Nothing is a coincidence. It all happens because something happened before it and is happening with it. So many things are operating at the same time when we think something is just a coincidence.

But I wouldn’t say it happens on purpose. I would rather say, “It is inevitable that anything happens and everything is dependent on everything else.”

Some people would like to impute meaning to why things happen to them. They personalize the Universe. They were bad in a past life and that is why they slammed their hand in the car door today. The human mind feels better when it can make a story out of what happens. But in doing so, it is limiting its view of what is really going on.

What is really going on is far more than our limited minds can grasp. Forces that we cannot see that are operating all around us. Physical forces such as gravity, laws of motion, and magnetism as well as spiritual forces combined with our own choice. Who put you there when you slammed your hand in the car door? If you don’t move your hand fast enough many laws of physics come into play. And it hurts.
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When we look at life with the eyes of the Soul, there are no coincidences and there is no specific purpose for every little thing that happens to us. But there is an overarching purpose for why we are here. It is a soul-chosen purpose to grow and expand in our ever deepening love of the Universe and all its complexity.

I wouldn’t say there is no mind, but rather that our ego mind is delusional and leads us down an unhappy path if we let it. It is hard-wired into us as a survival mechanism and allows us to perform tasks and accomplish goals, so we think it is our friend. But it is not an instrument for achieving inner peace—which always involves living in and loving the present moment.

The problem with this ego mind is that it cannot live in the present moment. It does not recognize presence. It can only cycle between memories and anticipation about future events. That is where is causes us problems. We have pleasant memories, but the painful ones are the ones that shape our lives and our decisions the most. We can hope for wonderful things in the future, yet worry horribly that they won’t come about.

This is where practices, such as yoga and meditations come in. People want to tame this torturous mind and they have found that such practices help with the erratic river of their thoughts. These disciplines help people rise above the maelstrom of mind activity.
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If we engage in practices because we think we are going to get better in some future state, we are missing the mark. Practices such as watching our breath or spiritual dance are on point when we do them because we love doing them. Not because one day they are going to make us a better person, or we will be able to manifest everything we want in this physical life.

​People with personality disorders do not understand the meaning of peace of mind. Peace of mind comes from a deep experience of satisfaction that abides, actually, beyond the mind. In a sense, no one’s mind can be at peace because it is an automatic, repetitive chatterbox whose intention is survival, not necessarily peace or happiness. But Narcissism is a particularly strong manifestation of the ego-mind.

The problem with personality disorders such as Narcissism and Borderline is the lack of insight that is needed for change and growth. This means there is a certain lack of self reflection that is a precursor to peace of mind. We need to have insight into the way the mind operates to be able to change its course. Narcissists do not delve deeply beneath the surface in this way. They are more interested in immediate gratification of their primary desires for praise and adulation. They also shift the blame onto others and nothing is ever their fault.

Impressing strangers is more important to Narcissists than being good to those who are near and dear. They restlessly seek praise from random people they just met, while simultaneously treating the ones who actually care about them like trash (except when they need them for something). So peace can never be found. Strangers can give you praise. But they are strangers after all and go home after the performance is over. Meanwhile, Narcissists have burned their bridges with the ones that stood by and loved them.
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Finally, Narcissists feel a void inside that must be filled with illusions they create. Instead of seeking the fountain of tranquility within, they look outside for the next feeding. They try to build a facade that will be lovable but they know it is fake and therefore can never feel truly secure or at peace. So, like the rest of us, if we are constantly driven by the frightened, greedy little mind, Narcissists will never find peace.

We are the only ones that can give meaning to our lives. It is not a matter of “should.” It is a matter of “that’s the way it is.”
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Other people can tell us what they think the meaning of life it, but that is just their opinion. If enough people agree and they write about it and put it in a holy book, then it becomes The Truth. This makes it very easy for people who do not want to think for themselves or simply cannot do their own thinking. They can just follow some doctrine that they have been brought up with and that is good enough for them.

But without meaning that we bring to life, we are just like ants or bees, going about creating and destroying in our little hives, mindlessly going about one mechanical task after another. In the end, our lifeless bodies are tossed aside to make room for the next generation of insects. And what was the point, besides the furtherance of all the lifeforms on the planet?

Some might say that life has no meaning at all. “It just is” and we try to make sense out of it by assigning meaning. We intuit that there is too much pain and suffering in life for it to be completely meaningless. And so that is part of our quest as humans. To find our own reason for why we are on this planet. No one can do this for us. We must do it for ourselves and that is what makes life a growing and learning experience of constant change for the ones who dare.

Spirit guides do not lead us to anything horrible. They are there to offer unconditional love and comfort. They have been with us for eternity before this birth and will be with us after we leave our physical existence.

If we have karma to resolve, they can help us choose the right path. But they will never lead us into anything frightful or disturbing. Their whole raison d’etre is to be of peaceful assistance to us as we navigate through our lives. They await our call upon them and stand ever ready to be of service.

We do not plan what we are going to do before we incarnate. It is determined by many variables that are way beyond our individual control. We are part of a huge dance of the Universe in which are souls are never destroyed but continue to grow and evolve in accordance with the laws of the Cosmos. Spirit guides are part of this, though most people ignore them until their backs are up against the wall.
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Then they call on their guides and angels. But the guides have always been there. We just need to open our consciousness to them. They are there to be consulted any time of the day or night. I use them all the time and greatly appreciate their loving assistance.

Nietzsche is a super-brilliant, multi-talented philosopher who is widely misunderstood even today. People have taken his statements, twisted them around to suit their purposes and completely trashed the intention behind what he wrote. They take a few sentences and, without reading the complex material behind it, make generalizations.

