When it feels like the world is closing in around your head and the pressure feels unbearable, take a moment to just stop. Stop and notice the silence. Stop and notice the space. Stop and notice that there is something here that is not pressured, something here that is not crowded, something here that is not angry, frustrated, worried or tense.
Even in those moments when we feel what we most do not want to feel, there is a dimension within us that is untouched by all we wish to push away. Already, the freedom we seek by pushing away unwanted feelings, situations or experiences is present within us and within what it is we want to push away.
At first, it may seem difficult to notice this, but with practice it becomes ever more apparent that peace and acceptance and freedom and love is already fully alive within us. And at some point, we have to grow up out of this immature desire to never again feel sadness or never again feel pressure or anger or frustration or feel down.
The fruit and juice of life is in the duality. It’s in the contrast. The freedom of life is seeing the non-dual within the dual and letting the dual play out anyway. Seeing that anger and frustration and pressure and sadness and worry all spring from what it is we want; they all spring from clear, free, open, spacious, silent love. All that we wish to gain from pushing away what we don’t want, is already present IN what we don’t want.
When we are willing to look for that, when we are willing to see the prize in the idea that we’ve lost, we can finally recognise that the peace and freedom we have so longed for has never left and will never leave. We can rest in some peace with that knowledge at least. We will almost definitely still have to clear up our mess (and we ALL have mess at some time or other) but we are afforded much more clarity and ease in clearing up whatever mess we need to clear up when we see clearly that there is no magical mystery place in the future that we need to reach. That mystery place is not so mysterious after all and will reveal itself as present within all we wish to escape when we simply stop to look – that is to say, when we simply stop for a moment to be. Be as you are, right here and now. Be… and be free.