What it is, is All There Is

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I’m not a Buddhist but I do favor a major tenet within their belief system. It’s actually something that’s so obvious it should be common sense; impermanence. Everything changes, nothing lasts, no one gets out of here alive. Too bad billions of us live as though nothing changes, everything lasts and death happens to everyone and everything except us. If you were given an opportunity to experience consciousness on a human level for an ever so brief time in the history of life; what would you do with it? The answer is simple; whatever you’re doing now.

Are you seeking truth, enlightenment, knowledge of the cosmos, inner wisdom, or anything that remotely goes to the root of what it is to be human or alive? Or are you taking this unfathomable opportunity we call life and flushing it away on identity, status, monetary prosperity, or the mindless routine of endless tasks that you’ve confused with living? Again, the answer is simple; look at your life.

Many folks who I love and trust say things like, “There’s nothing wrong with pursuing your hopes, goals and dreams.” I agree; unless they perpetuate a way of life that is detrimental to your being and the collective community you share the planet with. We don’t need any more people pursuing careers they’ve dreamed of. Instead we need people pursuing personal evolution. Anything short of this pursuit is a waste of precious time and a crime against life itself. If you’re paying attention at all, it is not an overstatement but an indictment on the colossal missteps so many of us continue to make in the name of self-promotion and the idiocy of personal branding.

I don’t care about your goals. I don’t care about your dreams. I don’t care about your hopes for the future. I care about now and what you’re doing to preserve the foundation of your self-respect and the biosphere we all share. As I see it, we can continue to promote our individual vanity or we can delve into the wonderment that is the mystery of being. That may sound esoteric or New Age like but it’s neither. What it is, is all there is. If you think your time here is supposed to be a productive, goal reaching, cash-cow opportunity to express an identity that your ego created then I’ve got news for you. Your ego doesn’t exist and the rest is some bullshit story you’ve adopted because you’re either too lazy or too fearful to pursue the actual hard inner work required to be fully awake, aware and alive or the infectious shallow nature of civilization has spread into your bones so completely, you’ve forgotten what it’s like not to be numb. In either case, you can continue along as a zombie, in mindless programmed routine, or you can courageously step into the depths of your being to discover what it means to be a human living a life of daily recognition of the calming perfection of the present moment, no matter what it holds. In that moment is connection, wholeness, mindfulness, wakefulness and the ability to simply exist without one’s worth measured by the spoils of ego-driven accomplishment in the destructive game of getting ahead in the world, whatever that means.

If you’re not waking up daily with an immense feeling of liberation then you’re either doing something terribly wrong or the world you’re living in is going terribly wrong. Chances are it’s one or the other or both. The good news is, everything is impermanent. Change is happening in the now. We are in the now. Now what are we going to do about it? My best guess is … nothing. Change or be changed my friends.

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