A successful business executive once said that the primary way you can tell if your business life has really changed is if the way you spend your time changes radically. In other words, if we still are spending our time the way we were, say, two or three years ago, our business or job probably hasn't changed very much. As with our business, so with our life. If we want a real change in our life, we probably will have to make some conscious decisions in the way we are spending our time. Time is our only resource for change. We change ourselves through time. We may need to be more selective and creative in our use of our allotted days and hours. A British writer named Charles Williams, while busily raising a family, working at a full-time day job and lecturing in the evenings, managed to write over 100 books and articles throughout his life. Whenever he had a spare moment, he would jot down an idea or a sentence for a book or essay on a little yellow notepad he always carried with him. Over the years, these spare moments were turned into over 100 literary and philosophical works.
INTEGRITY
Integrity relates to the whole person. When we feel truly integrated deep inside of ourselves, outer forces and structures in the world do not seem so awesome or powerful. Integrity gives us strength of character to stand alone if need be. Albert Camus defines maturity as the willingness to be wrong all by yourself. Indeed, sometimes, in the eyes of the world, we seem to be making a mistake. People say to us, "You're not going to make it, my friend— you just can't possibly get to where you want to go to." Or, "You'll just have to settle for less." Or, "You'll just have to do it the way we say you should." It's interesting how so many times and in so many ways people with great integrity in life, like Gandhi or Mother Teresa, inspire us with their unwillingness to bend their principles for the sake of expediency. Integrity means to stand firmly by our deepest inner convictions regardless of outer criticism. It is the integrated individual who lives a full life on this earth.
FREE TO PROSPER
We tend to think that when we have enough money, then we'll be free. But freedom seems to be much more a state of mind than a condition of our bank account. Granted, we need money to live. Someone said, "There's a certain Buddhist calm that comes from having money in the bank." But perhaps real freedom and real prosperity come when we are no longer afraid of money— neither afraid of having money nor of not having money. When we realize that as long as we are worried— whether we have money or not— we are not free, perhaps we can begin to make freedom, not money, our goal in life. And we find the freer we are both inside and outside of ourselves, the less is money an issue.
SELF-RESPONSIBILITY
We all have certain responsibilities and obligations in this life: to our families, our jobs, our society and our world. Yet have we thought about what we owe ourselves in this life? We are in relationship to ourselves as well as to others. How much care and compassion, how much gentleness and kindness, do we extend towards ourselves? Many of us are much too hard on ourselves; just like when we are courteous, kind and generous to relative strangers but hard on the people closest to us, so too we tend to be more forgiving and tolerant toward others than we are towards ourselves. As Soren Kierkegaard, the 19th century existential philosopher, said, the Bible admonition to love our neighbor as ourselves implies that we first must love ourselves. This doesn't mean that we are egotistical, narcissistic or self-centered; it just means that we have enough self-respect and self-esteem that we treat ourselves in a kind and gentle way just as we would anyone we really care for. So why not care for ourselves, too? Let's be gentle with ourselves.
SIGNIFICANCE
There's an old saying, "A pickpocket only sees a saint's pockets." What is significant to us in our daily life right now? Surely not just our daily routine, and surely not just our weekend leisure time. What gives us a deeper sense of meaning and reality in the midst of all the comings and goings of life? When we were quite young, perhaps pleasure gave our life its deepest meaning, so we pursued pleasure as our goal. Then perhaps success and achievement became our reason for being. Yet beyond pleasure, success and achievement there seems to be a profound yearning and longing to experience or realize a peace and freedom that is somehow outside of human striving. We might call this the longing for enlightenment or liberation. When this longing for liberation becomes operant in our hearts, our whole sense of the significance of things undergoes a profound and subtle change. We become aware of ourselves and our lives in quite a different way, and our attitude toward the ups and downs of life correspondingly changes. Instead of asking what will give us pleasure or success, we ask: what will free us?
AS YOU SEE IT, SO IS IT
A Chinese story tells of a widowed mother who received support from her two sons. One son sold fans; the other son sold umbrellas. Every morning, when she awoke, she would look outside of her window at the day; if it was a cloudy, rainy day, she would wring her hands and moan, "Oh, my son will sell no fans today." If on the other hand, it was a bright, sunny day, the mother would wring her hands and moan, "Oh, my son will sell no umbrellas today." This woman felt that either way, sun or rain, she would lose, until someone pointed out, either way, sun or rain, you win. An optimist once fell out of a sixth-story window— as he was passing the third floor window, someone yelled out at him, "How's it going?" The man yelled back, "So far, so good."
