A Perfect Reminder

This past month has been interesting. I have left my hometown of NYC to be in Colorado and California to spend time practicing guitar, recording, and breathing easy. Many New Yorkers think if they’d get away from NY life would fall apart. Funny, there is life outside NY and I feel fine.

However – there are a few universal principles to remember. 1) wherever you go, there you are 2) you take yourself and baggage with you wherever you go.

I found yesterday – exactly one month in, that I took my baggage with me. A feeling of “it’s not good enough” and “I want more” and “everything will be ok when (fill in the blank)”. Ahh, the tendency to deny the present moment was something I got into my “carry on item”.

Luckily I found the medicine I needed. A quick profound message from a Sadguru on Youtube, and then one from Lester Levenson. Sadguru observes how there are people who create their own heaven and their own hell. I realized that I already have everything I want in life, and that once I have gotten “the object of desire” – it is utterly transparent. To want more, and to deny the present moment – is a mini hell I create, and to sit quietly is a heaven I create.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jgs1ubkMhU]

Another teacher (not the one posted above)Lester Levenson describes it quite simply. He has observed that we already are whole, complete – and that through desire we create a disturbance, an added unhappiness, and when we fill that unhappiness with the object of desire, we find our wholeness which was there the whole time. The mind quiets, we call it happiness – and then get on the merry go round again. The happiness is simply our natural state. It is that we “assume” a lack which is not real.

Just hearing the words of these enlightened teachers is a perfect reminder. I can reflect on all the desires I have fulfilled over the years, and can also see that these did not bring me lasting happiness. Knowing that, I can breathe right here right now and allow myself to be happy.

Our happiness is not “coming” at “a future time, a better time then now” when we have something, or when something special happens. We can listen now. We can breathe now. We can let it all be, and allow a profound peace to pervade.