“The dark night of the soul” is not coming to grips with what happened in the past. It’s letting it go, once and for all, as in, “it never happened.” The so-called “darkness” alluded to is giving up the story of misery and suffering you desperately hang on to, and we all do this. In other words, you and you alone close the curtains to the light that ever shines around you. The reality of the “dark night” is that it is not real. Opening the curtains is nothing more than living in the light without the shaded lenses of a story no longer told or remembered. Living now always has a perfect shade of light that is bright, beautiful, and always new!
Bozebits
“You are ‘worthy’ of your dreams” is often said in new age speak. However, believing yourself worthy of anything is surrendering to the idea that anything you think or dream is more significant than what you are now, and that is an affirmation of unworthiness. It is not possible to know joy and happiness when hopes and dreams determine “worth.” Quality of life is not the measure of what you can be; it is what you are now, stripped bare and clean of every whim that crosses your imagination. You just can’t know YOU until you are free of any concept of worthiness. The greatest miracle of all is what you are in the midst of what is now. You are not in any way worthy of it! YOU are, however, “IT,” and that is a richness that has no measure.
Bozebits
“I have a right to; fill in the blank.” Your statement of rights is a statement of your imprisonment. A declaration of beliefs, desires, and expectations of something “out there” that you have determined needs to be given to you and respected by the giver is not freedom. Bound and gagged, you are free if you are without attachment to anything that is given out of respect for your so-called rights. Your freedom lies in the release of anything you believe you have a right to.
One of the many aspects of present-moment awareness is that it challenges all the norms you are conditioned to accept. Most will argue and resist those challenges, but the more aware you are, the more apt you will see your possession by the unreal. Nothing holds you except those things you hold. Let them go, and what you think you have “rights” to give way to what is, and that will set you free.
Bozebits
You stand on the precipice of beauty and folly. You recognize one and live the other. That is, you don’t choose between them, as one encompasses the other, and the other is the smile you wear while breathing life in all its nuance and mystery. Which is recognition, and which is beauty? Don’t overthink it; YOU already know.
Bozebits
“I choose to surround myself with like-minded people who, like me, generally believe as I do, love and accept me as I am, and positively lift me. Comfortable and safe in my world that avoids contrariness, I have few, if any, challenges to my ego or self-esteem. After all, it’s what new age spirituality suggests I do. However, in so choosing, I fully accept that I am missing out on the more significant part of human life and living: a rich and diverse world, full of myriad philosophies, tastes, beliefs, lifestyles, cultures, art, and colors, etc., etc., etc.” Do you see?
Choosing is exclusion, denial, and blindness, while life and living are a package deal. They cannot be what you want them to be because what you want is your own prison cell. “Tear down these walls!” You will be stunned, enriched, and enlivened by what and who is on the other side!
Bozebits
Your existence is not an evolutionary process, e.g., a coming from or going to. It is an involvement. That is, whatever is right now has everything to do with your participation in the whole of creation. Do you see? YOU, not from a place of evolutionary progress or regress, exist here now with your creation. Your involvement with it is an expression of your love for it. Create life and live it! There’s no better formula for YOU being you.
Bozebits
Nothing happens “to” you. This is so hard to “get” in everyday life, as we are all taught to look outward for reasons and causes. The reality is that all that happens, every interaction with who or whatever, is because of you and only you. It is your experience, and that is all any of us can expect in life. Own it, and life is yours fully and completely; fight it, resist it, blame it on others, and you will live conflicted, confused, and with a finger pointing toward everything and anyone but the real cause, e.g., you.
It’s difficult to smile when life is hard, but it is worse when smiles are replaced with judgments that only stand up in your failure to recognize that YOU are the creative center of the universe; the Maker of all that is and all that is” is in your hands. Be grateful that within YOU is love significant enough to create something so incredible.
Bozebits
There is so much going on right in front of us, but we look back at what happened in a previous, nonexistent moment and parse, dice, and second-guess what could have or should have been said or done after the fact when it no longer matters. Do you see? That meeting with your boss, where you could have said this, other than that, the discussion with friends about world affairs and the point you were trying to make would have been better stated had you expressed it another way. That scarf you knitted would have been nicer had you thought of doing it another way, which you hadn’t thought of while doing it, the golf shot that would have been closer to the target had you only used this or that club, etc. “If only” is unreal, and to recount and rehearse what “might have been” will not improve anything you do now, including some learning you think will benefit you in the nonexistent future.
Living in the present does not give you a second chance to “get it right” in some well-rehearsed future moment. It just gives a brand new, fresh, clean moment, and whatever your performance is now is always perfect until you take it apart “after the fact.” Don’t take it apart! Smile at your dalliances with life and get engaged with what is right now. Life is not a performance-driven affair. It’s just fun if you let it be fun. You can’t fail, so let it go.
Bozebits
Awareness, that is, opening yourself beyond the silly and often inane knowledge humans treasure far too much, embraces subtlety, mystery, and reverence, which ultimately coalesce into decency and a well-rounded human being. The mystical, unspoken, and even unspeakable grounds you in humility and forsakes the rigidity of all the “absolutes” humans anchor themselves to, which chains them to life rather than free them to experience its myriad surprises.
In other words, it’s not what you know about life, but what you are free to step into that you don’t know, e.g., you are greatest when you are smallest. Humble up, be grateful, and embrace the surprise.
Bozebits
The butterfly lands upon the flower, withdrawing its nectar, but leaves no mark upon it. Taking only what it needs, its taking is also giving because life gives. Not with purpose or noble intention but simply living in silent splendor that knows nothing but the kiss of earth, sun, and rain. You are kissed in such a way.
Let a soft touch, and the slightest essence of you be the only mark you leave in your stead, and life will give you, living, and nothing more than its own gentlest whisper. To know its embrace is to embrace it reverently.