michaelsharrington (Hridayam)

Caffeine is just one of the ways we speed through life. Really we are grasping, holding on, fearing our life will fall apart and crumble if ‘I don’t work faster’ or what we call ‘work more efficiently’.

The opposite is true.

If you know how to let go into the present moment, like the famous adage: To ‘Be Here Now’, well-beingness, and true joy are with us.

How can it be the reverse, we ask? For all the doubters that say: “Oh, no that cannot be?”

Well, let us look at how it can and is true. We are all conditioned to go-go-go and than go-faster, quicker, move into warp speed. If we go faster and keep going faster and faster, day after day, we may get ahead, achieve outer goals, be successful in the worldly sense and outer progress may happen.

But….at what cost?! Mental illness, physical exhaustion, tech-world burnout, suicidal thoughts looming, alcoholism, pharmaceutical or recreational drug addiction. Striving for the deluded version of the American Dream may lead to a nice house, a hefty paycheck but your spouse and children will grow up with a deeply disturbed partner or parent that are vacant emotionally or totally unavailable, cut off from themselves spiritually, mentally deranged and physically a wreck. What kind of trade off is that? With COVID fears added to the mix these days, our striving for more and faster has taken on an even deeper derangement.

The Good News is: There’s a way out of this insanity-living. When you stop for a single minute (anyone can do that) it’s possible to see there’s a whole other way to live, with more harmony, happiness and peace. There’s a way to get off the mouse’s wheel, the ridiculous striving for outer things and more busyness, work, distraction, etc.

When you stop and turn inward and meet your SELF, instead of constantly seeking the next thing or following the next thought, Stillness, what always IS within, comes into the forefront of awareness. NOW…from that stillness, full awareness and presence, not occupied with thoughts or to-do lists, job tasks or anything else, ask yourself: Who am I, really. What do I really want? What is my life about? Where does happiness come from? Let these questions float into the awareness space, the stillness.

Is making so much money and having things worth the price of insanity and lack of peace? To bring balance back to yourself, your family and inner life, practice 5 minutes of silence each day doing nothing but sitting in the stillness, contemplating Spirit in whatever form or formlessness that entails, contacting your innermost Being, disregarding all thoughts, and realize that freedom, peace and happiness all come from within. No striving, no money or goal is worth surrendering for the JOY that is WITHIN.

Once you realize what you really want, to realize your Divine Heritage, all the outward striving ends.