The Power of Now

There is a vast difference
between being "happy" and
finding a genuine inner peace
that "passes all
understanding" to quote the
book. Happiness is often
confused for inner peace. The
two are not the same.
One can be having a miserable
experience and still be at the
core "at peace." You can be
suffering through
the loss of a loved one, career,
belief or be in a health crisis an
still have an inner peace. When
you meet
these unusual people, you
remember them. The bottom
line is tied directly to how one
graciously accepts
what is as opposed to
demanding life be some other
way for happiness to be.
Happiness is that shallow
and temporary fix one gets
from stuff, position and
comfort, while peace is that
deep ability to not define the
real self by such elusive
qualities. Inner peace is the
ability to say "is that so" when
life does what it does
and defeat the drama queen in
all of us with presence.
Is it Good, or is it Bad?
I have a saying "It’s not good,
it’s not bad. It just is." on the
wall in my workspace and
many clients
comment on it. They like it even
thought they can’t quite say
why they like it. I think the
reason is that down
deep, we all know that one
can’t judge how something
works out no matter how it
seems at the moment.
A client knocked it off the wall
accidentally and cracked the
glass. She brought it out to me
in tears and
said she was so very sorry. I
said read it
I told her she made it even
more perfect a truth than
before by breaking the glass. I
thanked her for how
good the crack looked going all
the way through the saying.
She smiled and said "I get it but
Dennis, you
ain ’t right." I hung it back up
and now clients think the crack
was deliberate for effect.
Who’s to say what is good or
bad? So often what seems so
good turns out to make a
miserable
experience. What seems so bad
turns into the greatest teacher
and opportunity. Doors open to
better ways
of being or an opportunity that
never would have come any
other way. Bad stomach
cramps and a morning
in the bathroom after an
anniversary dinner the night
before, gone bad, did , in fact,
keep one business
man from making it into work
exactly where the first plane hit
on 9/11. For him what ’s bad
certainly was
good.
A "bad" experience can force
one to let go of illusions,
falsehoods and wrong concepts
that will not serve
one ’s life experience. A "bad"
experience can cause one to
become more real, more
humble, more
compassionate and to possess
an understanding . A bad
experience, when viewed from
the ego which is
merely the mind ’s false sense
of the self can keep one frozen
in time, bitter, angry and
consumed with
changing the unchangeable
past. The ego is that
unconscious and running mind
that views itself as
unique and separate from
everything and everyone else.
The ego views everyone and
everything as a
potential threat to itself and
can only preserve itself with
control, power, greed and
attack. Ego runs and
ruins organizations and sends
governments off to commit
genocide on those perceived as
"them." All
conflict is a battle of egos, and
the need to be right. Give up
the need to be right and you
will have arrived at
a state few attain to