What does it mean, to live life to the fullest?

To approach every moment with openness
Leaving a trail of joyous gratitude for past experience
Without fear of being what you are right now

The faucet of flowing forgiveness, left running

To entertain the idea of separation in only this: Your memories are not Now.

To relieve tension of its duty at the completion of its service to you,

To cast out assumption and doubt from your heart space, receiving possibility as your new tenant,

To accept responsibility for your entire experience,

To evict the victim, and invite clarity in its place,

To cultivate the courage to transcend any ideas which impose limitation,

To wonder as a curious fool, free of all concerns of appearance.

To retrieve your shadow self, that part of you which has been suppressed, and to learn to integrate yourself into the whole being you once were.

To forget to the point of remembering,

To free yourself from outer validation and agreement,

To lose the ability to judge, and release all addiction to emotion and outer acceptance, and your belief in being definable.

To place the center of life itself in every manifestation you perceive,

To exercise the self-discipline required to focus on consciously creating your experience,

To learn the value of authentic expression.

To allow your vision to be blurred to form, and all your physical senses to adjust their roles from dictators to bringers of a kind of experience.

Stop believing in time and things, as you allow yourself to fall deeper and deeper into the unknown,

The Mystery from which you appear.

Greatness is beyond action; it is felt in a moment of unclouded perception.

If you want to live life to the fullest, become empty.

© 2009 Makana Music LLC. All Rights Reserved.

This was taken from a letter I wrote to a friend who asked me for my thoughts on forgiveness.

As for forgiveness, it has much less to do with the other person and much more to do with one’s self, at least in my own experience. I can point out many instances where I felt injured. But what usually allows me transcendence is looking deep within to discover how I, usually in fear or insecurity, made choices that put me in a dangerous position, or that brought me an experience that I now look back on in hindsight with regret. What I’m saying is, healing is a gift you give yourself. Whether or not you feel “love” for a particular person is more a question of philosophical construct: am I obligated to love all? Is love obligation?

For me it is not. I don’t feel a direct appreciation for certain individuals; I don’t love certain people. However, that is the human part of me. There exists a higher aspect of me that is independent of my emotional and physical bodies.

It is from this place that I can, without difficulty, open beyond my human awareness to a grande acceptance of all, a bigger view beyond my “self”, and a resonant frequency of all encompassing acknowledgment of “what is”. This is true forgiveness: a perception that recognizes the perfection in all unfolding and comes from a place beyond the personal.

We are complex; we have both within us. It is up to each of us to choose where to “feel” from, whether to carry injury forward, and whether we can realize that our individual identity is one of an infinite collection of aspects of One Creation.

“You know, none of this matters. In fact, none of this is matter.”
~Makana