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."

A man was on a train dining car having lunch. "And for dessert," he told the waiter, "I'll have pastries." "Sorry, sir, we are all out of pastries." "What do you mean, you're out of pastries?" The man was furious. "I am a very important friend of the owner of this railroad; I give a lot of business to this line— how dare you run out of pastries." The waiter continued to apologize, to no avail. Sometime later, the waiter came to the man's compartment and presented him with freshly made pastries which the chef had baked especially for him. "Forget the pastries," the man declared, "I'd rather be mad!" Sometimes no matter how many good things our life is giving us each day, we would rather hold on to an old grudge. We can release the old feelings of anger and blame and just be thankful for the goodness of life now 

There's an old saying, "Don't swat mosquitoes on your brother's head with hatchet," meaning, go easy on the people in your life. If we look hard enough, we can find flaws in anyone. We have a tendency to be critical and judging, particularly of the people closest to us. It's interesting that we tend to be much more tolerant and accommodating of people who we know only slightly. Those who we know well, we seem to judge more severely. Let's try to give the people in our lives a little more slack— at least as much as we do strangers. We can all be more polite, respectful and tolerant of those closest to us. After all, these are our closest supporters: these are the family and friends who have chosen to share their lives with us on this earth. Let's recognize and honor and give thanks for the people who love us enough to be with us. 

A man was once working behind a complaint department counter when an irate woman walked up. "First of all," she said, "I don't like your sign." Sometimes we have a tendency to complain about the way things are in our life. We hear ourselves saying often or even repeatedly, "Life is the pits." "It's not working." "Everything is falling apart." Day in, day out we may be reciting our litany of complaint: this, that or the other is wrong, wrong, wrong. We may need to release our need to complain in order to begin to see something new happening in our lives. Sometimes the simplest solution to our problems is to just quit seeing them as problems. We have many blessings in this life— the greatest blessing is the sheer fact of life itself. As Cervantes wrote, "Until death, it is all life"— and we might add that it's all good that we are alive. Let's decide that complaining has taken us as far as it can; it's time to make our peace and affirm the good of this life. 

Martin Buber tells a Hasidic story about a very shy and timid rabbi named Mendel. One day a group of people from a neighboring town came to Rabbi Mendel and said, "We have been told by the great Maggid, the great Hasidic leader, that you are to be our teacher— here is your belt and staff of authority." When Rabbi Mendel heard this, he stepped forward; he put on the belt and took hold of the staff of authority, and suddenly his whole being lit up with spiritual mastery. This humble and shy rabbi had been quietly awaiting the moment when he came into his own authority. For each of us, there is a moment when we too come out from behind our hiding place in life and don the mantle of our own self-worth and self-competence. There is a moment when all the waiting is over, and the gift of ourselves that we are here to share with our world is given in all its fullness, and it is well received. 

A couple once saved their money to take a trip to the beautiful Grand Tetons in Jackson Lake, Wyoming. This couple was looking forward to having a great time exploring the wonders of nature through hiking, boating and fishing. However, when they arrived at the Tetons, they found a heavy downpour of rain. Somewhat disappointed, they spent the first day of their vacation sitting in the lodge. When the rain continued for a second day, the couple's disappointment turned to resentment. The third day of rain brought anger, the fourth brought rage, and the fifth and last day of their stay, with still continuous rain, left the couple in a state of fury. What made matters worse was the peaceful and joyous calm of an elderly man who was also staying at the lodge. Each day this man would sit quietly reading or playing solitaire, epitomizing peace and contentment. Finally, on this last day, the husband yelled at the man, "How can you just sit there being so peaceful when it has rained all week?" The elderly man replied, "When it rains, I let it." 

Walt Whitman, the great American poet, used to sign his name in his letters to his niece with huge letters; the signature was about a half a page long. Was he merely being egotistical in using such a gigantic signature, or was there something else at work in Whitman? Perhaps the huge signature was Whitman staking his claim as a citizen of the universe. In his book of poems, Leaves of Grass, he calls himself "Walt Whitman, a Kosmos." Maybe Whitman is just expressing his inherent oneness with all life. How do we sign our name? Is it very small and apologetic? Perhaps we, like Whitman, need to boldly and fearlessly claim our Divine Entitlement; we too are one with the oneness of all; we too belong here as daughters and sons of this universe. Let's affirm our right position in this world; we are the heirs of a universal Good that is manifesting for each of us, through each of us, now. 

Thoreau said, "Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in." Someone else once said, "Time is that which keeps everything from happening all at once." Our time seems so structured these days that many of us feel that we have less time now than people experienced in the past. Some of us yearn for the days of slow travel over land or sea when there was time for study and reflection. The mid-nineteenth century provided the time for giants such as Darwin, Lyle and Frazier to pursue immense studies to their completion. Perhaps one of the most difficult and challenging concerns in our own age is to make our peace with time, to come to terms with time and make it our ally, not our enemy. Bertrand Russell said, "To realize the unimportance of time is the gate ofwisdom." Perhaps we need to learn how to take time less seriously, to enjoy our time and to let time be. 

A visitor to Niels Bohr's home once accused the great physicist of superstition because he had a horseshoe hanging on the wall. "Do you really believe that that horseshoe will bring you luck?" the visitor taunted. Bohr replied, "Of course not, but I understand it brings you luck whether you believe it or not." We sometimes think that things are secretly working against us. We say, "It's the sunspots" or "The moon or the planets are against me." But the truth is that if we look at our life overall, we realize that many, many times things of which we are not even aware are working for us, sometimes even in spite of ourselves. Perhaps we just need to trust that this life will look after us. Life has brought each of us this far, why not trust that life will bring us our heart's desire. The Good you desire is already on its way to you now.