Welcome to Round 3!

We’re halfway done! How are you doing? How is your life going? How’s your Journey going? Mine is going pretty well, but it took several days to hit my stride. Life is the journey, and Life has definitely been moving me, so to say. In the journey of Life, I anchor myself in the Journey, and the Journey anchors me.

See this page for information about how this round changes.

Guiding Thought

Everywhere fulfillment is, we are. Fulfillment is everywhere. Fulfillment is. We are.

Sharing

Suffering and other negative conditions are inducements to undertake positive action; please neither indulge in whining and moaning, nor try to rid yourself of negative circumstances.

The manifestation of the five emotional poisons is the secret path to timeless awareness; please do not think of them as wrong, as you would a horde of enemies.

Obstacles in all their variety are intimations of spiritual attainment; please do not react to them with apprehension, superstition, or aversion. (Source unknown)

“Be with” your troubles, your sufferings, your tension, your strife, your pain. Bless them, thank them. They are teaching you, making you stronger, fulfilling your path to attainment.

Everything you experience is giving you exactly what you need for your fulfillment. When you accept it in peace, and let it be, it runs its course, taking you to your next leg of the journey. When you rail against it, you become the child it needs to drag along to reach your destination.

My dear friend came over Friday evening for pizza, and she told us about her 12-year-old nephew. He was punished for not doing his chores and then saying he had done them. His punishment was he had to do more chores, immediately. Of course he grumbled and grumbled. She said he stomped around, grumbled, made banging noises, grumbled, stomped some more, grumbled some more… While she was telling us, I thought, “Wouldn’t it be easier to just do the chores? Think about all the energy expended in the grumbling and stomping. Let it go, relax, do what you’ve got to do.”

How many people learn that grumbling and stomping doesn’t get it done any faster? Doesn’t make the process any easier? Adults do it differently—we procrastinate, become sarcastic or snide, or complain during happy hour, but it’s the same type of behavior as a 12-year-old.

If we could just say, “Well, I gotta do it. This is my lot, here I am, and this is what I have to do…”and then allow ourselves to perfume those actions with joyfulness, thankfulness, and gratitude, then we could take the necessary actions without investing all that emotional energy into being angry or frustrated. But no, we have to resist, balk, even throw little “adult” tantrums, and it feels like life drags us along.

I know it’s hard to be joyful and thankful for things and circumstances that are painful, that are frustrating or exhausting, but do try to remember: Everything you experience is for your growth, for your attainment of Peace, of Fulfillment, of Love, of Oneness.