Many would define a successful life as a happy one, and we go about trying to get that in many ways. Some try to get happiness through material things and accomplishments, while others try to get it through spiritual means. The problem with this is that happiness is not something you have to achieve but something you have to notice. If you are trying to achieve it, then you are overlooking it. The ego tries to get happiness from doing or having or being someone, while the spiritual ego tries to get happiness from transcending all of that. Spiritual freedom, or enlightenment, can be just another thing to be achieved.

Wanting happiness and freedom from the suffering of the ego is a worthy desire. The problem is that wanting it implies that you don’t already have it. You believe you aren’t free when you already are. This is very difficult for the ego to grasp. It doesn’t notice the happiness that is already present in this moment because this happiness doesn’t look like the ego imagines or wants it to look. When true happiness shows up, the ego is bored with it—it’s too plain, too ordinary, and it doesn’t leave you feeling special or above the fray. It doesn’t take away your problems, which is the ego’s idea of happiness. The ego wants no more difficulties: no more sickness, no more need for money, no more work, no more bad feelings—only unending pleasure and bliss. That is its idea of a successful life; however, the happiness the ego dreams of will never be attained by you or anyone else. The ego denies the reality of this dimension, where challenges are necessary to evolution and blissful states and pleasures come and go.

The happiness that underlies all of life is happiness that comes from just existing. Happiness is actually a quality of your true nature—of essence—which loves challenges because it loves the growth that comes from challenges. It embraces all of life, not only the pleasurable and fun moments, but the more difficult ones. Then, who is life difficult for? The only thing that experiences life as difficult is the ego—the idea you have of yourself and all of the ideas this self has about life. These ideas are the only thing in the way of true happiness. Ideas—just thoughts—keep you from experiencing life and experiencing the happiness that essence is experiencing as it is alive through you.

In any moment, you can experience this happiness if you just notice that it is here right now. It is much more subtle than the giddy high we feel when we finally get what we want, which never lasts for long. The ego wants happiness to feel like a high that never goes away. It wants the feeling of winning an Olympic Gold Medal in every moment. But true happiness is a quiet contentment with life and an openness and availability to life. This happiness is steady and constant, although it seems to come and go as our attention moves off of it. Usually our thoughts take us away from the happy peacefulness of the moment because the ego doesn’t appreciate peace and prefers drama and feelings. The ego wants to feel intensely good all the time. That is its idea of happiness.

If we stay in the moment long enough, we experience essence rejoicing in life—relishing the experience of being alive in this ever-changing and mysterious moment. That is true happiness. It doesn’t have the excitement or glamour of winning the lottery or of a spiritual experience, but unlike these, it doesn’t come and go. When you are very present to everything that is arising in the moment rather than to just your thoughts, you see that life is unfolding perfectly without the ego’s attempts to manipulate life. The ego tries to intervene in every moment, as if it is responsible for shaping it, but it is not that powerful. Its interventions only take us away from life and bring us into its mental world, where it creates an imaginary life full of dreams, hopes, and fantasies—the life that it wants.

The life the ego wants will never come to pass. What it wants is unrealistic and not connected to the flow of life, out of which reality is born. Life doesn’t follow the ego’s desires; it has its own momentum and reason, which is mysterious and can’t be known by us ahead of time. The ego doesn’t like not knowing and not being in control, so it pretends it can be the creator, and through the mind it is. But the mental world it creates doesn’t affect life except by taking us away from it.

This mental world is an illusion that will never become real. The ego really believes in its illusions, though. It believes that its dreams and fantasies may come true if it thinks the right thoughts and does the right things. It doesn’t recognize that something else is at work here, giving birth to life. When we are in touch with this rather than the ego’s ideas about life, we stand a chance of being really happy—not because of anything that happens, but just because we exist in this miraculously ever-shifting moment in time and because what we are loves life.

The moment is complete and fulfilling just as it is. Nothing needs to be added to it. It can’t be made any better because it is already as good as it gets. The ego will tell you otherwise and promise you its version of happiness, but its promises are empty. Will you chase after its dreams or are you willing to see that happiness—true, real happiness—is already here and it is enough?



For the ego, nothing is good enough, and if you take on its attitude, then you will never be happy. To counteract this mental voice, which is never content and always pushing for more and better, the mantra “good enough!” can be very useful. This phrase can neutralize the negative effect of the belief that something is not good enough. Notice how you can just relax when your attitude is “good enough” rather than “not good enough.”

The egoic mind will tell you this is a dangerous conclusion because you won’t be successful—you won’t be good enough. “Not good enough” implies that “you” are not good enough, which is what gives this phrase so much power. If you didn’t feel that whatever was not good enough didn’t reflect on “you,” it wouldn’t matter, at least not as much.

