Descartes, the great 17th century Rationalist philosopher, said, "I think, therefore, I am." A modern 20th century wit said, "I think, therefore, I am single." We do seem to spend much of our waking hours in the pursuit of thought. We might wonder at how deep and how creative our thinking really is. Referring to this kind of activity, George Bernard Shaw once said, "Few people think at all— I have made a great success in life by just a small amount of thinking." All that we need is one creative, transformative thought to revolutionize our lives. Perhaps we can cultivate the activity of creative thinking by setting aside a little time each day to allow ourselves, in Robert Schuller's words, to "possibility think" about some area of our life. As Schuller says, "Write out a list from 1 to 10 solutions" to a problem that is blocking us. Or, as Schuller suggests, we can ask ourselves, "What would we do next if we had the money, the time and we knew we couldn't fail?" We can choose to be creative in our thoughts now and watch major breakthroughs begin to happen in our lives. 

J. Krishnamurti used to say, "The depth is not comparable to the surface; depth is one thing, surface is another." When we live on the surface of life, we seem to feel like we're always missing something— there's no purpose or significance to our days. When we decide to discover the meaning of our lives, we begin to live from a deeper understanding; the patterns and contours of our lives begin to reveal themselves to us. We feel a sense of inner clarity regarding our existence on this earth. A spiritual perspective on things dawns on our hearts, and we are free to follow inner guidance and direction. Let's dive deeply into our life and learn to live from the depth of who we are. 

A middle-aged woman from New York, carrying two shopping bags, got off a plane in New Delhi, India and took a taxi to the ashram of a famous guru. When she arrived at the ashram, the person in charge at the front door told her, "When you are ushered into the Great Guru's presence, you can only say three words." "OK, OK," the woman said. Once inside, she stood in a long line waiting to see the guru. Another ashram official came up to her and said in a stern, solemn voice, "Remember, when you meet the Great Guru, you are permitted only three words." "Alright, Aright," shrugged the lady. After a very long wait, the woman was finally at the head of the line. The guru's chief assistant whispered to her, "Remember when you see the guru, only three words." "OK, OK," said the woman. Finally it was her turn. She walked up to a very high throne on which was seated the Great Guru himself. The woman looked up at the Great Guru and shouted, "Sheldon, come home!" This is a good time of year to remind ourselves to come home to our innermost self. 

A wise friend once gave me this advice: "When you don't know what to do, do nothing until it becomes obvious, and then put your whole being into it, holding nothing back." Too often, when we really don't know what to do, we dissipate our energy in sporadic attempts at trial and error— just to feel like we are at least trying to do something. We want to reassure ourselves that we are accomplishing something even if, in reality, we are just spinning our wheels. It may be far better and ultimately more productive to simply take the time (when we don't know the next step) to relax and let ourselves be inwardly and outwardly quiet, open and receptive. We can allow ourselves the time to listen so that we can hear what our real next step is. Sometimes the message comes from deep within our hearts and, when we hear it, we are galvanized into creative action. Sometimes the message comes from the outer world, and suddenly we spring into action. Either way, the message— when we are open, non-resisting and receptive— is always clear and unmistakable, and it is always a call to new life. 

When we attend a concert, sometimes we are listening so intently that we actually become aware of the pauses within the music. For the music to be meaningful, there have to be sequences of pauses juxtaposed with the sound. Usually we think of music as merely the sounds. But the pauses are as important as the sounds themselves— and, in some compositions, the silences may be even more thematically important than the notes themselves. In our life, there are times of great activity, in which we seem to be moving ahead with speed and dexterity. And there are also times of pause, when we need to relax and listen to the silence within our hearts to tell us of our next step. 

Who is with us in this life? Sometimes we ask ourselves, is there anyone who is really for me? In our complex world, it is easy at times to feel as if we are doing what we do all by ourselves. Does anyone really understand us? We think of our family, friends and associates— but do any of them really comprehend how we are feeling right now? There's a book entitled How to Be Your Own Best Friend which provides a key to our dilemma. In this life, when we feel as if no one can really understand what we are going through, who better to befriend us than ourself? After all, we are in the best position to know what is going on within the depths of our being— so why not turn to ourselves for inner understanding and support? While it's helpful to turn to our friends for support at times, we can also be our own best friend. 

Lawrence Leshan once said, "The definition of 'normal' is someone I don't know very well." Are we trying to be normal, or are we being ourselves in this life. When we were children, our parents would say to us, "Oh, that's not like you to do such and such," and we would think, "Uh, oh, I'm not normal." And we would try to behave more normally from then on. It's interesting how people's images and opinions of us can sometimes cause us to shape our behavior. We try so hard sometimes to fit in, to be liked, to win approval. But achieving outer approval does not give us inner peace or fulfillment. John Quincy Adams, second president of the U.S., indicated in his diaries that, regardless of his public achievements, inwardly his life had been a disappointment to him. Perhaps we can release our concern for outer approval and really begin to trust our inner convictions to guide us to a life of value and serenity. 

