03
Everything hinges upon, flows from, falls into place around living meaningfully. Living meaningfully is living with your heart in what you are doing. What keeps that from happening? There are no substitutes for it. No stand-ins. No reasonable facsimiles. All of the distractions, like money, sex, alcohol and pot, can't erase the emptiness or disappear the truth that your heart isn't in what you are doing. The only fix is for you to sit down with your heart, and listen. Then find ways of putting yourself in accord with your heart. Living meaningfully is the solution to all of our problems today. And tomorrow. Forever.
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02
You can be trusted to know what is good for you and what is not, where you belong and where you do not, what is "you" and what is not, what is reliable and what is not... and to learn how to know what you know, and trust yourself to know it as you go along. You are born with what it takes to know what you need to know to find what you need to be who you are and do what is yours to do in doing what needs to be done in each situation as it arises situation-by-situation. That is all there is to it. But. You cannot do it without sitting still and being quiet on a regular basis all along the way.
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01
Joseph Campbell said, "Bliss is that deep sense of being present, here and now, and doing what you absolutely must do to be yourself in the time and place of your living," (Or words to that effect). And if that is also the way it should be done, the way the situation is calling for it to be done, you are transparent to transcendence, which is as close to God as we are going to be in this life. Here's the problem: There are multiple layers to every situation. What is allowed on some levels are anathema on other levels. What can you get by with is the question. Can you get by with being true to yourself here and now? This is your role in the process. Only you can determine what you can get by with, and what has to give, what has to go, for you to be true to yourself in each situation as it arises. Your problem is finding places where it is safe to be you, and finding people around whom it is safe to be you-- and, even then, you will be risking everything, every now and then, in being who you are and doing what is called for in the situation. This is called dancing across the slippery slope, traversing the dangerous path, along the razor's edge. It is not for the faint of heart. And it will require dying again and again, and being born again again and again. All the way to the end of the dance.
