Returning From the Rush to the Real

Imagine you've just had a brilliant idea: one that lights you up inside. Your heart races with joy, your mind dances with possibilities, and you can almost see the path unfolding toward abundance and success.

Now, imagine something else: you stub your toe or hit your knee. Instantly, all your attention rushes toward that pain. You wince, tense, and think only of how much it hurts.

Strangely enough, both experiences, the excitement and the pain, are doing the same thing. They pull your awareness outward. They consume your attention. They take over the space that could be still, open, and aware of something deeper.

Excitement fades. Pain fades. Every high and low eventually dissolves. And yet, there is something in you that doesn't fade: something constant beneath the waves.

So ask yourself: When life is thrilling or when it hurts, where do you want to place your awareness? On the passing sensations of joy, pain, fear, success or on the quiet Presence that never leaves?

That Presence, your Inner Self, is vast, luminous, and endlessly creative. When you rest there, ideas arise effortlessly. Inspiration flows from the natural fullness of Being. There may even be too many beautiful ideas to carry out, yet you'll always have what you need for this moment.

The Essence of Spiritual Practice

But when you chase only the excitement of projects, achievements, or outcomes, you drift into what is temporary. The mind rides its roller coaster. Up with success, down with disappointment. Forgetting the silent field that gives rise to it all.

How to get past all that? That's why we have a practice. The essence of spiritual practice is to return, again and again, from the noise of excitement or pain into the living presence within. To bring awareness home.

At first, it may seem difficult. The pull of pleasure or pain is strong. But this, right here, IS the practice. Each time you notice yourself pulled outward and then you gently come back inward, something deep stabilizes. The joy you touch there is not fragile. It does not depend on what happens.

It is Eternal Inner Satisfaction: a peace that doesn't fade, a joy that doesn't leave. And when you live from that space, even ordinary moments feel deeply alive.