An East Indian visitor to America said that he was surprised that so many people in this, the richest and most powerful country on earth, feel a lack of self-esteem. While my Indian friend was baffled, it is easy for many of us to understand our self-esteem issues. We live in transitionary times. Not only economic issues, but our relationships, value systems and even lifestyles may be in a state of flux and transition. Ours is a culture of change. We change jobs and careers; we change cars and houses, and often even our significant relationships may change. If we look to the outer life for our sense of self-worth and self-esteem, we may be doomed to disappointment and frustration. However, once we see clearly that outer conditions do not really provide a stable source for our self-esteem, we begin to look within ourselves, and we discover an intrinsic self-value. As Blake, Whitman, Emerson and others have pointed out, there is an inherent goodness in each of us, wherein lies the true source of our self-esteem. 

Jean-Paul Sartre said that we always seek out the advisors who will tell us what we want to hear. It's true that when we give advice to people that they don't want, they never come to us for advice again. A lady once went to the doctor who told her she had appendicitis. She went to another doctor for second opinion. The second doctor said she had heart trouble. The woman started to leave. "Where are you going?" the doctor asked. "I'm going back to the first doctor— I'd rather have appendicitis." At times we all need advice, and we need to get the best advice we can. At times we even need to seek out and receive encouraging advice from those we know who will affirm us and encourage us in the direction in which we are moving. But there are also times when we need to turn within ourselves and listen to our own intuition, our innermost self, for guidance and direction. While outer advice is good and useful in its time, the best advice we can receive, many times, comes from deep within our own hearts. 

In our hurry-scurry world, it's helpful to take a pause for peace and quiet. We can take a meditation break during our day, a time out from anxiety and pressure. We just take a moment to relax, release our mental grip on things, let go and let ourselves feel at peace with ourselves and at home in our world. There is no effort or struggle or strain. We simply and easily let go and let ourselves be at peace. Meditation isn't something awkward or difficult to do. We've all had quiet moments in nature or when looking at an art work or when listening to a beautiful piece of music. Our busy mind simply becomes quiet, our body and our emotions become peaceful— we feel a restful inner stillness that is somehow alert, open and receptive. Meditation is waking rest. We simply take our minds off of our tasks and concerns, and we find ourselves renewed and refreshed, with a new enthusiasm and joy for what we do. Take time out during your day for a moment of peace. 
 

A man went to a dentist and refused novocaine or any pain medicine because he wanted to transcend dental medication. As a nation we are so accustomed to taking various pills to alleviate the stresses of modern life that we hardly think about it. There are pills to calm us, soothe us, ease our pain and to put us to sleep at night. Yet there are natural ways to find peace and calm in the midst of this hectic life. Meditation is a simple act of allowing ourselves to quiet down each day, letting our bodies quiet down, letting our minds, with their racing thoughts, quiet down, letting our whole being become inwardly quiet and at ease and at peace. Meditation isn't something foreign; it has been practiced in all times and by all peoples. It's not something difficult to do. It's as easy as taking a few moments to just let go of all the worry and hurry of our life each day. Yet the results of these few moments of quiet calm have lasting benefit for all areas of our life. 

The Taoist philosopher Chuang Tzu said, "I once dreamt that I was a butterfly— now I don't know if I'm a man who dreamt he was a butterfly or if I am a butterfly dreaming that I am a man." We all go through times of uncertainty when we feel unclear about who we are and what we are supposed to do in this life. During these times of inner or outer unsettledness, we are tempted to try to find a quick solution or answer to resolve our uncertain feelings. Yet the way of wisdorn may be to relax and realize that we may just be going through a time of inner reassessment. If we are too anxious to arrive at a conclusive answer to our situation, we may not give our innermost being a chance to unfold in a natural way. There is a process of inner realization that brings forth a solution in its own time and its own way if we but let it. When you feel insecure, relax and let your inner self bring forth your solution which will always be the right solution for you. 

Someone once said that we are all Clark Kents looking for a phone booth. We want our transformation to be quick, painless and complete. We want to shoot up to the stars, as long as we don't have to leave home. But our life works as an unfolding process. It's helpful to see things in terms of process rather than result. Too often we weigh situations by how much progress we have made. If we don't see progress in a situation, then we think we have failed or are going backwards instead of forward. Yet as Confucius, the great Chinese philosopher, said, "You do not depart from the process [of your inner development] even for a moment; what you depart from is never the process." There is a way of being in this life that is not based on sheer striving and achievement, that is not competitive, non-comparing. We can relax our way into things— we don't really need to push and shove. We can stay true to our innermost nature which guides us surely and safely to that which is ready to receive us. 

