Whenever I find myself wandering in a forest of many paths to choose, particularly career choices or directions, I reflect on what I have experienced that gives me joy. I reflect on what it feels like to lose myself in the present moment, and to forget what needs to be done in favor of the experience of Now. Sometimes I feel the call to write, not to delude myself into thinking that I can change what others think or do, but to reveal my own spirit. It’s a pull that sends me deeper into joy even if I cannot adequately express the pull in words. It’s an invitation to remember who I really am. My heart opens and what I say is less important than basking in the inexpressible peace that I feel. Some would call this experience mindfulness or insight, but I call it inconceivable joy. The Japanese word for this idea is Zenkei (pronounced Zen-kay) but even if there is a word for it, the experience is pure, boundless, inexpressible joy.
I have a similar experience when I facilitate a retreat or communicate even informally with a group. During those experiences, I forget myself, an experience of no-self; and any physical pain or discomfort, self-consciousness, or attachment to approval or outcomes melts away. I feel whole yet indefinable, one with Spirit.
Back in 1986 Kenneth Homan wrote an article on careers entitled, “Vocation (Careers) as the Quest for Authentic Existence.” I suggest that the experience of inconceivable joy is authentic existence. Being still opens the door so that my spiritual beingness can step into that joy. Then, the paths choose me, call me like Oriah Mountain Dreamer’s The Invitation to be still and know Zenkei.
What calls you to inconceivable joy?

Several mornings each week, I practice gentle yoga at home with video instruction, in order to regain some flexibility that I have lost from a sedentary lifestyle of consulting and writing. The asanas are wonderfully calming but I always look forward to the closing statement from Tara Lee, the instructor, who speaks so eloquently to my spirituality. She softly shares, ” I honor the place in you where the entire universe resides. I honor the place in you where there is love, peace, truth and beauty. When I honor that place in you and honor that place in me, there is only one of us. Namaste.”
If we are aware of international and national events that graphically depict the wretched state of conflicts in the world, we can easily become outraged and then discouraged. We humans have created challenges for ourselves and others. What we do to others, we also do to ourselves. The entire universe resides within us – “the bad and ugly misguided behaviors” are manifestations of our fears and our amnesia. We have forgotten who we really are. We are committed to thinking that we can only survive in this life by conquering or competing with “others,” even when one conflict simply leads to another, in a seemingly never ending stream of “inhumanity.” We struggle to make sense of it all. The conflicts are all rooted in the illusion of separation -the belief that somehow we are better or different or less than others. But the truth is as Tara Lee reminds us, “there is only one of us.”

Researcher Ruth Chang believes that hard choices are opportunities to give meaning to what is important to us. Hillary Clinton believes apparently that diplomatic dilemmas are characteristically hard choices. But the challenges in our lives are played out in the heart. When we are faced with a dilemma, the heart is the ultimate arbiter. How does it feel? Will my choice end well or badly? Will I be loved, feared or rejected? Will I experience regret or relief? Is it morally right? What message will I send with this choice?
The heart bears witness to our thoughts and beliefs, the only aspects of control in our lives. The great philosopher Epictetus dramatically challenged his contemporaries with this simple question: “What do you control?” The plausible answer: We control our beliefs–fueled by our repetitive thoughts. What we believe about the nature of our being, who we really are, and what our relationship with the universal spirit is, creates the platform for our choices. We are driven by that which breathes at the core of our being, but we must remember who we are in order to gain access to it. The difficulty in so-called hard choices is remembering that we exist in the present, and that neither the past nor the future have power in the present.
What we do not control is a longer list: our body, what others think, our reputation, the economy, the fact that we all die, our job, etc. When we surrender the illusion of control over those aspects of life that we cannot control, we release the yoke of suffering and enjoy the freedom of now. So, the hard choices are really heart choices, created out of the fabric of our being, and woven into the response to challenges that aligns with our beliefs.

Anthony de Mello shared a delightful lesson in awareness. The story is that Nasruddin was seen dashing through the village astride his donkey. When the people of the village asked him why he was in such a hurry, he replied that he had lost his donkey and was trying to find him! I know how Nasruddin feels. I once searched high and low frenetically trying to find my rimless glasses that were comfortably sitting on my face! I laughed at my lack of awareness, and was relieved that no one but my poodle witnessed the folly. But often we are searching for answers that are already within our consciousness, but we have forgotten that the only time is now, and that everything is available to us in the now. We search for the meaning of life and the meaning we give to it is all it will ever mean. We search for love and we are the embodiment of love. We search for wealth, and abundance is no more than a positive vibration waiting for our alignment with it. We search for truth in the dark corners of our fears when there is light and happiness all around us and within us. We search for significance and miss all the signs that point to one love in the universe. We are searching for something that we have never lost. Be still and know who you are.

