“Don't ask yourself what the world needs - ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
— Howard Thurman, mentor to Martin Luther King and others
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I don't know if I've mentioned this, but a while ago I set up a treadmill under my desk. I stand and type, and get some walking in.
I love it – I've always felt great being active, so it's super energising getting work done while not turning into a chair-shaped blob. There's a reason why the 10,000 steps goal became a thing.
Love, energy, aliveness …
When I first became interested in a spiritual path, I thought (like many) that it was the opposite of many of the things I loved about life.
I thought it was about denial and restriction. Maybe I'd have to give up being active and having adventures, making goals and hanging out with inspiring and energising people?
Now I've been at it for some decades, I'm glad to report this isn't true at all. The only thing you leave behind is doubt, fear, and limitation: that which removes energy.
The fastest path to this isn't about denial but approach. It really is about embracing love and expansion. It really is about flowing with what brings you the greatest joy.
#Dowhatyoulovebutalsolovewhatyoudo
Sometimes this expansive movement of joy makes you nervous (or more!) simply because it moves you into unknown territory. It can be easier to not follow the love, the curiosity, to stay small.
I say this because the other reason for the desk treadmill is that I've entered a 50-mile foot race in June, twice as far as I've covered before. I need some time on feet!
All the nerves, all of them, were pre-registration, pre-commitment. All the deliberation and doubt, all the "can I/can't I?"... it all vanished when I signed on the dotted line.
Commitment is love applied, it equals energy and direction. (Good philosophical maths there!)
If I'm all in, it's just a fact. 50 miles on June 21 – let's train and see what happens. Life now has a purpose, a point, a drive, a date in the diary to build around.
Life now has a chunk of flavour, something to pull against, to be devoted to, to coalesce action around.
Not denial but approach — making love concrete with a direction and small steps of action.
People often ask me about purpose and the meaning of life.
They're often waiting to be given one from on high or something — I know I certainly did for a while. The only thing that works, I think, is that you just have to make your own.
There are no shortcuts.
You just have to decide on an attitude to life, pick a path of action – something, anything! – and see if it works. Give something a shot, stay aware and refine from this experience. You’re not going to be good immediately, but how much fun, how much flow are you getting?
Commitment is the secret sauce, even in a short term while you try it out and see if it's for you. Commitment is scary, but it seems to be the thing that works. Wishy-washy doesn't.
Maybe that's why the spiritual tradition of withdrawing and sitting in a cave came about – a commitment to deciding not to decide.
I know I was terrified of making the wrong decision once upon a time. I was scared to really put my heart behind something – I think there’s lots of people like that. Maybe that's why a spiritual nobility of hiding away became what seemed to be a good excuse to delay deeply engaging with life.
I'm being harsh.
There is a place to retreat from time to time. Very useful.
But it's so you can get a good grip on the tricks and habits of your mind, the little grey voices that keep you small and angry and fearful. It's so you can discover the power of now and the power of your presence that already exists within you.
It’s so you can take that freedom from the mind and fear, the freedom from the fear of making wrong decisions — from feeling like you are wrong — and really suck the marrow out of life.
Purpose and meaning really come from being alive; and the most aliveness you'll ever have is when you're out of your mind. When the over-thinking and planning and deliberation and 'not sure' vanishes, when you're absorbed in what's in front of you.
That's the real beauty of commitment – getting out of your mind so you can get into the experience of being alive. That there is the essence of a spiritual path as it meets life.
Not finding yourself, for you were never lost. But a return to who you've always been before you listened to the world tell you who you should be.
As Howard Thurman, whose fine words opened this, once wrote: "Follow the grain in your own wood."
Then the brakes come off. Then love and fulfilment happens.
Go well,
Arjuna
PS.
Following the grain of your own wood, aligning with your Dharma, finding aliveness and meaning and satisfaction from every moment …
That exactly is the gift my practice of Ascension has given me.
If you’re looking for the same, I can help guide you: Teach you Ascension, guide you to how to get the most of it, show you what works, what’s easy and rewarding, and maybe more importantly, what’s not.
I have a few spots of mentoring open, if you’d like one, hit reply to this email and we can talk about what that entails.
Talk soon!