Walking with Strength

What is this life all about? One day, we all have to go. You know that; it’s in the back of your mind some days. Other days, you don’t bother thinking about it. For most people, the subject is very unpleasant. But the issue is your existence—you being alive. Just what does that mean to you?

So many people say, “If we could just find a solution to this problem, everything would be fine.” People everywhere basically know that they want to be happy. They want to be content. They want to feel good. Every human being is innately like that. This is our nature.

We seek equilibrium. The storms in our lives are not a good thing. When a storm comes, we seek shelter. We don’t say, “I’m going out in the storm now. This is the perfect time.”  We need the equilibrium of feeling good. I’m not going to define “feeling good.” There are certain things that work for you, and certain things that don’t. Feeling good works. Feeling bad doesn’t. You don’t get bored with feeling good. When you are feeling bad, on the other hand, you want to get out of that situation. This is your nature.

Do you concur with your nature? Do you try to nurture a good feeling and perpetuate it as much as possible? Or do you carry around a pocketful of band-aids? A pocketful of band-aids is: “There is no way I’m going to be conscious or perpetuate happiness in my life. I will do things that are unconscious, and when I get hurt, I will simply pull out one of the band-aids, take care of it, and I will be okay.”

Being unconscious will get you hurt—no question about it. When you don’t listen to your own fundamental needs, something will happen, and it will not be pleasant.

So what is pleasant? Pleasant is when the priority of life is acknowledged and my heart is filled with gratitude. When I know the friend within, when my house is built on the foundation of knowing—not beliefs, wishes, and ideas—it is very, very pleasant. This is what life is all about—filling yourself with the pleasant, filling yourself with infinite joy.

Can life really be filled with infinite joy? Is that possible? If you doubt this, you don’t understand the nature of what resides within you, because what resides within you is complete joy, complete clarity.

Think of life like this: It is your opportunity to spend time with the best friend you ever had. It is your chance to be with the ultimate clarity, the ultimate kindness, the ultimate joy. That’s what a life is. It’s not promised to be forever. But the possibility exists that you get to spend time with that which is the most beautiful. And that resides in your heart.

So, wherever you go and whatever takes place, just remember this: Life is not just ups and downs. They happen. That’s our doing. By our unconsciousness, we allow greed, anger, and fear to overtake the sanity of being alive. If there is suffering on planet Earth, it is brought by the people, for the people. We are the ones that set the expectation of how everything should be. “You should be like this, live for this long, look like this, look like that.”

Did God create the problems in this world? No. We did. It is about human beings. If you could just know that this life is the chance to spend time with that which is the truest, unconditional love… This is the opportunity for every living being to spend time with the Beloved within, to feel gratitude for life and rejoice. When that happens, you feel alive, and you begin to live. And the most magnificent movement is the coming and going of the breath. It needs no proof, no buildup. Its blessing is obvious. Is it obvious to you?

You exist. You are alive. Gather your strengths, not your weaknesses. What are your strengths? Your strengths are consciousness, kindness, understanding, acknowledging, rejoicing, loving. And when you walk with these, the outcome is beautiful. Every second you spend with the beauty inside of you, you are liberated. You are free.