The practice of living in Spirit is like polishing a stone. No matter how rough the stone may have been, with perseverance and gentle care it will eventually shine, revealing the inner beauty and divine essence which was there all along. Within each of us lies a heavenly gem, waiting patiently for us beneath the surface of our conditioning. It is ready to be handled with our loving kindness that it may again shine radiantly and majestically, in harmony with all things in this grand and mysterious world.
At last there is an unknown element back in my life. This is how it used to be. This is how I used to do things before the eighties and jobs and money and careers and Thatcher and marriage and mortgages. I was spontaneous, free, even reckless. Things often didn’t work out, but I felt alive. Painfully alive. For the last few years I’ve been feeling painfully dead. That drive, that lust for life that everyone expects you to have after surviving cancer, well it took ten years to arrive, but here it is. I don’t care what anyone thinks of me any more, I’m going to live life to the full, starting with New York.
I wondered — and I finally reached the conclusion that the Lebanese was a man who was in love with life, and that his carefree, enormous laugh— head thrown back, eyes closed in a grimace of mirth — celebrated a perfect, a total understanding between the two, an agreement which nothing ever managed to disturb: happiness, in fact. A beautiful affair: life and Habib were inseparable.
Much misery in caused in relationships by the expectation that the other person can and should be a personal provider of good for us. This expectation brings an endless array of problems and is one which we need to outgrow as individuals who are seeking freedom from the troubles of the human condition. No person is able to give what only divine Love can give. Relationships, of their own power, cannot give us the love and happiness that really have a Divine, not human, origin. We don’t ask from other people what only God can supply.
The truth is that this Life is a miracle, every moment you are alive is a miracle…the sunrise, the sunset, the dew drop, the moon, the stars, the birds chirping…every thing, and everyone, around you is a miracle. But you miss these everyday miracles because you are steeped in grief, in pining for what is over, what is dead and isn’t there or you are gripped by anxiety and fear, worrying about the unborn future, about what is still to arrive. You are so consumed by imagining that your Life is one endless saga of problems that you don’t see the magic and beauty of your Life, of your miracles. In fact, this human form you have is a miracle; despite your frailties, your circumstances and your vulnerabilities, “you are the miracle you seek”!
Sometimes life does not give us every thing that we want. But then that is what life is all about. You can't have happiness all the time. And neither can you have sadness all the time. But you can create a symphony out of happiness and sadness!
I can't imagine what a happy home is like: parents cuddling and laughing, music playing, books on the shelves, discussions round the table? We don’t have any of that, but if Mum’s happy, I’m happy.
To be sure, there is no method, no single way, to anchor in Faith and employ Patience. Letting go, trusting the process of Life and living with Faith and Patience, is the way. Living through our crippling bankruptcy for over 12 years now, Vaani and I have realized that Faith does not always solve our problems immediately. But having Faith in the process of Life – that what goes around, comes around; that what goes up will come down some day, only to go back up another day – certainly helps us to cope with our problems better. Keeping the Faith also teaches us Patience. Unless you embrace these twin philosophies, and live practising them together, you will not see the miracles in your everyday Life.