We decide that something isn’t good enough (good enough for whom?) and then we try to make it better. Who it isn’t good enough for is the “me,” the sense you have of yourself—who you think of yourself as. Isn’t it interesting that a self-image can have that much power? Our self-image drives us to behave in certain ways.

We are driven to uphold our idea of ourselves as more perfect than we perhaps are. After all, we are not very perfect, are we? No one is, but we fight this reality by working very hard at being better than we have been in the past or better than someone else. We set a high standard—one that no one has attained consistently—and expect ourselves to live up to that. When we fail, we conclude that we are not good enough (not yet anyway). Then that becomes our self-image, and we get very busy trying to be better. All of this striving saps the joy out of life and out of our accomplishments, which in the end are still not good enough. There is no end to the perfection and accomplishment the ego wants. You are never done trying to get what it wants.

The antidote is to see that whatever is true right now about yourself and your situation is good enough. This attitude gives you space—breathing room—to be able to see more clearly what else needs to be done, if anything. How does essence (your essential Self) see this moment? What does it want for the next moment? You will discover the answer by observing what is arising in this moment. Is there an inspiration or urge to act in a particular way? Essence drives us to fulfill our life through action, but it doesn’t do it through shameful feelings of inadequacy, like the ego, and it doesn’t go after the same things the ego goes after. It goes after what is meaningful to our life plan, which can only be known by paying attention to the moment, not to the egoic mind’s rules, desires, and demands.

The ego is a difficult taskmaster. That wouldn’t be so bad if what it pushed us to accomplish was ultimately meaningful and led to true happiness, but it doesn’t. The ego is a false taskmaster, leading us away from what is most meaningful in life. It drives us unrelentingly and uncompassionately towards its goals, which are contrary to true happiness. At a certain point, we have to say no to the ego and follow the Heart instead.

This doesn’t mean that there aren’t times when doing something very perfectly isn’t called for. Essence knows when perfection is called for, such as when you are doing surgery if you are a surgeon. The ego, on the other hand, demands perfection from nearly every action, and the more you listen to it, the more dictatorial it becomes. Those who have learned to ignore it still perform well when they need to.

The egoic mind, with its insistence on perfection, doesn’t cause us to perform better. The ego is not very present to what it is doing and therefore inefficient and clumsy. It is busy paying attention to thoughts, which interfere with the spontaneous, right behavior that naturally flows out of essence. We think the egoic mind is our helper in our tasks, but it is actually quite unnecessary, which is what we discover when we are just present to whatever we are doing without thought and allow essence to act through us.

This way of being may sound mysterious, but you actually do this all the time. Once you begin to notice that you do, you can begin to trust this way of being in your life more, and you will begin to live more from essence and less from the ego. However, you have to be willing to shift your attention from your thoughts to whatever else is arising in the moment: what actions are you moved to perform, what words are you moved to speak, what opportunities are arising, what information, what insights?

Essence doesn’t waste time perfecting what doesn’t need perfecting or waste time on unnecessary action (e.g. picking up that last speck of dust). When something needs attention, however, it is wise enough to give full attention to that. This wisdom is inherent in you and operates primarily through your intuition. You don’t need your mind to guide you. That is not where wisdom lies. All the mind has for you is platitudes and rules, not real wisdom for the moment. For real wisdom, you have to be present in the moment because that’s where it comes out of. If you are busy listening to the mind’s programmed assumptions, opinions, and beliefs, you will miss the wisdom that is always available from your very own Self.



What is love and where is it found? We search for love and try to get love, and yet it seems like we never get enough. Even when we have found love, it can slip away as time passes. What if there is a source of love that never fades and is always available? What if love is as near and easy as breathing? What if we have been “looking for love in all the wrong places” instead of actually lacking love?

Love is both simpler and more mysterious and subtle than we have imagined it to be. Love is very simply the spacious, open attention of our awareness. Awareness itself is the gentlest, kindest, and most intimate force in the world. It touches things without impinging on them. It holds all of our experience, but doesn’t hold it down or hold it back.

This flow of awareness and love that connects us to all we experience is the true source of satisfaction and joy. We have all experienced it to some degree. Whenever you fall in love with a person, pet, piece of music, or beautiful object, you have felt this flow of intimate, connected awareness. Unfortunately, we have been taught to believe that the source of this good feeling was in the object of our affection. So, we suffered whenever we lost our apparent source. When our lover leaves, our beloved pet dies, the concert ends, or the bank repossesses our dream home, we feel bereft of that loving, connected feeling.

But what if we are the source of the awareness that connects us to everything? What if the love we have been seeking has always been right here inside our own hearts? What if it doesn’t really matter what our awareness is touching, but only that there is awareness flowing? That would profoundly simplify the search for love. Anything or any experience would be a suitable object for our love.

