©Parker Stafford

This image of the Buddha I created a few years ago to express a certain sense about the awakening experience, which has a lot to do with being able to be IN the fire of awakening or a spiritual experience while still remaining blissfully calm.  Being able to do this is an important part of being a primate.  We can reflect and we can control ourselves.  We can seek the highest, even if that highest thing is something we aren’t quite sure we even know IS. We can each find a place of calm where we can be powerfully present, observant, but not always in the throes of the drama of our lives. We can choose to let the clutch slip as we simply sit quietly and calmly, observing and letting bliss wash over us instead of feeling angst or anger, or hurt or pain or jealousy or any number of things that really wind up wasting our time here on the planet and just burn up energy and make life harder for all involved.

Sit down for a few quiet minutes.  Give yourself permission to unhook, to not have all of your worldly tethers on and demanding your attention.  Instead of your life pulling at you, I want you to try and watch your life float on by.  Just let it be like a big blue balloon of a moment where the string slips out of your fingers and you find that you aren’t upset in the least; it already is done.  No use crying over spilt milk…..

So slow down.  Feel your life as like a river.  It is noisy up close, but you are going to get very quiet inside so that any noise is merely incidental.  It wont matter so much to you.  We all can have very noisy lives, and it can sometimes be a bit like street noise.  It is all lovely, but let it all drift into the background some.  Let the part of you that is Observer be that; observe.

So sit comfortably and calmly. Think about your life, but do not get caught up in it. You now have permission to look at all of it in the same way that you might watch the landscape move past you as you float in an inner-tube on a slow and lazy river.  No worries. You cant stop it, but you can watch it all happen.

Whatever it is that bothers you, the universe can take care of it and WILL take care of it if you just let it be.

So let it be.  Watch your life pass before you.  See your mother, your father, your brothers and sisters, your children, your coworkers, your friends and the whole wide world just slip on by you.  For a few moments just BE here and watch.  Observer. Be neutral.  This is a bit like what death is about and is actually what it serves to teach many who can let go; surrender.  We fear death, but death is in truth a great learning opportunity.  We learn so much when we die.  It is so final and so much is brought to that moment of finality…(or SEEMING finality).  But we just let go and the feeling can be so delicious and so wonderful.  Whoever said death was horrible must have never remembered dying a time or two!

And if your life is one big drama after another, try this; yes look at all that lively drama you created.  It is such a mess, is it not?  Oh my goodness!  But you know, even though its a mess, I bet that if you let it be and start living differently, the mess will just take care of itself.  You just wont contribute to its being a mess anymore.  Perfect.  Oh sure, you might have to dip your hands into the mess a little to finish it, but you would be surprised to know just how many things are already about as done as they could possibly be and would never be improved on by our sticking our hands back into it to try and make it better.

It doesn’t mean that you don’t care when you are being the Observer.  You are merely not being so reactive and being so engaged  that you can’t see what is in front of you or have any sense of perspective.  Relax, breathe, and tell yourself that with the help of the universe, everything is going to be okay.  Even the stuff that seems messy now will sort itself out in time.  Inside of you is something so perfect, so right, that when you let it flow out of you without trying to control it anymore, it sets up just the right conditions and events for your greater unfolding.  If you want to talk about ascension, which is something I don’t think ANYONE really understands (but people write about it as though it is something that they know), then this might be a good place to start.  But then, this might just be something that I find useful for me.  All of us are different, and your own inner voice might be calling you to do something different; honor that.  You just never know when its going to turn into an ADVENTURE!

I tell myself this one a lot when I come across the harder things in my life.  I say this and keep saying it.  Each time things that were hard get a little bit easier.  Its not like running a fast race, but its worth it I think to no longer being so ruled by things.

So sit and take it all in.  This is your life.  All of it.  Now go live it!