There are graceful ways of accessing your purpose and success with time, invitation, gentleness, cooperation and surrender. When one learns to focus their energy through surrender and sensitivity, they become free, and can access the expansiveness of endless possibility. To say it another way, the art of surrender is the art of getting out of the way of your own growth. Your greater purpose is already written in the fabric of your being; your purpose awaits your arrival. But you need not strive to become your greater purpose. When you release the illusion of control, you begin an effortless free-fall toward a grand reunion with your original self; a person uncorrupted by the world's false lessons of fear, control and limitations.
Fortunately for me, as a seeker and lifetime student of the world, the seeds of softness and sensitivity had been sown in my soul by wiser, gentler hands, and I found my way to a more graceful understanding of the true nature of success and power. My understanding evolved from the outer realm of control, materialism, and ego in my youth, to the inner realm of surrender, spirituality and compassion of today. In this context surrender is not a weakness, but rather an empowering state of humility — the humility necessary for self-realization and for living a life of purpose.
Many people think they want to accomplish what other successful people have in life. People often see the surface of worldly achievements, but seldom consider that many of those attainments are constructs of a false world, full of traps and endless enticements that lead to nowhere. People tend to believe they want success, and more toys and things, but when they focus on them, to their bewilderment, those very things move out of their reach. My version of success is that my life is full, purposeful, beautiful and boundless. I attribute this success to my spirituality, my good health, and my community of positive relationships which have all come to me as a creation of choice. Success comes from finding your center and your self; being self-centered in a positive and peaceful way. I own my time and command the space of my beingness — a space where I am allowed to grow into my true, unique nature. Success is a spiritual process, not a worldly one; that is to say it is an internal process, not external. It is a process of peeling off the layers of conditioning, becoming your essential truth, and living the inner-life. Success is, therefore, a process of honesty, and oftentimes, also one of courage.
At a certain point on this journey, I began disconnecting from the construct of illusions in the consumer driven, consensus-reality called, "the modern civilized world." I turned off the television for two decades. I unplugged myself. I worked to erase the programming that had been sewn into the fabric of my consciousness by our society's hidden masters. I began dismantling the artificial edifices that had been erected in my heart, mind and soul since birth, by unknown builders. Brick by brick, word by word: advertisements, slogans, cliches, judgments — layer by layer, I took down the false idols and symbols of identity, belief, self, pride, ego, ambition, and so-called knowledge. I questioned every belief and fact a person can "know." I doubted everything, especially, all of that which I professed to "know" with absolute certainty. Something in me told me not to believe! Unknowing became my comfortable friend.
A new chance can begin through your inner-life by making peace with yourself through total acceptance. You can co-exist peacefully with your past and present when you learn to respect your journey. You can rekindle the fires of your imagination and let the light lead you to the best of what is old, and all that is new. I have learned that the past cannot be left behind. A rich life-story is dependent on every chapter from beginning to end. It is always the things we run from or try to forget that hold us back. Forgetting your childhood is like a form of child abandonment. I believe the reason writers write and readers read, is to remember. The way to move forward is to simply remember; remember who you really are. It is only when you accept who you truly are that you can access the potential of who you could be. I have remembered who my true self is, and this remembrance has given the treasure of myself back to me and has kept me alive. May you discover the wonderful treasure of yourself too. May you walk the path of your dreams in delight, with grace and ease. To live fully awake and to feel fully alive and free is the most courageous of all dreams. But, the wake-up is not always fast; sometimes the wake-up comes in an instant, but sometimes it takes a lifetime.
Everything I write about is really about freedom. Freedom is everything; being free from falsehood, fear, control, and your own demons. A heart's call for freedom can be its own form of bondage in a world of liberty lost. Nothing can torment you more than yearning for freedom in a world of civic enslavement. No more trees to climb; no more careless adventures; no more dreams — just living a scripted life where you barely even remember who you are, only who you were told to be. Our routine and responsibility becomes a form of amnesia where we forget who we are while we slowly die inside. Many more die by routine than by corporeal death. But you can remember again. You can be free. You can reclaim your innocence. You can dream again. You can awaken.
Some people say that life is just a classroom where we come to learn all the things that we need to complete ourselves. But why does it have to be so hard? I discovered that it doesn't have to be hard and there are easier ways. One of the defining moments in my life was in learning to not unnecessarily resist things. Willfulness is often a mindset of self-battery. It's very tricky in that it can seem like strength, when really it is just arrogance. But you can't resist the whole world. It will wear you down over time. In fact, it seems like the whole purpose of life is to humble you, and made humble we certainly are — or will be.
You see, everything is trying to complete itself in this world and we are no different. We search for what we believe is missing, to fill the gaps; to complete ourselves. If only the world taught us we are already born complete, but it seems to teach us the opposite; digging a huge hole in us that we try to fill — too often in destructive ways. I would like to say I searched for my completion with intelligence, deliberation and dignity, but it was more like an awkward fumbling; like stubbing your toe in a dark room. Sometimes I reacted more like a wild animal than a dignified person. At some point in your life, you start to ask yourself the question of whether or not you can get through that dark room without breaking your leg. You start thinking that there must be a better way to learn the lessons that you need to learn, without so much pain. Yes, I would like to say that it was because of my brilliance that I found wisdom and completion; that would've been nice, but it's not true. Pain was my compass in life. Unease and fear were my guides; not angels, but my own demons. Suffering is one of life's greatest teachers. And if you're not a very good student, then these teachings will be continually tragic. As it was for me; I was a poor student and had to learn the lessons over and over again. But as I will attempt to impart in the book; tragedy contains opportunity — the greater the tragedy, the greater the opportunity.
I think we are all born with a certain theme to our lives. I'm not sure I believe in destiny, but I do believe in themes. There are themes in my life that I see over and over again. A life theme is like a common thread or a topic in your life that keeps recurring. For some, the thrust of their life is marked by some vague ambiguity with a few pleasant keynotes here and there. For others, the theme of their life is a dull pain with piercing keynotes of agony. Some lives are burdened with a sense of no destiny whatsoever — which is their theme. For me, I spent most of my life running away from my themes, but I eventually discovered you can't run from them forever — they always reappear. They'll come back in one form or another until you finally acknowledge them. It was not until I embraced the themes of my life, what some people call destiny, that I was finally released from them, and free.