CALLED TO ORDER
At some point in our life we have felt called to choose a certain path as opposed to all the other paths in life. Be it a vocational career, a relationship commitment or a spiritual path, we have chosen to move through life in a certain direction. These kinds of choices give our life meaning, coherence and integrity. In order to learn a language, we have to limit the infinity of possible sounds to a very finite number in order to produce meaning; so we, at times, have to choose a certain direction from all possible directions we could take. We need to trust that the direction we have chosen is the right one for. us. It will sustain and support us. We don't need to look back or try to second-guess our choices. We can relax and have faith in the way we are going.
HOT AIR- THE STUFF DREAMS ARE MADE OF
Some years ago, I used to live right around the corner from the New Mexico State Fairgrounds where, during its inception, the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta was held. It is interesting that the first couple of years, this event was poorly attended with only a few balloons participating and not many more people. The critics of the early festival were quick to point out that this was one of those 'hot air' fiascoes that would never get off the ground. Today that same event— which had such humble beginnings— is a world-class festival drawing hundreds of thousands of participants and visitors to our city each year. Our dreams always begin in very small and seemingly insignificant ways. There are always those around who are quick to point out that "It won't work—whatever it is." Yet when we stay focused on our dreams, we live to see them come into realization in ways beyond our conceiving.
EACH IS BEST
As there are different seasons of the year, so are there different seasons in our life. Each season of our life has its appropriate activity and concerns. When we are young, we are concerned with the material world and our appropriate functioning within it. As we become mature adults, we are concerned with committed relationships, including family, social and vocational responsibilities. As we move into retirement years, again our concerns shift, and we may now have the leisure to pursue inner goals of self-understanding and spiritual realization. Each season of our life is best— because each season brings with it a new kind of fulfillment and joy.
APPEARANCE AND REALITY
A six year old was very proud because a new baby was coming into his family. Every day he bragged about the upcoming event to his first grade teacher. One day his mother let him feel the movements of the unborn baby. When he went to school the next day, he was unusually quiet. Finally, his teacher asked, "What is happening with the new baby?" The little boy burst into tears and said, "I think my mother ate him." Sometimes we don't quite understand what's really happening in a situation, and we have a tendency to always jump to the worst conclusion. What may be a natural process of unfoldment may appear to us as something terrible happening. We probably just need to relax and let the Good that is there come forth in the situation.
PERSPECTIVE
Idries Shah tells the story of a four year old boy who was taken by his nursemaid each day to see a statue of General Gordon mounted on a camel in a park in the city of Khartoum. When the family was leaving Khartoum, the little boy asked to be taken to the park one last time to say good-bye to General Gordon. "I shall miss you General Gordon," the boy said, gazing at the statue— and as they were turning away, the boy asked the nursemaid, "Nanny, who is that man on General Gordon's back?" Sometimes the reason things aren't quite working out for us is that we need a different perspective. We need to change, not what we are seeing, but the way we are seeing it. Like the little boy who assumed that the camel was General Gordon, we too at times make assumptions based on an erroneous perception of reality. When we feel stuck, let's shift our focus so that we see things from a new point of view. Many times, a simple shift of perspective will free up new energy and inspiration from deep within us.
THE DETOUR
Someone once asked Carl Jung, "Could you please tell me the shortest path to my life's goal?" Without any hesitation, Jung replied, "The detour." We've heard of happy accidents and fortunate fiascoes. Someone once said how surprised he always is that so much good comes into his life when he is looking the other way. We tend to think of our life in terms of a straight, steady progression from good to good, but it's usually much more of a zig-zag. Instead of seeing our growth only from a linear sequence of goals achieved, we can also see it organically: as a flower unfolds from the center outwards, we too may be unfolding in a multi-foliate way. We can trust that at the point we seem most lost or unsettled, we may be reaching a good beyond our imagining.
GOING OUR WAY
Sometimes we are walking through a very crowded airport terminal like Dallas or Los Angeles or Chicago or New York. There are literally thousands of people all around us, each going to his or her destination. As we walk through this vast, teeming swirl of humanity, we keep our own destination clearly in mind; we don't allow ourselves to become distracted; we don't get confused and wind up in Pittsburgh when we were going to Cleveland. It's interesting that we don't get lost in the crowd— we keep our intention sharp and our focus clear. And we find ourselves arriving at our destination without mishap. So, too, with our life journey. We really don't need to get waylaid or detoured from our path in life. We can keep our intention clearly in mind, stay focused on our destination and we find that we will arrive at our journey's end without mishap.
