Do you ever look around and wonder what you are doing in this life? What does it all mean?

Most people see life as a mere series of events and circumstances that culminate into either pleasure or pain. And within this mindset they diminish their living down to one of two methods: either trying to control the world they live in or just trying to get through it to the “reward” at the end.

How we develop and mature into states of Love determines the experiences we will have. If we do not develop a deep sense of inner awareness through the state of the Loving Heart, we are left to the ruthlessness of this world and the collective unconscious to rule our living through social and political coercion and the subjective “moral values” of hate.

Our own spiritual neglect manifests as pain and sorrow in our lives. Our depression is the result of insisting that we are “right” while doing everything that is “wrong” and suffering the disappointing, painful circumstances and situations that this behavior creates in our lives.

Life is operating at a level that has nothing to do with our small-mindedness. We like to think that we know what is happening, but we do not. All of Life’s occurrences are pointing our attentions toward the revelation that we live in oneness. When we become aware of this and accept it unequivocally, we awaken to the sacredness of every moment even though we do not always “understand” what is occurring.

Allow me a wonderful story as a metaphor of how what is happening is not what is occurring…and yet IT IS!

A man is driving up a country hill road. Upon reaching the top he stops his car and walks over to a nearby five-barred gate. Leaning on it he gazes with pleasure at the vista spread out before him. There is a sky of breathless blue, full of birds wheeling lazily in the warm sun, fields of emerald green ripple in the soft breeze, while cattle and sheep graze peacefully along the hillside. The whole scene is one of tranquil beauty and the man draws in a deep breath saying; “It is really lovely.”

At that moment another car arrives and another joins the first man. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” murmurs the first man.

The second man is silent for a moment, then says thoughtfully: “Have you ever considered what is really happening out there? These graceful birds that wheel in the sky are seeking food. How graceful do they look to the insects they gobble? Or to the writhing worms they drag from the earth with cruel and unrelenting beaks?

The first man shifts uneasily, “Oh, come now!”

The second man speaks again, “Those sheep so peacefully grazing…they are being fattened and will soon be dragged to the slaughterhouse trembling with fear as they smell the blood-stained floor upon which they, too, will die. Their little lambs will be snatched away to dangle form butcher hooks.”

The first man is silent as the second man continues.

“This emerald green grass rippling in the sun – within it murder and mayhem are constantly taking place as the spiders devour the flies and large insects devour the smaller. If the sounds could be interpreted and magnified all you would hear are the screams of pain and fear that reverberate though out this lush meadow.”

Now here you have two different viewpoints about what is happening right in front of these two men. Which one is correct? One is “positive” and the other is so realistic that many would deem him “negative.” Yet both are correct. But the story does not end here. Another car arrives…

A third car arrives and out steps a mystic who listens to the stories of both men and laughs. “Life is not either this or that. Life is both…and everything! You are both right, but life is more than what you both can think. Yes, there is dark night and there is bright day, there is summer and there is winter, and there is life and there is death.”

“You are both right, but you have chosen one standpoint against the other…so you each only see half of the picture of Life and you try to impose that half on the whole. That is where you go wrong. I do not choose, I simply accept it as it is.”

To accept life as it is – what does this mean? We must learn how to live in Love without the need for survival…to accept what is happening now and wait for the bigger picture to become clear.

If our hope is for “good” while we are hating what we cannot accept in the world, then our intent is of no real significance. Energy follows INTENT, not hope. So I offer the following ways in which we can learn how to activate our intention toward Love through acceptance.

LESS IS MORE
The less we want the more that is revealed to us. When we continue to want MORE we will never be able to recognize the bigger picture of our lives, and hence, continue to live using our energies in ways that undermine our effort to mature into Love.

The way we use energy matters. We must want for nothing and watch what the energies of our Being bring us to, accepting everything with mercy that allows for insight and clarity into the quality of each moment. Compassion is born of the fearlessness to accept everything, even death, as a matter of living on this earth and in this world.

ACCEPTANCE
First – we do not have to be perfect to be LOVE.
Second – we can change and move into the light of our Being at any given moment.
Third – we are nothing but energy and can change our energy from coarse to fine by merely shifting our attention.
Fourth – we are forgiven no matter what when we allow mercy to be the motivation of our Loving intent.

GIVING AND FORGIVING
Both are deeply significant because they allow for a profound change in energy. When we live in forgiveness we can give generously without hesitation. By focusing our attentions toward compassion and living in the energy of mercy we find the “giving” in every moment of our lives, and we change the source that we live from.

Everything is happening within our lives due to the neglect we have shown toward the MEANING OF LIFE. We suffer due to our stubborn indifference toward living from desire and pride.

Meditation and inner practice allow a new intelligence to enter into us. When we no longer seek an identity through desire and pride, we allow LIFE to “live” us while we are here in this human body.

So for now, I leave you with this from the Buddha:

o not let pleasure distract you from meditation, from the way.

Free yourself from pleasure and pain.
For in craving pleasure or in nursing pain
There is only sorrow.

Like nothing, lest you lose it,
Lest it bring you grief and fear.
Go beyond likes and dislikes.

From passion and desire,
Sensuousness and lust,
Arise grief and fear.
Free yourself from attachment.