We make choices. We draw conclusions.

We believe that what we know is right. We add meaning to Life. Then we assume that the meaning we add to Life is the meaning of Life.

But Life has no meaning. It just is. It doesn't mean anything.

Don't believe anything I say. I - for one - do not believe in belief. Rather, try on what I say for size. And if it fits, wear it; else toss it out.

The difference between untransformed people and transformed people is that untransformed people live out of a fixed set of decisions which were laid down at an early age, then they try to make Life fit into whatever they have already decided that it means.

Transformed people, on the other hand, live life as a matter of choice, choosing newly moment by moment, over and over again, including choosing what they already got, including choosing what is already so, including choosing to give up what they now are for what they could become.

There is nothing to get. It doesn't mean anything.

 It's empty and meaningless. And it's empty and meaningless that it's empty and meaningless.

 Making it mean something that it's empty and meaningless is more inauthenticity.

Looking from that vantage point, what you are committed to?

It is OK the way it is" he said to me, and in my listening I heard "the way it is" gently emphasized. I looked. I got it. I smiled. "Beautiful point" I said to him after a moment. But it was even more than that. That way of seeing is the  platform for a transformed life. It is the solid foundation on which to build a future. It is the once considered impossibly located balm for all things unbearable.

? Standing in the opening of the sheer simplicity of it, I notice where my life is given to resisting things, changing things, fixing things, avoiding things, explaining things, justifying things. Where is my life given to it is OK the way it is? Given the obvious, that the way it is is the way it is, shouldn't all my life always be given to it all the time

I express myself into the world as a manifestation of who I consider myself to be. I also express myself into the world avoiding experiencing who I do not consider myself to be. It seems natural, justified, and reasonable to avoid being dominated, for example, either by another person or by people, or even by life itself. Or to avoid being wrong, either in the eyes of another or others, or even in my own eyes. Or (the most pernicious) to avoid looking bad, either in the eyes of another or others, or even in my own eyes.

And it's not even that I act that way without considering the costs to my aliveness acting that way extracts, because I do. It's worse than that: I consider acting that way to be prudent, smart, intelligent, and the good old American "right thing to do".

When he said that (or at least after the full impact of what he said sunk in), I got that avoiding experiencing who I do not consider myself to be is out of an assessment of something or other or, as we sometimes say, "living in my head". It's not that you should or shouldn't live in your head that is the issue. That would be just another assessment. It is that living that way does not take into account that it is OK the way it is, whatever it is.

A good friend of mine shared with me she had recently started to lay awake at night unable to sleep. She had sought counseling. She had resorted to drug therapy. She had even conjured up a plausible explanation for being unable to sleep: something she thought she had completed in her past (her parents' divorce) had resurfaced and was coming back to haunt her.

I asked her if she would be willing to try something with me. I said to her: "When you are lying there awake, be awake. Instead of lying there awake wanting to be asleep, when you are lying there awake, be awake.".

It wasn't too long before she realized that her problem was not being unable to sleep. Her problem was being one way (awake) but wanting to be another way (asleep). And that is  a problem. Being X but wanting to be Y is a problem. Being X and wanting to be X is not a problem.

From then on, when she was awake she was no longer being awake wanting to be asleep. From then on, when she was awake she would be awake. Her problem disappeared.

Almost always, the voice over is an assessment of the way it ought to be. Characteristically, the way it ought to be is never the same as the way it is. Managing situations based on assessment is called "getting your fingers caught in the machinery". That doesn't imply you can't or shouldn't assess situations or change things. What it does imply is that until you can get it the way it is without getting your fingers caught in the machinery, that's all you can do: assess situations and change things. There is no possibility of inventing any unpredictable, discontiguous future. There is no possibility of inventing anything truly new.

We live that "there is nothing new under the sun". Yet if you stop and observe, you will notice that the way it is always changes, always evolves. The way it is is that something new is always showing up. Always. That is its true nature. It is always new and it is always renewing itself by itself when you keep your fingers out of the machinery.

Here is where it is. Now is when it is. You are what it is.

It is OK the way it is. Really it is.

Celebrate!

