The Task
These are troubled times. The more sensitive person seeks beauty, harmony, sweetness, softness. In one word “relief” from the strident tension and loud noise everywhere. Nobody truly wants to exert, strain, push or discipline themselves any more than what our stressful times require. This is why I warn people who come to me. With all the love I am capable of feeling and giving, the message I bring is not one that is easy to accept or to realize. I am a taskmaster.
I bring hope through effort. Where someone might seek toys, I suggest they give them away. Where another might seek company, I point them inwards and upwards to the subtle currents of luminous life. Looking for refuge I urge them on and outwards, to help others before resting themselves. Where they seek compensation in the after-life, I point to even more work in the here-now.
And yet there is no self-denial in my work. Just an opening of the eyes and a deepening of the senses. And the question, “what is really important?” The joy sensed at the opening of a flower, the breath of hope that arises from daybreak, the gradual, easy sigh shared with a languishing sun, and the freedom inspired from witnessing a floating moon… these are enough. And the smile returned, the appreciative flash in the eyes of someone you understand, the gratitude you feel when someone touches you deeply, the quiet enjoyment of your own resting after a day well spent… Do we need to ask for anything more?
But these joys require the effort to Be, the desire to Know, the willing sensitivity to feel another and all of life. And to feel, to know, to see and to understand you must put aside your toys, your comforts, your self-indulgent ideas that the world is here for your enjoyment when, in truth, it is the other way around.
In the depth of Now and in the world we often run away from is the only satisfaction. It is always more than enough.
xxx Zzz
