Suffering is how Life tells you that you are resisting or misperceiving what is real and true. It is the way Life suggests that you are not in harmony with what is.
Our illusions-the beliefs we hold on to-are the very doorways to our freedom. We simply have to enter through them without grasping or pushing away. We must not believe them, but we must not run away from them either. We need to see each moment of apparent bondage as an invitation to freedom. Then it becomes an act of love, an act of compassion, to stop running away.
All that is necessary to awaken to yourself as the radiant emptiness of spirit
is to stop seeking something more or better or different,
and to turn your attention inward to the awake silence that you are.
The truth is that you already are what you are seeking. You are looking for God with his eyes. I suggest you ask, "What's ultimately behind this set of eyes?" Turn around to see what is looking.
True Meditation is the space in which everything gets revealed, everything gets seen, everything gets experienced. And as such, it lets go of itself. We don't even let go. It lets go of itself.
How do I integrate spirituality into my everyday life? Throw out the concept of "spiritual life" and "everyday life." There is only life, undivided and whole.
No matter what identity we cling to, it takes great courage to step out of the old masks we wear and the old scripts that we live by, and open ourselves to the mysterious inner core of our being.
Retreat is a response to the call of the heart-that call which beckons us toward reality, to the truth of our being, to that which is truly sane, really real and liberating ... When a group of people come together as a response to that kind of inward call, it creates a very powerful environment, where truth is held in the highest esteem and the reality of our being responds to that deepest intention.
If you filter my words through any tradition or '-ism', you will miss altogether what I am saying. The liberating truth is not static; it is alive. It cannot be put into concepts and be understood by the mind. The truth lies beyond all forms of conceptual fundamentalism. What you are is the beyond—awake and present, here and now already. I am simply helping you to realize that.
Ego is neither positive nor negative. Those are simply concepts that create more boundaries. Ego is just ego, and the disaster of it all is that you, as a spiritual seeker, have been conditioned to think of the ego as bad, as an enemy, as something to be destroyed. This simply strengthens the ego. In fact, such conclusions arise from the ego itself. Pay no attention to them. Don't go to war with yourself; simply inquire into who you are.
Spirituality does not require that you work hard toward achieving a result in the future as much as it requires you to be fully present, sincere and committed now, with absolute honesty and willingness to uncover and let go of any illusions that come between you and the realization of Reality.