Just Rest

"Just sit there right now
Don't do anything. Just rest.
For your separation from God
Is the hardest work in the world."

-- Hafiz

Isn't amazing how advanced spiritual practitioners of all traditions basically say the same thing? Zen masters, Christian mystics, Hindu gurus, even Hafiz, of the Sufi school of Islamic mysticism, all recommend "just sitting." Why just sitting? Because if you just sit, and let your wild, monkey mind quiet down a bit, you will see that you are never really separate from God in the first place. Never, ever.

The illusion of separateness cannot be cured by doing more or trying harder. It is not a problem to be solved, but a condition to be dissolved. And the dissolution happens by dunking the thoughts of separation into the deep pool of Unity that can only be accessed through the quiet mind.

So, next time you find yourself doing "the hardest work in the world," i.e., maintaining your separate, egoic condition, just rest. Allow the Reality of Unity to arise within you. God didn't go anywhere, you did. And where you went was merely a fantasy world that you created in that grey matter between your ears.

Like awakening from a nightmare, like returning from a long, arduous business trip, it is time to feel the sun on your face and return to your place of origin. You are not destined for hard work but for rest, for bliss, for Oneness.

Welcome home.

The Eternal Flow

"I feel myself so much a part of everything living that I am not the least concerned with the beginning or ending of the concrete existence of one person in this eternal flow."

-- Albert Einstein

Death happens. What happens after death is anyone's guess. What we do know is that life goes on. I die, you die, someone dies, in fact, everyone dies sooner or later, and still life goes on. And whether you know it, (like Einstein) or not (like Joe Sixpack) we're all a part of this eternal flow.

Kind of takes the pressure off, doesn't it? If we really feel our unity with all of life, death of one physical body, even our own physical body, means so little. Your obit today, lines the birdcage tomorrow.

And yet, I'm hardly fatalistic or pessimistic, just realistic. Recognizing our part in the eternal flow, now, while we're still alive, helps make life an enjoyable journey rather than a life or death battle. The purpose of life is not to see who can make the biggest splash in the eternal stream. If Einstein had not concocted his theory of relativity, someone else would have. The flow supercedes the individual, but in truth the individual is one with the flow. The size of the wave hardly matters -- we're all water.

So, lighten up! Better to feel your oneness with everything than to worry about death -- yours or anyone's. The ultimate accomplishment is not living long but living well, moment by moment, in the eternal flow.