Evolution is a process of growth and adaptation to an environment in order to optimise existence in that environment. 

So far humanity has evolved sufficiently such that we can prosper very competently in life.

Unwavering happiness in daily living is just a continuation of this evolutionary process. In due course we will not only be able to prosper, but to be happy as well. 

Happiness is very much part of evolution, it is the human evolving in a way that it no longer functions a particular way because it makes life better.

It takes experience for evolving to happen. To date, the intelligence of life has been focused on optimising survival, and the natural progression after survival is ensured is towards happiness. 

Remember, evolution is a very gradual process. For so long the focus has been on gaining and attaining to survive, and a shift on an instinctual level to temper this focus can take time. 

For at least several thousands of years some humans have been at the front of this evolution curve and have had enough experience to know that life is vastly improved when certain thinking patterns are dropped. These people have felt compelled to share this 'wisdom' with as many others as possible. This movement is part of the impersonal and very intelligent evolutionary process. 

Once an individual starts experiencing a shift from suffering to peace, and the difference is recognised to be directly linked to thinking patterns (ie, suffering is seen to be attitudinal) then a change in attitude happens, the person evolves. 

Happiness is the end of suffering coupled with awareness of, or a connection with, the inner. This connection was foregone because of our obsession with the outer. Suffering is based on a particular way of relating to life and once we start experiencing it with less suffering (thanks to hints that life starts delivering) and it becomes experientially known to be a far more optimal way of living; then it's inevitable that the change continues and an adaptation, evolution, happens.

Spiritual teachings are just a methodology to bring about change. We will continue to evolve past the teachings themselves until eventually we just find ourselves living happily. In other words, we find ourselves no longer producing certain thought patterns and feelings. 

A teaching will do what it needs to do and will say what it needs to say in order to affect change. Always be ready to move on and let go of what you believe to be true. 

It turns out that what we are as humans is very special at our core. It turns out that once certain thought patterns fall away, the sole, undeniable fact that I Am, I exist now, is enough to be happy. Our Being is self contenting.

Peace for now

Empathy and compassion is much less about acts of kindness and much more about an attitude (which you could call kind to everyone) which stems from a clarity that sees that whichever of the vast range of human behaviours or emotions arise in each of us at any time is because that's the way each of us is built to function, it really isn't personal.

Remember, the body grows after the union of the egg and sperm, it grows like a plant grows, it's just much more complex. At some point the organs have grown sufficiently to start working, the heart grows and starts beating, and the brain grows and starts thinking and feeling, and so on. We have grown into this moment.

If I can understand why the other is cruel, why the other suffers, why the other is angry, or sad, happy or glad, excited or mad, if I can understand why the other forgot, or was kind, attracted to me or attracted to another, then I will also understand why it is I act and feel the way I do. 

As long as it is all seen as the very complex movement of humanity, not personal but a happening, then there will automatically be empathy and compassion.

Empathy and compassion is the absence of judgement, blame and shame.

From that ground love and kindness can grow. 

Today marked the end of a three week adventure that these twelve inspiring people embarked on with earnestness and devotion.

And although it's the end of a chapter it's really just the beginning of living life filled with more space and peace.

We were bound not to fail, life was on our side, we were armed with trust and a willingness to see what happens and Grace didn't fail to fill the space.

I sincerely thank my new friends for showing up with such commitment and courage, with openness and vulnerability.

I see an intrepid group of changed people who are undoubtedly much closer to what is truly sought.

Let yourself be lived from an instruction beyond your thinking mind and follow your heart, life is a divine happening - that was the message - life can flow smoothly with you doing in each moment exactly what you feel to do, and all along with the deep conviction that it's not your doing.

If you feel a 'yes' inside to join me for the next retreat in April - don't ignore it.

We Satsanged together, early morning meditated, we cooked and ate together, we walked in nature, laughed and cried, danced together, made new friends and touched a part of ourselves that has been covered up for too long, covered up by our habitual outward looking.

And all along, dear Ramesh sat in with us, what a blessing.I'm impressed no end at how magically this journey of life unfolds.

Peace for now.

Life is taking us on a journey where eventually life itself is known from the cusp of where pure infinite potentiality actualises into the ever-changing expression of that potentiality.

From this vantage point there is never a lack of appreciation of Source or God.

A life lived with the resulting effortless surrender to the undefinable yet directly touchable God force which is at the core of our very own existence transforms into a life overflowing with mystery, wonder, love and peace, seen to be brimming full with divinity. 

Devoid of this appreciation, life is bound to feel like a struggle, unfullfilling and fearful, we feel disconnected and lonely. 

Meditate and dive into the depths of your humanness and at the core you'll bump into the still bottomless well of pure potentiality.

You'll come to know the primordial expression of this well of potential as the undeniable sense that I Am, I exist now, and known from the depth of our Being this existence now is more than enough. 

Peace for now. 

When we push past all of the explanations, our happiness in life comes with the grounded recognition and self confirming appreciation of our very own core.

STOP, and be still. 

Peace for now.

