A message to future students

These are troubled times.

Now, the world has shrunk; there is nowhere left to hide or find refuge. This is both a positive and a negative: positive, because it forces us to look for solutions and to try harder to understand the human condition and each other; negative, because those who are unable to do so drop by the wayside. For spirituality, these times spell a call to action: the need to update and put our growing intelligence into action; to bring peace.

The more sensitive person seeks harmony, sweetness – ‘relief’, but no one truly wants to exert or discipline themselves any more than what our stressful times require. This is why I warn people who come to me: with all the love I am capable of feeling and giving, I am a taskmaster. I bring hope through effort. Where someone might seek toys, I suggest they give them away.

However, there is no self-denial in my work: just an opening of the eyes and a deepening of the senses. My work is about asking the question: ‘What is really important?’. My work is about the joy sensed at the opening of a flower, the breath of hope that arises from daybreak, the quiet enjoyment of resting after a day well spent. Do we need to ask for anything more?

But these joys require the effort to Be, the desire to Know, the willing sensitivity to Feel another and all of life. To feel, to know, to see and to understand you must put aside your toys and your comforts, for in the depth of Now, and in the world we often run away from, is the only satisfaction. It is always more than enough.