Day Forty-Five: Simply Be

It can be easy for our lives to get out of balance, with too much emphasis on doing and not enough on simply being present to God, to our Higher True Self, and open to experiencing peace. Balance makes our life fruitful. Yet often we labor under the mistaken belief that if we just work harder, or longer, or more, we will accomplish what is needed and find our rest after. There is constant pressure to have and to be more through greater effort. But spiritual wisdom offers this paradoxical solution: the answer is not having more, or being more, but simply, more being. 

In the teachings of Jesus we find a beautiful invitation into spiritual consciousness when he says: “Come to me, all of you who labor and are heavily laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you will find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30) The invitation is to lift up our mind and rest in truth—the truth that we are not just physical beings working for a living, but spiritual beings—heirs to the kingdom of infinite possibility, infinite joy, and blessing. Grace, the transforming energy of divine consciousness that moves through all of life guiding and supporting us and moving us in the direction of fulfillment, is always present. When we cease our frantic pace and turn toward divine remembrance, we open our awareness to this gift.

Sometimes we have the good fortune, or good planning, to take time away from work and family responsibilities by going on a spiritual retreat. When such a delightful opportunity is not on our calendar and we need a break, how can we find more peace, be more skillful at being present in the midst of activity? The most useful thing we can do is listen. Attend to the gentle nudge of the soul that rises up for recognition during activity. When we listen, and follow, by taking a short break to simply breathe and be aware, we dip into eternity… and that brings renewal, in only a moment.

Think About It: Taking a rest break—while awake—can help strengthen memories, a new study suggests. The findings, which appear in the latest issue of the journal Neuron, expand our understanding of how memories are boosted. Previous studies had shown this process occurs during sleep, but not during times of awake rest.

“Taking a coffee break after class can actually help you retain that information you just learned,” explains Lila Davachi, an assistant professor in NYU’s Department of Psychology and Center for Neural Science, in whose laboratory the study was conducted. “Your brain wants you to tune out other tasks so you can tune in to what you just learned. Your brain is working for you when you’re resting, so rest is important for memory and cognitive function. This is something we don’t appreciate much, especially when today’s information technologies keep us working round-the-clock.” –posted on futurity.org

Be Inspired:

We are all great rivers

flowing to their end

Swirling inside us is the silt of ages
and creatures and lands
And rain that has fallen for
millions of years.
All this makes us cloudy
with mud
Unable to see God.
As we struggle for clarity
and the open sky
The Lord keeps saying
the same thing:
Come to me now and be blessed,
Come.

—Hafiz (from The Soul in Love, Deepak Chopra)