this life is a gift

This life is a gift

Live it

Perhaps the most practical question we all face is how to live our life. And I feel this is a question that each individual has to answer for herself or himself. And I also feel the answer might change with time as one grows. There may be stages in life: when one is a child, it's quite natural to be playful, exploring the world. And as a young adult, of course we are very sexual, and we have a lot of energy to put into work or relationships. Perhaps we raise a family, with the huge commitment that that involves.

But later on in life, there must come this time when one asks oneself: what is my deeper potential? What is life really offering me here? Surely it's not just the latest smartphone and an ever bigger TV screen. When we are young, perhaps we are satisfied and feel fulfilled with such material things. But for sure life has much more to offer, something much more profound than this material delight. And for me this profound aspect of life is what I call a spiritual journey. And if we really want to taste everything that life has to offer us, sooner or later we must embark on our own spiritual journey.

For me, this spiritual side of life has a deeply mystical aspect to it. Life itself is mysterious. Yes, with modern science we can understand DNA. We can understand biochemistry. We can look at electrical impulses in the brain. And yet, all of that does not detract from this profound mystery that is life and consciousness.

And the more I dwell in this sense of mystery, the deeper and more profound comes a feeling of both wonder and gratitude. We have been given this life, this awareness, this consciousness. It has come as a gift, unbidden. Are we going to fritter it away? Are we really going to waste away our days messing around on social media? Surely there are better ways for us to explore the potential that this life holds for us. And that's why I say live it, live life! And when the time is right, living life implies plunging into the spiritual side of life, into the deep mystery of life, and also into oneself. who am I really? Am I just a bunch of memories? This rather chattery stream of thoughts in my head – is that who I am?

We have to explore this question for ourself. And when we do, if we are diligent, then we start to uncover some amazing secrets, secrets that are deep within us. There is a part of us, a part which can be felt experienced, lived, but which is quite beyond words. We touch that place when we begin to let go of living a conceptual life.

Whilst we are trapped in our thoughts, whilst they dominate our experience, it is as if each of us is living in our own little mental world, isolated from everyone else and everything else. It's only when we can step away from those concepts, find some gaps between thoughts, feel into our own body, into the sensations within it, allow the mind to become silent, then we can begin to sense these places of deep mystery within ourself: of stillness and silence and spaciousness. And this centre of our being is magical. From this place we are connected, not only to each other but to the whole of existence. This is the divine within us. And when we start to live life from this place, then, and only then, do we discover what life really has to offer us. So live this gift, live this gift of life.