Sometimes when I begin to write, the words flow out onto the computer screen as if I had no control over them. During the subsequent editing process I tell myself that I can have more control, but usually the editing is only in the service of clarity of expression. When the words are flowing, I experience unimaginable joy, what Csikszentmihalyi in the 1990’s called optimal experience or flow. Out of the chaos of thought emerges imprecise words that are attempts to describe experience. The reservoir of thoughts and images available to me become ordered in a way that enlivens hopefully the points I am trying to make.
We are continually writing the story of our lives in the way we think. We may not be able to determine the origin of the thoughts or images that create our stories, but we can allow them to flow freely, without the need to control them or become attached to them. Any attempt to constrict our thoughts -censoring them or evaluating them — renders them shallow and troublesome. But a thought that flows freely through our mind can be a spark that ignites the flame of creativity.
Our spiritual experience is the only “real” experience. When we lean into that experience and just be, we flow and reveal the passion to create that lives and breathes within us. We are creative beings. Spirit is our home. When we settle into an awareness of our spiritual reality, we realize that we can always experience flow.

Edwin Friedman, who was an ordained rabbi and family therapist, weaves a fabulous fable about how little control we have over the way we attempt to control others. Here’s a summary of the fable: A woman wakes up one morning to find that her husband has turned into a caterpillar, and is curled up in the corner of the room on the floor next to a floor lamp. Often we will take drastic steps to become something we are not in order to resist being controlled. She prods the caterpillar, tries to reason with it to inquire about its needs, and decides to prepare a cardboard box with grass and leaves to ensure its safety when she would not be there to protect him. The caterpillar just turns into a ball of fur and refuses to talk or straighten out. Even though we have good intentions, sometimes a person just won’t cooperate or agree with our demands. Frustrated with his lack of responsiveness to her good intentions, the woman places the box on a high shelf in the closet and goes to visit a friend for a few days. Even though we try our best to take care of the needs of others, sometimes we need a break from all the responsibility of the relationship. During the woman’s stay at her friends home for three days she stops thinking about her husband, and all the work and responsibilities she must shoulder. She’s both relieved and ashamed of her having forgotten about him, but after tending to her own happiness, she returns home. Even though we may attempt to control others, it’s difficult to continually do so. The woman returns home after three days, greeted at the door by her husband in the flesh who says, “My God, where have you been? I thought I’d lost you!”
Sometimes others attempt to control our transformation, but it’s not their journey. We are however always in relationship to everything else in the universe. The desire to know who we are sometimes requires that we give up the notion that we are our bodies. Regardless of how we appear in this life, we are one spirit. When we give up the need to control, we see “others” as who they really are and are transformed by that awareness.

The destructive impacts of anger are legend. For that reason, most people would agree that it’s not a good thing. But the truth is that life is rarely anger-free. When we humans don’t get what we want, when we want it, in the way that we want it, whatever “it” is, we become angry. What we may not immediately recognize during our periods of anger is the true origin of that anger: pride.
Pride is the mother of many strong emotions like anger, resentment or rage. Pride drives us to say and do things we’d often like to forget later. The reality is that anger is a part of life for most of us. Anger thrives on our attachment to an illusion of spiritual separation from all others.

We are not separate, but one spirit. When we injure others with our words, we also injure ourselves. Pride lies to us and insists that we are better than others, and that we must protect ourselves from the ill will of others. Conversations and relationships become battlegrounds, instead of spiritually guided experiences. Sarcasm and demands, accusations and other judgments spew from our mouths or electronic communications like erupting volcanoes. Pride is ugly, let’s face it. Anger, the child of pride, simmers and stews long after the offending event is over.

Often we are counseled to control our anger, but it’s difficult to control our unexamined pride. We are told to count to ten, or leave the premises in order to avoid the pesky emotional displays of anger. But these “remedies” are Band-Aids that do not address the core issues. Sometimes we’re told to simply practice forgiveness, or get all the facts before blaming or resenting another person. But even forgiveness assumes that the “other” person is the source of our pain and suffering. Sometimes the anger turns inward and we become depressed. The depression response opens us up to feelings of shame or self-blame, and then plunges us into a deep well of recycled and repetitive thoughts.

But there’s another way. We could sit quietly and face the fear and tension that vibrate at the base of our anger. We could pay attention to how anger rises and dissipates as we sit quietly. We could stay with the feelings that arise for as long as we can, until one day through continual practice of sitting with our direct experience, the pride that fuels our anger will cease to have the power it once had. Then compassion will take its rightful place as the spiritual expression in our lives. When we sit quietly we see the anger and pride for what they truly are: stories we tell ourselves about our life conditions.

In the present spiritual moment, we are whole and one with all in the universe. We can truly practice compassion during those moments when we release the illusion of separateness from our consciousness and be the love we came to this life to be.

