The Gift

Embracing What IS
By Kosi

Life itself is a gift—the most indescribable divine love. When a mother holds her newborn baby she instantly feels this indescribable presence—the indescribable love of life itself. This pure divine essence is hidden over time by the deep-seated feeling that you are a unique individual, which serves to pull your attention into the story about your life and the lives of others generated by your mind and overlooks the sublime grace of the indescribable love in the core of your being.  

The mind fantasizes about life and creates stories in a vain attempt to explain the random nature of the circumstances of our lives—accidents and accidental meetings can even generate fantasies about the mysterious synchronicity of the invisible divine plan. This movement of mind provides a sense that we are in control and hides the unconscious belief that our story will somehow protect us from the unending storm of change that eventually leads as all to the great unknowable abyss of death. 

Strangely, this natural tendency of mind to generate stories about life actually keeps us from living life fully and freely in the grace of what is actually here free of any story, idea, or judgment. The mind is always moving to the past or the future and naturally your attention is on this inner conversation unfolding in your mind, which overlooks the single most important aspect of your life—the vast indescribable living love that you are and always will be—the recognition of which leads to the direct experience of indescribable happiness and peace as the stateless state of who you are in the core.

During a single event that unfolds in your life, everyone who was present, and even those who were not, will view the circumstances differently. The stories that unfold in your mind are always limited by your own point of view filtered through your past, your feelings, thoughts, ideas, and judgments. Seldom is what is truly here seen as the pure simplicity of what is—there is always some explanation lurking in mind to explain the unexplainable randomness of life.

All stories are an attempt to provide a kind of resolution to explain why things are the way they are. Often we reject what is actually happening, or wish things were different, or resist unwanted changes without realizing this resistance to what is actually unfolding generates a deep sense that something is wrong with us or wrong with our circumstances—it generates suffering. The mind can even attempt to change what unfolded in the past with the false hope that changing the past could somehow change what is happening now.

The stories generated in your mind evolve and change over time and develop into strategies that you hope will offer pleasure and eliminate completely or reduce your pain and suffering. It is the natural tendency of mind to weave a story about your life as a kind of resolution of life’s grand mystery, but in truth, no story, no matter how exciting or sublime, or mundane or boring, offers any resolution to the cacophony of unending change that constantly unfolds in life. 

The great gift of inquiry is the resolution of now. It is the innate power of the razor sharp lens of your discernment—the invisible blade of your awareness that cuts through the fog of any story and returns your attention to what is actually here. Not what you imagined, hoped for, or remembered, but very simply what is actually here without the context of your story. It is not that the story itself is bad or wrong—we all love a really good story—but the story arises from mind, lives in the mind, and is the past. The moment you give your attention to the past is the very instant you start to feel a kind of deadness and sadness that lives in the graveyard of time.

Dwelling on stories that unfold in your mind is the very nature of suffering. In other words, the story is in effect the glue that holds your suffering in place—it creates a fantasy world of fear and judgment that feels real. We project our stories onto other people, our lives, as well as our uncertain future. It is a mirage—a grand illusion—generated by our mind that we blindly believe is true and deeply feel is reality. 

The natural tendency of mind is to think that if our circumstances where different then we would not feel bad—the idea that if we changed our circumstances then we would be happy—but attempting to change the constantly changing circumstances of life only serves to create a sense of perpetually waiting for the happiness we long for to arrive at some point in the future. This perpetual longing for happiness overlooks the sublime happiness that lives in the heart—the eternal love that we all are in the core—that is alive now.

Discovering the truth of this love is the great love affair of life—the profoundly deep embrace of what is. The great love affair of God—the realization of the most sublime Freedom—a deep recognition that nothing needs to be changed—that everything that is unfolding in this moment is the most sublime perfection.  Freedom never lives in the surface level, and ever changing, circumstances of life.

Freedom is a love affair with now—the deepest welcoming and total acceptance of what is—a grand return of your attention to the divine love that is the one unchanging constant free of all changing circumstances, feelings, and thoughts. Not as a concept, but as the truest deepest reality of who you actually are in the core of your being.

Freedom is in effect falling in love with love so deeply there is no one to love or be loved, because you simply are this love. This love is free of the past, the future, your story, and is simply eternally alive as the eternity of now.

The more you give your attention to this love—the more you fully and totally welcome what is actually here and now—the more and more you will experience life from the pure joy of now. 

From this joy everything is deeply welcomed as part of the great mysterious unfoldment of life—without fear, or judgment, dread, or hopelessness. It is welcomed as the wonder of life—a return to innocence.

Fully, deeply, intimately, embracing what is—is the resolution we long for—the love that is simply always here and now.

No circumstance, or feeling, can ever stop this eternal joy. It is simply lives now—only now.  Freedom is this simple.