There is this desire for true freedom and real fulfillment that, at some point, appears in everyone’s lifetime.

Within this longing lies the grandest of paradoxes: this desire for freedom and a fulfilling life can only be realized if you don’t do anything to know it.

Here lies the conundrum. The mind cannot believe this, and since we tend to associate with our minds, we struggle to believe this.

So, there is a focused search for more things to do, and as a result of this intense focus, you are given more things to do.

You are given many things to do, an endless list of tasks and obligations. But consider this: what you are being given to do is designed to wear down your desire to do.

Many practices are pitched and sold as tried-and-true that will ease suffering and take you to enlightenment. As a result of this enlightenment, you will find inner peace and magically be fulfilled. But what you are left with is a new sense of doing.

Yet because this you that you associate with is made of light, there is no need to be enlightened because there is no unenlightened. If you are light, then how is it that you can become enlightened? There is nothing to do to obtain enlightenment; there is only the realization and allowing that you are light, having an experience in three-dimensional form. Remember: The lights are on, but nobody is home.

Many forms of spirituality are designed to assist this realization. These practices are designed to still the mind so it does not obsess about the next activity or object needed to reveal this true fulfillment. To reveal the resolution of the longing for Truth.

In such practices, which I’m sure many of you have or have had or tried to have, there is usually an attempt to focus and concentrate the mind or the combination of stilling the mind and body. Eventually, that points to the fact that there is a reprieve, fulfillment, and peace when the mind’s activity is at rest.

Sure, these practices give moments of beauty, transcendence, and true knowing, yet that underline longing, the underlying sense of how do I get it? How do I keep it? How do I be it, is never realized and allowed.

There is still a need to achieve, to do, to complete the journey you set out to go on. The mind can never be sufficed because it has a job to do, and being still and silent isn’t in its true nature. Ultimately, the question arises as to why you want to shut down the creator’s voice, which is speaking through you.

So why are we so focused on going on a journey of discovery and doing?

Could we collectively agree that we were kicked out of the Garden and need to repent by doing/achieving to return?

My travels in Peru amongst its shamans suggest this is the driving force behind all this doing.  Is it possible that we have been guilted into believing this and ashamed of the three-dimensional form, our body, we co-created to give the universe an experience of itself?

Is it possible, at this moment, to stop right where you are? Stop all efforts to get whatever you think will give you fulfillment or whatever you feel will provide you with truth. Is it possible to let go of? I still need to do what I should have done, I could have done, I would have done.

All that is required is one instant of genuinely stopping.  If you let go of this internal dialogue for just one instant, it will still be waiting for you when you are finished. It needs you more than you need it.

This one instant is elusive to most people because when they approach the instant of stopping, they usually experience an enormous welling of fear.

If you stop, there is the fear that you will slide back. You will lose the ground you gained through your efforts and practices. The chaos of the external world will sweep you away. You will lose this identity you fought so hard to create. The mind tells you that it’s happened before. The old ball and chain of who you were taught, disciplined, and traumatized to be suddenly gains weight and creates more drag.

This internal dialogue arises: I’m still not fully satisfied, but I’m more confident than I was; I have a better life than before; my mind is calmer; my circumstances are better, and if I stop, I might lose all I’ve gained.

This is the risk that everyone will have to take sooner or later. Eventually, everything will be lost anyway. When you leave this body, all that was gained, obtained, and accomplished will be lost and set free. That’s reality. This whole lifetime will be lost. All the accumulations of this lifetime will be lost.

If you don’t stop and yet have faith in other lifetimes, then this lifetime is a hope that the next lifetime you will stop.

This is so obvious that it is startling. It’s so apparent and avoided at all costs, even in esoteric wisdom. One wishes there was some magic formula one could have whispered in one’s ear. And yet, it is continuously being whispered: Stop.

It’s that simple, so simple that you can’t believe it.

Eventually, these instances of stopping begin to accumulate; they become moments and minutes into hours. Eventually, you realize that who you indeed are is the witnessing. You are not a being witnessing but the act of witnessing.

When you allow your mind to stop, you experience fulfillment—more fulfillment than you can ever imagine.

You are pure awarenessing, with a perspective from within the eye of modern life’s hurricane of chaos. There is a sense of wonder inherent in the reality that there is nothing to fix, know, or do that hasn’t already been done. Everything, including you, is beautiful and perfectly complete.

As you allow the stillness of yourself, this heart-centeredness, the world becomes still around you. In this stillness of nature, you realize that all of nature speaks to you.

The animals each have their unique message. The plants each tell you how beautiful you are. The stones, water, and wind speak in their divine way. They are so full of love, beauty, and grace that they know what message you are ready to hear and present themselves to you accordingly.

No one or thing obtained can set you free when you are already free.

It’s impossible to awaken when you are pretending to be asleep.