ELECTRIC AUGUST
This time of year we sometimes begin to feel dazed and lethargic—we go though the August blahs, and we feel that nothing much is going to happen until September or October, so that we might as well kick back and rest on our prior attainments. We can feel this way in terms of our jobs, our relationships and even our spiritual life—everything gets put on hold. We'll just wait and see. Meanwhile the warm days and nights soothe our tired selves, and we are semi-content. Then, one day, we suddenly realize: why should we wait for anything? This is the time when we are alive, right now. The power of the universe is flowing through our nervous system this moment. The energies of the cosmos are vibrating in our every pulse. We are one with the oneness of all life everywhere. What are we waiting for? Let's get busy bringing the good we seek into manifestation now! Decide to act now, and this will be an electric August, filled with new and joyous possibilities for you.
HUMOR
Someone once said, "Dying is easy; it's comedy that's hard." Developing a sense of humor about our life seems to be beneficial not only spiritually, but it is also now considered good for our health and physical well-being. Norman Cousins and others have written on the healing and life-enhancing value of laughter. We really don't have to take our lives and ourselves so very seriously. There are lots of things to laugh at about our situation as human beings on this earth. Some days are so filled with ambiguities and absurdities, that the most healing thing we can do is see the humor in the midst of all the apparent chaos. As a Zen Master once said, "The final enlightenment may be so deep and profound that there is nothing to do but sit down and have a good laugh." Let yourself laugh often and well.
LETTING OURSELVES BE
When we are too strict and controlling with ourselves, we tend to rebel and not achieve what we set out to accomplish. When we are more allowing and self-accepting, we find it easier for our whole being to unite in changing some attitude or behavior. Carl Jung said, "I must accept myself before I can change." When we are very severe and self-scolding, just like with a small child or animal, we find that we are creating a stubborn resistance to change. Let's just let ourselves be without any need to be different until we are so at peace that we can afford the price of self-change.
LET OUR JOY BE UNCONTAINED
Ramakrishna said that a salt doll once went into the ocean to measure the depth of the water with a salt ruler. Now where is the measurer? The longer we live, the more we come to realize how vast and immeasurable is this universe. We are a part of the infinite interwovenness of this life. We don't need to reduce the wonder and awe and mystery of this world into compartmentalized pieces. Sometimes we tend to frame our life into little measured containers of rigidity. We have our containers of work, family, recreation, and social activities. But if we structure our lives too much, we miss the joy of spontaneity, the freedom that bursts the bounds of our mental containers.
RELAX
Sometimes when we're in a big hurry, we feel anxious and worried: what if we don't make it, what if we don't arrive on time. Rushing through life out of fear makes us a slave to time. At some point, we need to make our peace with the earth and come into agreement with a relaxed way of moving through time and space. There's a story of a man who is on a very slow moving train. The man becomes so upset at the slow pace of the train that he finally yells at the conductor, "Can't you go any faster!" The conductor says, "Yes, I can, but I'm not allowed to leave the train." We can probably all go faster, but will we be any happier? As Gandhi said, "There is more to life than increasing its speed."
FIRE IS WATER FALLING UPWARD
Alan Watts reminds us that fire is like water falling upward. There is a kind of flow to this life. Our lives really work in terms of things falling together, coming together, falling into place. Sometimes we are trying too hard to make something happen. We want so badly to feel some sense of progress, to feel that we are getting somewhere. We can be so anxious for results that we actually get in the way of the natural flow of things. When we relax our grip on needing to know how it's all going to work out, we can begin to see people and situations in our lives coming into harmony and order in an easy, effortless way.
FREEDOM FROM WORRY
In the Yoga tradition there are four kinds of busyness. The child is busy with play; the youth is busy with pleasure; the adult is busy with worry, and the yogi is busy with bliss, liberation or freedom. Why, as adults, do we spend so much of our time in worry? Perhaps it's because, again, as adults, we feel so much responsibility. We feel as if everything rests on our shoulders— that if we don't make things happen, nothing will happen, or if we don't hold everything together, it will all collapse. Yet the universe has been continuing for aeons of time and will continue for aeons of time, with or without our fierce concern. There's an old Senegalese saying, "If we worry, tomorrow will come; if we don't worry, tomorrow will come." The remedy for worry seems to be trust: trusting ourselves that we will do what we need to do when we need to do it: trusting others to do what they need to do when they need to do it: trusting the universe and life itself to do what it needs to do when it needs to do it. Since it's all running itself anyway (including us) perhaps we can release our worry and let it be.