You will laugh loudly one day at all the things you have believed, including ironically the content of wisdom teaching pointers that are 'concepts' and not 'truth', concepts designed to undo beliefs . You'll laugh at how after believing certain concepts, states of consciousness changed, life was experienced from a different perspective and you interpreted what was newly revealed to be something you were told it was, like for example, the Absolute, or proof that there is no person or maybe that you are not the body, that you are Awareness or I Am.

Humans are prone to believe.

See the relative nature of life experience and thought, and then beliefs which take things absolutely will crumble. 

Peace for now. 

From a young age life shapes us in such a way that we are compelled to take life personally. 

Then at some point, if we are lucky, we find ourselves conveyor belted through a process that demonstrates that it's our attitude which is most crucial to a happy life and we see that it's possible for our conditioned and ingrained 'doership & attachment' attitude to start dissolving as the dynamics of life are seen more clearly. 

As this dissolving progresses we find ourselves standing in a place where we are still fully participatory in life, still unable to magically avoid the pain of outcomes or control pleasure at will, and yet find that attitudinally we don't take these outcomes (life) personally anymore.

Nevertheless, even after the impersonal dynamics of life have become clearly seen, often in such a way that it feels like "it's done!", don't be surprised that you find yourself from time to time catapulted back to a perspective where you get completely lost in suffering - your wisdom has effectively gone out the window.

In other words, don't be surprised that from time to time, you find yourself faced with the slightest of unpleasant results and you can't help but take them personally - your understanding, unexplainably it seems, has gone out the window. 

Take solace in knowing that this is completely normal and understandable. Simply put, this phenomena is the emerging of deeply ingrained still unresolved, condensed energies from the past - essentially beliefs of doership and attachment to pleasure - emerging to the surface.

Don't worry the clarity is still there, it's just that a deeper layer of old misunderstanding is now able to surface to the conscious level to be atoned and released. 

This happens because a previously existing load of misunderstanding that was on top which was effectively keeping this load suppressed, has been seen through and now its the turn of this batch of energy to be exposed and atoned. In effect you could look at it as though the clarity is drilling its way deeper into the system and has broken through the chains and trapdoors that were keeping this load packed in the basement. This basement is now just being emptied out, a messy job sometimes but worth doing - you need the space.

Don't worry, even though the load can seem never ending it's not, as the intellectual understanding becomes more and more complete and robust it sinks deeper and deeper uprooting any remaining loads of guilt and shame, hatred and blame, until one day the understanding becomes 'total'. 

'Total' doesn't really mean that you now have a new load of useful knowledge, what it really means is the absence of misunderstanding, no more historic load of misunderstanding remaining to surface, and our natural attitude of the heart gets to function without being covered over.

Peace for now.

Circumstance in life is only ever either pleasurable or painful. 

Your happiness or unhappiness in life is dependent on your attitude to circumstance and not the circumstance itself.

What good news. 

Your happiness is never to be found in the flow of life. The flow of life is only ever outcomes, either pleasurable or painful. 

If you're in a shower and suddenly the hot water stops working, that's pain in the moment (relative to your biological preference for hot water). 

If a friend lets you down, that is pain in the moment. And if a friend excels that's pleasure in the moment, either pleasurable or painful relative to your biological preferences. 

Your happiness is never to be found in pleasure or pain. It is the deeply ingrained false belief that it is - that we are defined by outcomes - which flowers into suffering so often during the day when the flow of life does what it does - deliver outcomes - sometimes pleasurable, sometimes painful. 

Even in the face of pleasure and pain, I Am, I exist. 

Peace for now

... but I can't function differently.

However anyone functions in life - thought or thinking be it positive or negative, an action or deed be it helpful or a hinderance, words spoken or a conversation be they kind or unkind, reactions or responses wise or ignorant, a feeling or emotion, suffering or peace of mind, curled up in a ball unable to face the world, or full of excitement and enthusiasm - anything at all that happens through the body in any moment is a result of only two factors and the circumstance the person finds themself in. 

These two factors: 

1) the body's genetic makeup; and 
2) the up-to-date conditioning piled on by the flow of life and accumulated from at least the point of conception.

If there is no third factor, is it realistic to expect anyone, including ourselves, to be able to function differently in any moment to the way they do? 

Even the thoughts that sometimes arise just before we're about to do something that may say something like "actually, you know better than this, don't do that, it will only make things worse", even this thought which might actually precede us acting differently to the initial impulse, even that thought which we are sure is our "doing" is a result of these two factors. 

This means that, however the functioning of the body unfolds, it's the only way it could given the circumstance and the person's makeup in that moment (based on the 2 factors).

This is not pointed out for philosophical entertainment or debate, but rather because it encourages and allows for a very practical contemplation. We're not debating whether other life forms exist, but rather pointing at a very simple and observable dynamic in daily life. 

And why is this point that the human is forced to act exactly the way they do, important?

Because so much of our human suffering is based on the non-recognition of this fact. So much of life is spent regretting and blaming or feeling proud and frankly that is an uncomfortable way to experience life. Even this functioing can't be different, until it's different. This suffering is also based on our genes and up-to-date conditioning and the circumstance we find ourselves in. 

This message is just new conditioning from the flow of life. It may or may not alter someone's up-to-date conditioning, and how it does or doesn't effect the up-to-date conditioning is not in anyone's control.

If the root is uprooted the weed dies.

Peace for now.