When we loosen and relax our grip on ourselves and the people and the situations in our lives, we discover ease and peace right in the midst of everything that is going on. We find that, as we release our need to control, dominate and manipulate ourselves and others, there's a simple and natural way for things to work out in our lives, without effort or struggle, and in ways we couldn't have calculated or predicted. When we feel separate, we want to control; when we feel in harmony, it's easy and simple to let go and trust the basic goodness of life to align us with our good. So let's let go to inner harmony. 

In Zen there is a saying, "No snowflake ever falls in the wrong place," meaning that things are really unfolding in a harmonious order— even when we can't see how. Often we are trying so hard to fit things into a meaningful frame of reference that we are unable to see the perfect order already inherent in whatever is happening. There's a natural order, harmony and the rhythm to this life. We are continually frustrated and defeated as long as we are trying to impose our own sense of order on the order that already exists. When we simply ease up and let go, we discover the beauty that was always right there in front of us. Peace discovers beauty that anxiety can never see. When we are anxious to know how it's all going to work out, we are like the person frantically looking for his glasses; when he finally calms down, he realizes the glasses are right there on the front of his nose. 

Last weekend I happened to be near Alamogordo, New Mexico and stopped at the White Sands National Park. When you first drive into the park, you see a lot of scrub bushes with bits of sand here and there. And I thought: yeah, that's interesting, seeing white sand in the midst of all the weeds and bushes. But as I kept going farther and farther into the park, I began to see more and more sand, actual dunes, and finally I was surrounded and engulfed in a vision of white, like an ocean of sand. There was still sand and blowing sand; the ground was covered with sand, the sky from the wind was covered with sand. Everything was an exquisite, pristine white— unlike anything I'd ever seen or imagined. Sometimes we come upon an unexpected doorway to beauty. At first glance, it seems nondescript and mundane. But then as we go deeper, as it reveals itself to us, with a shock we feel that power of beauty to awaken and jolt us out of the ordinary into the realm of vision. 

St. Catherine of Siena once said, "There is no way to peace. Peace itself is the way." Sometimes we think that we have to find peace first, then we'll be able to act. Or we think that through our actions, we will eventually come to peace. Yet peace itself is an action. When we let go of all of our anxiety and fretfulness, our trying to make things work out, trying to manipulate ourselves and others, when we drop all of our anxious striving, we discover the peace that is already there at the center of our being. When we find this gentle peace at the center of who we are, we can relax, let go and trust that this peace will take us to where we need to be and will bring to us all that we need. No matter what is happening or not happening right now, we can relax this moment and let go to the peace at the center of ourselves and know that this peace will support and sustain us now and always. 
 

Kahlil Gibran once said that work is love made visible. Do we love what we do in this life? Then we are bound to prosper. How could we not prosper and thrive if through our work in the world we are expressing the joy of life. I was recently listening to a jazz trio at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. The three musicians were so obviously in tune with each other they were as if melded together to form a center of harmony through which their music could joyously erupt. Even though the room in which they were playing was busy with people coming and going, some them paying hardly any attention to the music, these three musicians were so focused, so wedded to their art that their ecstatic smiles never noticed anything but the joy of their music-making— thousands of listeners could have been there or no one— it was all the same to these three wonder-makers. 

Ram Dass once wrote a book called Be Here Now. Sometimes it seems that we are living our lives as if we'll be here, eventually. When I was in India, I met a young man who was assiduously studying the ancient Buddhist texts in Sanskrit and Pali. He said that after another fifteen or twenty years, he would understand these ancient writings enough to attain his enlightenment. I asked him what about in the meantime; what was he doing for enjoyment , or happiness? He said that all that was postponed until the completion of his studies in about twenty years. Even though this may sometimes be a person's true life path, perhaps we can spend too much time in postponing our arrival. John Lennon said, "Life is what happens while we're busy making plans." This is a beautiful time of year. Let's not let the electric joy of this spring slip away from us because we're so busy with our plans. Now is when we are alive. Now is the time for our realization of the beauty and goodness and wonder of this life. 

Each day we can give thanks for the gift of this life. We didn't earn this life. It is given as a free gift to use as we choose. We are so free to move through time and space and enjoy this beautiful earth. This vast universe has limitless possibilities— only a fraction of which we as yet have explored. We are only beginning to be aware of the incredible opportunities for our further enfoldment in this world. All the great spiritual leaders have pointed to a cosmic dimension to our life that each of us can achieve by simply recognizing it and surrendering to it.