This is understandable, because Nietzsche wrote a lot in his short life. He is the originator of the sentence: “God is dead.” This caused a lot of outrage when he said it and continues to reverberate today. Did he mean that the Source Energy of the Universe is no longer operative? No. He meant that the old, paternalistic man in the sky who is looking over everyone’s shoulder and waiting to punish them or reward them, is no longer relevant to the modern, thinking person.

Nietzsche has been called “the antichrist” for his “God is dead” statement. And he has also been misinterpreted to support the Nazi concept of the Übermensch or the “overman” or superior man over the Jews. This was not Nietzsche’s intention either. Throughout his whole life he detested antisemitism. He was referring to what could take place after the death of the old God. He said a new person will emerge, someone who creates new values.
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Granted, the “overman “does not follow morality of common people since that means going along with herd mentality, but it has nothing to do with exterminating the Jews. Instead, it s about spiritual evolution, where morality and justice are not based on superstition but on self-awareness and overcoming traditional views. In this way, he is very much like Kant and his categorical imperative: We do good things because that is the right thing to do, not because God will punish us if we don’t.

Inner peace is always in the background. This can be a problem because the mind is trained to focus on the foreground (what is “out there”). So we are constantly scanning the scene “out there” for danger, trouble, what is out of place, what could bring us pleasure. And how we can avoid pain. We are not trained to look within.

As long as we continually focus on what is “Out There,” we will never find or keep inner peace. But if we retreat into that silent space within, from that vantage point we can watch the passing parade. We can still be a part of it but we are primarily an observer.

This doesn’t mean we become zombies, with no feelings. We cannot opt for only the good feelings and not feel the bad ones. We will still feel sorrow, pain, and happiness. But we also realize how transitory all these emotions are. They depend on our moods, our thoughts at the time, how much sleep we got the night before, etc.
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Continuous inner peace is possible, as the Buddha pointed out in his Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path. But we must be devoted to understanding how to achieve it. It doesn’t come on its own and it takes vigilance to maintain it.

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Many people who have been “brought to their knees” by suffering have found the spiritual path. It is almost a prerequisite. If we were all happy and contented with how things are going in the world and in our lives, we would not need to turn to a higher power to find answers for our struggles.

This is especially true for children who have found the world of the Spirit as a solution to their problems. This was so for me. I needed to make sense of the illness and deaths in my family. I needed to understand the cruelty I saw around me. At 5 years old, I threw myself at the mercy of my Higher Power (I used to call God, but now call Source Energy of the Universe). And, through my deep sadness came consolation from the powerful world beyond.

If these misfortunes had not been in my life, I would have been happily and thoughtlessly playing with my toys and dreaming of ice cream. Instead, I began an dialog with Higher Consciousness and found a deep solace that has stayed with me my entire life. I built inner resources that remained in the background of any turbulence.
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Eckart Tolle once remarked that if we didn’t have all kinds of drugs, alcohol, and tranquilizers, more people would hit bottom and be forced to seek the spiritual path as the only permanent way to peace. But because we are switching off our misery with all kinds of substances, we are not completing the organic journey towards enlightenment. We are creating a false Nirvana and have not found the natural pathways within ourselves.

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The Buddha is saying that anything apart from the underlying Source Energy of the Universe is impermanent, comes and goes, and can be destroyed in a second. This means that anything that appears to be solid matter, made of many distinct atoms and molecules can be gone in an instant.

Houses burn down, tsunamis kill thousands in an instant, cities can vanish in an earthquake. They are all made of separate parts and can all be destroyed. But the underlying principle that manifests in all these various forms can never be destroyed. It never goes away. It is never born. It never dies. It is forever, eternal, and indestructible.

When Buddha says, “Strive with earnestness,” he is referring to how easy it is to be swept up into believing that all this impermanent stuff is real and worth our time and energy. We get diverted onto the path of amassing more and more and lamenting our losses. We are driven by constant fear that it all will disappear and that it is all meaningless.
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It takes work and sincere passion (earnestness) to keep from being caught up in the whirlwind of the material world. It takes work to set ourselves apart from this form of mass hypnosis and create that contact with Eternal Source Energy. But Buddha didn’t say, “Be miserable while you strive with earnestness.” Misery does not fit into this kind of work. It is light, free, peaceful, and happy work.

People on a spiritual path want to have a lot of free time to meditate, contemplate, worship, and go within in other ways. Therefore, my spiritual pursuits have determined how I’ve interacted with people in social settings. It’s not that I don’t love a good party, it’s just that superficial interactions are too much on the surface to stir any continuing interest in me. Spiritual people like to dive in deep to the Heart of the Universe.

I can participate in small talk, but eventually desire much more. I want to understand the Soul of the person I am interacting with. If I find that they are a young soul, or perhaps have not examined any of life’s important questions, I will participate with kindness send them on their way with love. But they will never be part of my life. It is tedious for me to be with people on a shallow and superficial level, whether it is in a party atmosphere or a casual encounter.

One of the reasons for this is that on my path, I have not bought into the values that so many people in my society ascribe to. The large, expensive weddings, gaudy extravaganzas and pointless displays, mass entertainments are not pleasurable. The whole medical-industrial complex, the premises it is based on, and attention-seeking social media culture mean very little to me and I avoid them.
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It is an indwelling life of great peace and freedom. But to live it, it is important to set up boundaries and not be dragged into the whirlwind of activity that characterizes so many people’s daily lives. So I have become a hermit. A happy, voluntary, and completely satisfied hermit. And that is how my spiritual pursuits have shaped my life.