Turn To Yourself

We spend a lot of our lives looking for role models, mentors, teachers, and gurus to guide us on our path.
There is nothing wrong with this and, in fact, finding the right person at the right time can really help.
However, it is important to realize that in the absence of such a figure, we can very safely rely upon ourselves.
We carry within us everything we need to know to make progress on our paths to self-realization.
The outer world serves as a mirror.
Or to use another metaphor, our inner world has a magnetic force that draws to us what we need to evolve to the next level.
All we need to do to see that we already have everything we need is to let go of our belief that we need to seek in order to find.

The path of the spirit is often defined as a journey with a goal such as the fabled pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
In this metaphor, a person begins a search for something they want but do not have and then they find it, and there is a happy ending.
However, most of us know that getting what we want only makes us happy for a moment, and then the happiness passes until a new object of desire presents itself.
Joy is a permanent aspect of our inner selves and is not separate from us at any point.
We do not have to travel to find it or imagine that it resides only in the body of another.
In fact, what the best teachers will do is point out that this very precious elixir is something we already possess.

So when we find ourselves on our path, not knowing which way to turn and wishing for guidance, we can turn to ourselves.
We may not know the right answer rationally or intellectually, but if we simply ask, let go, and wait patiently, an answer will come.
The more we practice this and trust this process, the less we will look outside ourselves for teachers and guides for we will have successfully become our own.

DaillyOM

Compassionate Action

Compassionate action starts with seeing yourself
when you start to make yourself right and
when you start to make yourself wrong.

At that point you could just contemplate the fact
that there is a larger alternative to either of those,
a more tender, shaky kind of place where you could live.

Pema Chodron

Who We Become

We can't control our destiny,
but we can control who we become.

Anne Frank

Elder's Meditation -- Our Center

Our bodies are both physical and spiritual.
At our very center we are spiritual.
Our bodies are built around the spiritual.
The center is the unseen world.
Therefore, we cannot see it with our eyes and we tend to judge the body because we can see it.
The body is not who we are.
We can see the spiritual if we are spiritual ourselves.
We won't see this always with our physical eyes.
Usually we will see it with our spiritual eye.
We will hear ourselves say "I know this to be true."

At the center of all human beings is the place of good.

That includes myself.

At my very core is good.

I can find this place by staying free of
resentments, fear, dishonesty and self-seeking motives.

My Creator, keep me free this day of
resentment, selfishness, dishonesty and fear.

A Divine Mirror

If you look at every human being as a Divine mirror,

you will know yourself and understand life.

-- Sherif Baba

Thankgiving

The greatest gift one can give is thanksgiving.
In giving gifts, we give what we can spare,
but in giving thanks we give ourselves.
-- David Steindl-Rast, Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer

True To Ourselves

We must be true inside, true to ourselves,
before we can know a truth that is outside us.
But we make ourselves true inside by
manifesting the truth as we see it.
--Thomas Merton