People ask me all the time: What is enlightenment and how can I achieve it? Enlightenment seems like a hustle to me. It seems to be an idea that makes a lot of people unhappy. How can I become enlightened? It appears to me to be an achievement that no one fully realizes.
I think a more interesting concept to explore is peace. How can we come to a place of peace in our lives? What can we do to show the world what peace looks like? I think in order to do this we have to investigate the root of struggle. To me, struggle is quite simply when you want to do something, but you feel like you shouldn’t, or you don’t want to do something, and you feel like you should. At one point in my life, I realized that if we just removed the last part of each of your statements, we could bring ourselves to a place of peace.
I think it is important to note that in order to truly reside in a place of peace we must be acting out of love in all instances. Once those criteria are met, we can apply our struggle statement. I want to do something—so I do it. I don’t want to do something—so I don’t. By eliminating the feeling “I should” or “I shouldn’t” we can come to the place of peace. And peace is what most of us long for. It is the panacea that we strive to achieve. But can you achieve peace or is peace inherently our natural state of mind?
You can tell a true master by the look in his or her eye. There is a peace that embodies their eyes; it is a peace that we rarely see in our day-to-day lives. Most of us have eyes that are filled with fear. The fear of not being good enough. The fear of not having enough. The fear of not being loved. The fear of being separate from the pack. All these things create conflicted eyes.
But the master doesn’t embody these thoughts and because of this they have eyes that resonate peace. The master knows they are good enough. How do they know they are worthy of being here on Earth? Easy. They are breathing. This is the only requirement for worthiness. Are you breathing? If you answered yes, you are worthy. If you answered “no” you need to see a doctor because you only have moment left in your body.
How does the master know that he or she has enough? The reality is that most of us do have enough. There are a very few of those among us who may not have enough but the largest percentage of us do. Everyone reading this does. Do you have clothes on your back? Have you eaten in the last few days? Did you get a drink of water this morning? We are all, most likely, sitting in a comfortable room right now. The reality is we have enough, and the master knows this. There is nothing to achieve in the eyes of a master.
Love. The fear of not being loved. Can this even be? Is there anyone reading this that cannot think of one person who loves them? Anyone? It simply isn’t possible. How do I know this? Because I love each and every one of you reading this. I am filled with love knowing that you took the time to read this far in my blog (and technically, up until this very second you hadn’t read this yet. This is how intention works—we act as if our manifestation has already occurred in the physical world through our belief and by truly believing in every cell of our body it becomes a reality) . Thank you! Thank you for investing some of your valuable time to read something that I wrote. I truly can’t tell you how much that means to me. You have helped me manifest a dream realized by reading this today and for that I am filled with love for each of you.
But how does the master know she is loved? What does the master know that we don’t know? She knows that love starts with her. The master loves themselves before they even consider loving someone else first. And this may appear selfish and somewhat controversial because we are taught that we must be selfless. We are taught that we must love others before ourselves. In fact, if truth be told we have been programmed to belief that we must love others EVEN MORE than we love ourselves. We must give to others before we give to ourselves. How can we give that which we don’t feel inside? How could I possibly give love to you if I haven’t given love to myself. It is simply an impossibility. If you come to my house for dinner and I have no food, how am I going to feed you? I must first fill my kitchen with all the necessary ingredients so that I can prepare the meal that I will serve you. First I must fill my kitchen; the master fills her own kitchen with love in order to serve love to you.
This master with the peaceful eyes, how does she know that she can never be separate from the pack? Look around you. You are in a pack right now. You are part of something bigger than you every moment of your life and when we release the need to be the most important person in the room, we become part of something bigger than ourselves. Have you had a package delivered to you today? Did you go to the store? Did someone work to provide electricity in your home? This is the pack at work.
The master wants no students. The true master wants you to watch and learn and one day fulfill your own mastery. So, we look into the eyes of this master, and we wonder: how could I become like them? What do I have to do to have those calming, peaceful eyes? Many of us may wonder, what can I buy to help me get that “peaceful, easy feeling” (for all you Eagles fans out there)? Where can I buy it? How much does it cost? Does it come in pill form, or do you drink it from a bottle? Do I have to travel to some remote Ashram and sit like a pretzel in order to get that look in my eye? The funny thing is that we all know the answer, but we simply don’t listen to our inner voice. The answer is no—we can’t buy it, drink it, pop it, travel to it or make our knees hurt in order to have the look of a master. We don’t have to do anything. There is nothing to achieve.
We simply realize a couple of elegant truths. We are breathing, we are worthy. Love begins and ends with us. We never have to search for it because it is always with us. It resides in our hearts every day, but we put up walls to prevent it from shining and then we blame others for not loving us. It is a cycle with no end.
But the truth of the matter is, we all have the power to change the way we are living. Each day when I do my meditation practice, I always use my breath to help me remember my own personal mastery. I sit on my floor (this is a very good thing to do each day to keep you grounded), I fold my legs like a pretzel (you can actually hear the creaking) and I sit in easy pose and begin my morning breathing practice.
I begin and inhale deeply. As I do, I mentally get a feeling of acceptance of that has happened in my life. Whatever it is, I accept it mentally. There is no changing the past—it is what it is. It was what it was.
As I reach the top of my breath, I hold it while silently saying “thank you” for all that is currently happening in my life (whether I like it or not, I know this is for my Greatest Good because this is my prayer each morning: Bring me today whatever is for my Greatest Good and the Greatest Good of All.)
Finally, I exhale the feeling of surrender to all that is to come in the future.
I continue this for eleven minutes and in those eleven minutes I come to the of silence—the all-important silence. When we accept, give thanks, and surrender to all that is we create the environment to foster peace in our lives. Through acceptance, thanks, and surrender we become the master.
By submitting to the mastery of this Universe, I discover my own mastery. By understanding that everything that is currently in my life—I have attracted all of it, for better or worse. It was always my thoughts that created my reality. This was scary until it wasn’t. Once I understood this, it was a very short road to knowing that everything can be changed for the better (whatever that means). We always have the choice to change our thoughts and by doing so, our very reality.
And this is what the masters with the peaceful eyes have always known. It is, and always will be, inside of you. Every single answer is inside of you. Everything in our lives can either be expanded through our thoughts or limited by them. We just have to take the time to sit and listen…and then…the answers will come, and with those answers our own personal mastery.
“Cause I’ve got a peaceful, easy feeling…”
🙏🏻💗
Soul Mate…