Why Are We Here?

My dear friends...

Each week I get letters from people telling me that their lives are in shambles, that nothing is going right, that money is drying up, that relationships are crumbling or have crumbled, that work is uninspired and uninspiring, and that life itself has lost its meaning and its joy.

More and more people, even those in affluent countries, are feeling disconnected, deluded, discouraged and depressed. What's UP here...what do you think is going on? Why can't we seem to make life work? And why are so many people being asked to fight against such overwhelming odds?

The problem has to do with our basic understandings about Who We Are and What Life Is.

Why are we here, anyway...?

On the earth, I mean.

Who are we, and why are we here? Are we mere animals? Creatures of the cosmos, as it were, holding no power within ourselves to impact or affect our own reality---much less create it---but subject, rather, to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune?

And what IS the purpose of life, after all? Is it just to see who is the Last Man Standing? Or who has collected the most toys? Or is there something larger going on, something more significant to the cosmos?

I think there is. I believe there is a Process in place that is playing itself out, and in which we are playing a part---most of us without even knowing it.

The fascinating thing about this Process is that we don't have to know that we are playing a part in it in order to play a part in it. So the part that most of us are playing is being played unconsciously.

If I'm right about this---and by the way, most ancient mystics and modern-day spiritual teachers agree with my observation---then the idea here would be to become conscious. That is, to WAKE UP.

Yet, how does one do that? Let this be our question for the day.

Well, it's no fair asking a question without proposing an answer. So here is the answer I propose:

We wake up by waking each OTHER up.

So that's our opportunity, that's our invitation. We're invited to wake each other up on this planet, to let each other know that we are not all crazy, that nothing is really as it seems, that we have "fallen down the rabbit hole" and are seeing things through a glass darkly, and that if we but say the magic words we can live within this illusory world in a way that can actually begin to make sense, that can bring us joy once again, that can end the largest amount of human suffering, and that can allow us to label as a "success" this human experiment.

The magic words we are invited to invoke are these: Nothing I see is real. The world is the world of my imagining and of my creation. If I wish to change it, all I have to do is change my thought about it. From my thought about the world springs all of my reality.

Then, we have to get OTHERS to say the magic words as well. Ah...that's the real trick. How do we get OTHERS to understand that we are all creating this present reality together---and that it doesn't have to be this way?

How do we get OTHERS to understand that the killing and the fighting are not necessary? That there is ENOUGH. There's enough food, there's enough clothing, there's enough shelter, there's enough energy, there's enough opportunity, there's enough of all we need to be truly happy. There's enough for everybody. All we have to do is share.

What stops us from sharing? Ironically, the idea that there is "not enough." The fear that we are somehow going to "run out" of what we need. If we "run out," then what will we do?

And so, it's all about survival. We think that we need what we need in order to survive, and since there is "not enough" of what we need, we have to do two things: 1. PROTECT the stuff that we have; and, 2. get MORE.

If we thought there was ENOUGH of all that we need to survive and be happy, all of our competitions, all of our conflicts, all of our stress and worry and concern and guarding the gate could end.

I have come here today to bring you the Good News: THERE'S ENOUGH.

Those two simple words are all we need to change our realities. Will we embrace them? Can we believe them? Our lives---and the behaviors OF our lives---will be our answer to those questions.

I send you Pure Love

Read this week's Letter to Neale here

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Read a message from one of the prisoners impacted by our Prison Outreach HERE