Thoughts are relentless footsteps through my consciousness from the moment I wake up in the morning until I close my eyes at night. If I’m not careful, I can get stuck on a thought and start to create a reality based on that thought that simply is not real. Some thoughts create a warmth that can be delightful, like gratitude for the day or for precious relationships, or for my sacred space called home. But sometimes the thoughts are memories, painful ones that encroach on moments of joy. Sometimes the thoughts are plans for something that has yet to happen – a doctor’s appointment, grocery shopping, or a telephone conference. In each moment, the thoughts are not things; I cannot touch, see, taste or hear anything that would make thoughts real and concrete. Yet, I can easily give those thoughts attention and in an instant believe that a mere thought is a thing. When I make a thought a thing, I begin to believe something that is not true in the moment. I can become anxious or even depressed, disappointed or regretful. I can begin to label my experience connected to the thought, and become angry or frustrated. My thoughts literally take on a life of their own. Most of the time, thoughts just pass through the mind, but once and a while we allow ourselves to attach to a thought and out of fear or anticipation try to make it real. There’s an alternative to those attachments. We can just let the thoughts come and go, without becoming interested in making the thoughts things.
When we relax into the present moment, we allow thoughts to be just thoughts, and release the need for action. We can rest in the notion that thoughts can be precursors to action but thoughts are nothing but energy. We can rarely stop thinking, because the energy of the universe is abundant and continuous, flowing freely. When we breathe deeply in moments of silence, thoughts make a brief visit in our mind, and then disappear, as easily as they appear. Then there is no fear or panic or anxiety about the future or the past, because we live and breathe and have our being in the present moment.

According to leading neuroscientists, neuropsychologists and brain researchers, about 50% of our capacity to feel happy is genetic; that’s bad news, if we believe that the brain is fixed. Actually the brain has plasticity — it’s changeable. That 50% can often give us a propensity to feel sad or to attach gloomy feelings to our life conditions. Often those worrisome “sadness” genes surface in our response to challenging situations. We have a “negativity bias” encouraged by a number of life stressors that can lead us to blame and a sense of victimhood. But we need not be imprisoned by our genetics. If we allow our awareness to heighten with meditative practice, and see clearly the life we are experiencing, we can change our thoughts with dramatic changes in our brain chemistry.

Even though we are genetically coded, according to researchers, to react to negative situations by moving toward it (fight), moving away (flight), becoming immobile (freeze) or losing emotional voice (fawn), change is possible. In other words, we fight, flee, freeze or fawn in response to a perceived threat to our well-being. The problem is that we believe our own stories about these challenges. Instead of being simply aware of what happens in our lives, we attach meaning to events, and then focus on our fears. We default to the highly charged emotions in our brain and throughout our bodies, even when there is no palpable threat.

Another 10% of our capacity to feel happy is thwarted by a belief that life conditions are unchangeable. But everything changes, everything is temporary, and life conditions do not define us unless we allow them to linger in our awareness. The part of our brain that provides reason and logic gets lost in our impulsivity in the face of challenges. Like pouring ink into a container of water, everything gets “colored” by the flood of fear into our evaluations of a life condition. When we face our fears, they lose their power, a power to disturb our “peace of mind.”

But here’s the good news, nearly 40% of our capacity to feel happy can be driven by awareness of the nature of our being, and by the comfort derived from gratitude, forgiveness, appreciation, compassion and mindfulness. The gifts of awareness also include acknowledging and cherishing relationships. When we acknowledge that we are one spirit, a sense of peace is inevitable. If we give up the notion of separateness from others, we become open to joy. Being still in the present moment with who we are has a healing effect on us all.

Beyond happiness is joy. When we find joy our molecules change. We realize that we are loving spirits and that who we are is enough. We realize that finding joy and feeling happy are ways to experience the divine within us.

Lonely and puzzled, a man joined a group to explore improvements in his interpersonal and relationship skills. During one of the group meetings, he described his estranged partner as argumentative, combative, caustic and self-centered. He himself had a history of negative life experiences allowing anger to consume him in the form of an addiction to food. His pronouncements about his partner were artful projections, painful rejections of his own imperfections. One tends to “slap” another with one hand, but two hands are needed for an embrace. Friendship requires two hands.
A beautifully simple Nigerian proverb is “Hold a true friend with both hands.” It seems that true friends must be handled with care, not because they are fragile, but because they are connected to us at the heart. We are more attracted to their innocent core than to their exterior “faults.” We want them to rest comfortably in our consciousness, so we honor them with patience and positivity. We offer affirmation rather than confrontation. We focus on what lies within us as friends moreso than what drives our differences. We are less interested in being right, and more interested in being kind. We are less demanding and more responsive. We are able to embrace our vulnerability without fear of being judged. We open our hearts and instead of feeling exposed, we feel loved.
What lies at our heart center is the sacred love of Spirit, our true nature. When we hold a true friend with both hands we more clearly recognize who we are.