Disjointed thoughts and images at some vague moment slid into place one into another like some cosmic puzzle. Why do we sleep? Back goes the thought stream to primordial awareness to its innate off and on nature blinking in infinitesimally short bursts, manifest and unmanifest. When bifurcation was less than a thought in the primal consciousness, on and off like some super computer binary code was the essence of existence. What is fear but the annihilation of being off, unmanifest, non-existent? Good and Evil: of course we simplify. At our very root (metaphorically speaking) we are half NOT. We have fear of becoming more aware of our true nature because we must face being NOT being. Our unmanifest half is every bit as real and immediate and ever more powerful than what we know of power.

So we sleep, finding in oblivion that unmanifest half and never knowing what it entails. We spend a decreasing portion of existence without awareness (sleeping) and can only wonder at such a mystery. It merely reflects the true nature of our existence, the true nature of all creation, a movement and a rest. On again, off again, la-de-dah!

As my awareness approaches infinity like some problem in a calculus class, I sense the fringes of a fundamental fear. Like my own death it smashes my sense of self like a hammer blow on a windshield. How dare I stand before God as an equal! Who am I to risk my own existence to face such an unknown? Like other fears, I must face this one squarely and see it for what it really is. I have a sense that fear will disappear when we face it down like a schoolyard bully. Don't cower from it or hide in some dark corner hoping it will go away. Stand before it and look it squarely in the face. Each experience in life proves the resilience of the soul. We survive the most dread of occurrences and emerge the stronger for it. Even death proves a surmountable passage as we go from life to life in search of ourselves. Each step we take towards that truth is a step towards our fear as well. It is us as much as the light of love and awareness is us. Embracing that impulse to flee and hide makes it our teacher and our strength. With our fear by our side, we can Boldly Go!

What of the other side to this coin? How do we define and describe the objects of our fear? I sense the path of growth to be one filled with the passion and joy of falling in love. The intensity of that rush of exaltation applied to all things. Being in love with everything in creation. Is that not a state of divine inspiration? What could be at once more easy and more desperately painful than being passionately in love every moment? The state of being is mirrored in so many aspects of life and shown to us repeatedly as we go from day to day. Joy and pain mixed in cyclic spin and the most poignant experience laced with both in equal measure. As we live in love with all that is, we embrace even pain as lover. Its intensity is our savior and our goal. Pain cannot be judged good or bad when loved with such completeness. It is, like all things, equal in an infinite universe and ours to embrace.

The pathway to happiness? Dare we accept it and follow it? Have we the courage to imagine loving deeply and passionately each moment of life, without judgment or reservation? Can we accept the pure joy of such complete feeling, focused on each perception and experience? Can we release the attachments to our idea of reality enough to simply accept what is? And why the Hell not? The challenge is simply to accept joy. How hard can that be? It is our natural state as beings. How strange that we should insist that we haven't the right to ecstasy.

So, how, you might ask, do we get there from here? How did I get here? Hmmmm! This process is as simple as it sounds. We each have been given an image by our culture of being in love. It is a primal idea and one that we, as human beings, hold dear. Take that image and apply it. Over and over again, imagine being in love. In LOVE! Resist only the urge to objectify the feeling. It is the feeling we seek, not someone or something to apply it to. Life provides objects to focus the feeling on. Fear, guilt, distrust, and so on all fall away when we are in love. Accepting the focus of the feeling with all its "flaws" and embracing the wholeness liberates us to perceive life as a completeness. As we fall in love with life itself, it can bring us nothing less than perfection and safety.

Accepting the wholeness of life brings the joy in all experience without judgment or reservation. How lovely that can be! Is it really that simple? YOU BET IT IS!