Imagine your life began today.  You woke up in this whatever-year-old, whatever-gender-you-are body, in the place where you presently are, in the midst of a collection of shauris whose import you understood not at all, having just arrived here.

 

 

 

 

 

Look about you. Could you find anything to be grateful for in the circumstances that surround you?

 

 

 

 

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Thank you for space. I have lots of space. I have physical space to stretch out, I have spaces of time in which to do nothing but contemplate.

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I have the power of choice. The fact that I am able to observe the goings-on about me tells me this. When I observe something going on about me, I am the presence observing.  Since I can observe this situation, at once this tells me that I am bigger than it, and I could also choose not to observe it.

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If your life in this body started today, if you were transported from greater reality into this physical dimension today, the last thing you would have would be emotion. Pain, anxiety, stress, blame and so on. These are all learned behaviors that don’t belong to your pristine self.

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The first thing you would have would be curiosity. It would be like setting foot in a brand new country that you knew absolutely nothing about.  Everything could well be different. You would decide to pay attention and learn as you went along.

If you woke up here in this body today, you wouldn’t have any personality traits at all. You wouldn’t be silent, you wouldn’t be loud, you wouldn’t be shy, you wouldn’t be depressed, you wouldn’t be overbearing, possessive, disturbed, handicapped, or hopeless. You would not know what any of them meant. You would be nothing but consciousness observing. You would understand that you were consciously observing, and that what you chose to notice would increase.

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Let me adopt this posture when things start to get difficult for me. When I start to feel fear for any of the reasons I have practiced, or when I am observing a situation and feeling anxiety, worry, stress and fear hovering around.  Instead of this micro involvement, let me dissolve these emotions at once, and instead imagine myself as a channel between the observed situation and divine energy, who was waiting to bless it, but lacking only a channel.

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Be the channel