The sweetness of love is in the flow of awareness itself. The completely allowing openness and freedom we might look for from a perfect lover is already here in our own awareness. It doesn’t have to try to be accepting because awareness is by nature open and allowing. Awareness by itself cannot do anything but touch. Awareness cannot push or pull or demand something from or limit the freedom of what it touches. And yet, awareness is not an aloof distant observer. Awareness is deeply and intimately connected to the object of awareness. In fact, awareness and the object of awareness are ultimately the same thing.

This connection and intimacy that is natural in awareness is satisfying and fulfilling regardless of the object of awareness. In other words, whatever you are experiencing right now is your true love. Whatever you are experiencing is an opportunity to also experience the depth of your true nature as open, loving awareness. Your true nature is true love. It is the perfect lover you have been seeking, and not only is it always here, but that is who you really are.

The key to experiencing love is to notice where awareness is flowing right now. That flow of awareness is love, and it is the most satisfying and nourishing thing we can experience. There is naturally a direction to this flow of awareness. It moves from within our being to the objects and experiences we are having. We can only fully experience this flow of aware love as it moves in this direction.

When someone else is lovingly aware of us (not of their judgments or desires regarding us, but simply of us as we are), we can experience the outer expression of their love. We can see the way they are looking at us, the smile on their face, and the responsiveness of their reactions to us. But the awareness of us is arising in them. The love is flowing from them towards us, and so it is filling them with this sense of satisfaction and joy. If we are to feel satisfaction and joy, it will depend on whether we are experiencing a flow of love towards them. It is our own open awareness that fills us with that sense of connection and appreciation. We are filled with love when we are giving it to someone or something else.

Obviously it can be easier to open your heart and allow a fuller expression of your own love when the requirements of your conditioning are being met. When someone who matches your ideal for a lover is exhibiting attraction and interest in you, it is often especially easy to give them that same openness and attention in return. So naturally, when two people are falling in love, they are both feeling the fullness and richness of the free flow of awareness. Yet the contact each person has with the love is within themselves. It is their own love and awareness that is filling them up so richly. This truth, that we are filled with love when we love someone or something else instead of when we are loved, can free us from the search for love outside of ourselves.

There is just one awareness and one Being behind all the individual awarenesses. The way we as can reach that oneness of Being is by experiencing the flow of love from within our being. Paradoxically, the place where you are connected to others is inside your own heart. You cannot really connect to another externally. On the inside, you are already connected to everyone and everything. The connection is this flow of awareness that is here right now reading these words. It is in the loving nature of awareness that the sense of connection is found, not in the objects of awareness. We are connected to others in the awareness flowing from within us to them. Connection is not found in the flow of awareness and love towards us as, by definition, that flow is connected to its source inside the other person.

This is good news! We can experience limitless love no matter what anyone else is doing. The only thing that matters is how much we are loving, not how much we are loved. Right now you can be filled to overflowing with the incredible sweetness of love, just by giving awareness to anything and everything that is present in your experience. Don’t take my word for it, test it out:

Exercise: Allow your awareness to settle on a physical object nearby. Take an extra moment to allow your awareness to fully touch the object. Just for the sake of this experiment, give as much love, appreciation, and acceptance as you can to that object. Then notice another object. As your awareness rests for a moment on that, give it as much love, appreciation, and acceptance as you can.

Now allow your awareness to notice a sound in your environment. As you listen, give that same loving appreciation to the sound you are hearing. If you have any difficulty giving love and appreciation to a particular object or sound, try another object or sound.

Continue allowing your awareness to land on various objects, sounds, colors, tastes, smells, and sensations. With each one, allow as much love and appreciation to flow towards it as you can. Take as long as you like with each experience, and if it is difficult to feel love towards something, just move on. It will get easier to love for no reason as you repeat this exercise.

Now notice other things that may be arising within you: an uncomfortable sensation, a thought, a feeling, or a desire. Take an extra moment to send loving attention towards it. Just for now, you can love each sensation, thought, feeling, and desire that appears within you.

As you get the hang of this, you can just allow your awareness to move naturally to whatever it touches next, either inside or outside of you. Whatever it lands on, give it love and acceptance. Just for a moment, let it be the way it is.

What is it like to give simple awareness and love over and over to things that appear in your experience? How open and full does your heart feel when you are able to give love in this way? If you come to something that is difficult to love or accept, just notice that it is difficult and then love that it is difficult right now. You can even take a moment to simply love the way some things are harder to love than others. Then move on to whatever is in awareness next. Just go ahead and love whatever is in front of you, and in that way be filled with love.