We want to be free from the pressure to accumulate money and things. Now is a good time to choose to be prosperous and free. 

A man who had been searching for inner peace for a long time once had a dream in which he found himself in a vast, square room covered with mirrors. From wall to wall and floor to ceiling everything was a mirror. The man found himself in the center of this vast, square, mirrored room. He said out loud, "Help me!" The room echoed back, "Help me!" The man paused for a few moments in the deep silence of the room, and then he said, "I need you." The room echoed back, "I need you!" Then the man became very still inside for a long time until he felt the profound stillness and peace of the room. Finally, he said, "I love you." And the room echoed back, "I love you!" When the man awoke from this dream, he found that his heart was quiet and that his search for peace was over. 

In psychology there is an expression called `cognitive lag.' Cognitive lag may be described as a state in which our awareness has not caught up with our growth. In other words, we tend not to notice a change—sometimes a very profound and significant change—which has taken place within us until some time after the change has occurred. Simply put, our self-image lags behind the actual fact of our new state of being. We may be relating to ourselves as we were a few years back, not realizing that we are actually a very different person from who we were then. It is helpful to keep in mind that each of us is a changing, growing, unfolding being and that our yesterdays are not our todays; our todays will not be our tomorrows. Dust off your old image of who you are, and you'll discover the radiant person that has come into being when you weren't even looking. 

Sometimes we ask the question, "Why doesn't everything just work out right for us?" We find that life on this earth isn't quite perfect. Be it job, family, relationships, finances or the way things work from day-to-day, we notice that no matter how well things work, there are always areas in our life which seem to miss the mark. When I was teaching at the university, no matter how well the other classes were doing, there was always one class that didn't seem to be going too well. The interaction with the students, the interest level, the communication and enthusiasm, just wasn't there. No matter how hard I tried, that one class never seemed to come together. Perhaps we have ten interactions throughout our day— nine go very well, one doesn't work-out. Yet we always tend to focus on that one that didn't work-out. We tend to see the one area of a flawed experience as if that were the most important thing. Perhaps we need to just relax and realize that life is a mixture— not everything always works— and let ourselves be grateful and thankful for all the things that do. 

Wayne Dyer says, "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience." This means that we don't have to struggle to get spiritual. If we're spiritual already, we are already a part of the allness of this life— maybe we can just relax and release ourselves to our true nature. When I used to struggle and worry and fret about my spiritual progress or lack thereof, a friend of mine would say, "Relax, Larry, you are condemned to enlightenment." We all are heading home to the realization of our oneness with the universe, our spiritual freedom. U.G. Krishnamurti said, "I once was listening to a talk in which the speaker was describing a free person. All of a sudden, I realized that I was the person being described. I got up from the lecture, walked outside, and I was free. And I never looked back." Accept your freedom now.

It's interesting to realize that for every winner of a political race, there also has to be a loser. In fact the winner can't be a winner without the loser. We think about the in-crowd; for there to be an in-crowd, somebody has to be out. Without the outs, there could be no ins. Our life is full of in and out. In some circles, we feel comfortable, respected and accepted— we're in. In other situations, we feel awkward and estranged—we're out. There are times and seasons in our life when we feel out. As the Sufis say, "The roses are gone from the garden, and what shall we do with the thorns?" During these out times, no matter what we do, we don't feel comfortable or at peace with ourselves or our world. Then suddenly, one day, after we had almost given up, our out turns to in; we feel connected once again to ourselves and our world. In and out is the dance of life; no matter how far out we are feeling, there also comes the moment when we feel totally in— then we relax and say, "Oh, I am OK, after all."