We're crazy  for comfort. We feel cheated when we're uncomfortable, or we feel there's something to do which we haven't yet done, the doing of which will eliminate being uncomfortable, because we've got it wired life should  be comfortable. The truth is life is sometimes comfortable and sometimes it isn't. Even when it's uncomfortable the show goes on. Your integrity muscle, for example, is built only when it's uncomfortable.

God didn't promise life will always be comfortable. Interestingly enough, when life is comfortable we ease up. Life goes unexamined  when it's comfortable. What that implies is when life is comfortable, that's when I'm most likely to be on automatic. But when it's uncomfortable, when there's a palpable sense of dis-ease, when there's a sense of I don't like, when it seems as if something's wrong, that's when I'm most likely to question. That's when I'm most likely to reflect. And my first take after reflection is often something's wrong with me.

But if the truth be told, the interpretation that something's wrong with me when it's uncomfortable is also on automatic.

I've noticed when it's uncomfortable there's always a sense it's personal. And there's even a predictable conversation that goes along with it which sounds something like this:

"I'm not comfortable  with this. I don't like this. This isn't right. It shouldn't be  this way. Something's wrong. This shouldn't be happening. This shouldn't be happening to me."

The sense it's personal is pervasive. But it's not  personal. It's just what we inherited along with human being. And because there's no immediate recognition of that, we rarely inquire into its impersonal nature because we're convinced it's personal. Actually it's more than that: we're thrown  it's personal.

Since we're more likely to question when life is uncomfortable, what's the distinction in life being uncomfortable which, when distinguished, creates the space to be with the experience of life being uncomfortable  so that what's there is neither uncomfortable nor comfortable but rather ... simply ... life - just the way it is and just the way it isn't?

Consider this: it shows up  personal ... but it ain't personal.

That's not a rule. Neither is it a formula. It's not a discipline either. And, to be sure, if you turn it into a belief  it loses all it's power. But as a place to stand and look from it's really powerful. If you try it on for size, you may notice when life isn't comfortable, we

a) assume it's somehow personal, and

b) we try to change it.

You may also notice when life is comfortable we

a) assume it's the way it's supposed to be, and

b) we go along with it.

Yet if you examine each you'll see they're both quite arbitrary and automatic.

It doesn't require a vote on your part. Entertaining the point of view it shows up personal ... but it ain't personal  creates space to be  in, creates clarity to see in. It's to be used - like a lens - to examine human being  and what (as Alan Watts may have said) goeswith  the territory of being human. There's a degree of freedom in discovering much of the stuff  in life we take personally isn't personal at all. We simply inherited it by being born.

If what I said I would make happen does not happen exactly as I said it would happen, for whatever the reason, then I did not keep my word.

If I keep my word every time I give it, then I am not playing big enough.

Whenever we give our word, we can phrase it whichever way we choose. There is a subtle lack of fit between what we say we will make happen, and what actually happens.

Furthermore, we often dismiss this lack of fit as inevitable. We make little distinction between making happen what we said is going to happen, and having a reasonable excuse for not making happen what we said is going to happen. It is as if the reasonable excuse negates the fact that you did not do what you said you were going to do.

However, you don't keep your word in order to be right: you keep your word in order to keep your word. You make happen what you said is going to happen just because you said you would.

Everyone at some time or other has been kept waiting. You make an agreement to meet someone at a specific time and place, you are there and they don't show up. Your time is wasted and you begin to feel something akin to skepticism with regard to any further agreements you may make with that person. Eventually, when that person finally does contact you, he or she has what seems to be a perfectly valid reason, excuse or justification (and profuse apology) for not being where they said they would be. And yet, it never seems to make any difference. Your wasted time is never recovered and you still wonder whether or not that person is really dependable.

Keeping your word is a black and white issue. You either make happen what you said is going to happen, or you don't. If you said you are going to produce some result by a certain time and you don't, no amount of reasons, excuses, justifications or apologies alters that fact. Reasons are one thing. Results are something completely different.

We are all on the same team. The degree that you can be counted on to make happen exactly what you said is going to happen is the degree of success for all of us. Keeping your word has consequences for those who depend on you doing what you said you would do. If you don't keep your word, that has consequences too.

While it is true that you always have the choice not to make agreements that are impossible to keep, it is in your best interests to become known as someone who can be depended on to keep their word and simply produce the result, rather that someone who knows all the reasons why what they said is going to happen, does not.

Keeping your word makes a difference... .mallikarjun