Navigating Changing Times

I hear so many people say - and I've said it myself - how quickly time moves today. We can hardly grasp that the end of 2011 is just around the corner, or that night has shifted back into light, marking another day's passing. It's not death we fear, if we fear anything at all. It's the feeling of free-falling into the dawning of a new age of Humanity - one of true peace, consciousness and Oneness - that feels unsettling at times.

It seems these days that all around me, people I know and love are experiencing big changes in their lives...including me. We are people who have spent years - if not decades - creating sacred ways to be of service to the Highest Source within ourselves and others. We are warriors of the Divine, of Spirit, of Love and Peace, of the Human heart. We imagine and believe in the creative beauty these things hold and so we set our intent on finding ways to support their expression in our world.

These days,  I actively and consciously work at the spiritual principle of non-attachment. I believe that it is our attachment to things - to outcomes, ideas, identities, stories, being right, etc. - that causes our suffering. Why? Because things are constantly changing; that is their nature. Change is all of our nature because the whole of the Universe is made of energy, and energy is not static; it is dynamic by nature.

What this means is that when we attach to something - when we want or expect it to stay the same or to be a certain way - we set ourselves up for disappointment and perhaps suffering because it will ultimately change. Change is constant, whether we choose to see it as such or not. We change with each breath, and on a cellular level, we change in each moment. Change might take a millisecond or a century, but everything always changes.

How do we navigate these changing times? How do we keep up with what's happening in our lives and in our world, especially when they seem to be happening faster? The answer as I see it is really very simple, requiring only a shift in perception and awareness:

Recognize that there is no separation: this is what we know. It has taken some brilliant quantum physicists to prove this today, yet they are proving it. We are all energy, and ultimately, energy has no separation, no definition, no borders or boundaries. It is one entity, one Being, one movement to a sacred rhythm, one expression of the creative force of "life" within the endless space of existence.

When we look into the eyes of another, we see ourselves. When we gaze upon the vastness of the ocean, we gaze upon the vastness within ourselves. When we rest into the soils of the Earth, we rest into the soils of our own Being. When we raise our heads to peer into the brilliance of the Sun, Moon, Stars and sky, we peer into the brilliance of ourselves. When we scale the heights of the grandest mountains and delve into the darkness of the deepest caverns, we scale and delve into the heights and depths within ourselves. When we stand in awe of the powers of nature, we stand in awe of the powers within our own Being. When we search the whole of the Universe, we search the whole of ourselves.

As you move through your life, interacting with all that it holds, know that the whole of what you encounter is you. When you recognize yourself as the whole of the Universe and the whole of the Universe as yourself, then choosing how to navigate these rapidly changing times becomes easy: Do it with Non-Attachment, Compassion, Equanimity, Joy and Love because that's what life commands - yours, mine and everything elses.

Let your own heart be your guide - not out of fear, guilt, shame or obligation, but from your deepest knowing of the Oneness of all things. One powerful spiritual teacher taught it most clearly when he said "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." That's a mighty powerful guiding principle to live your life by...