|
What
if it truly doesn't matter what you do but how you do
whatever you do?
|
How
would this change what you choose to do with your life? |
What
if you could be more present and open-hearted with each
person you encounter, working
as a cashier in the corner store, a parking lot
attendant or filing
clerk, than you could if you were striving to do
something you think is
more important?
|
How
would this change how you want to spend your precious
time on this earth? |
What
if your contribution to the world and the fulfilment of
your own happiness
is not dependent upon discovering a better method of
prayer or technique
of meditation, not dependent upon reading the right book
or attending
the right seminar, but upon really seeing and deeply
appreciating yourself and
the world as they are right now?
|
How
would this effect your search for spiritual development?
|
What
if there is no need to change, no need to try and
transform yourself into
someone who is more compassionate, more present, more
loving or wise?
|
How
would this effect all the places in your life where you
are endlessly trying to be better? |
What
if the task is simply to unfold, to become who you
already are in your essential nature - gentle, compassionate and capable of
living fully and passionately present?
|
How would this effect how you feel
when you wake up in the morning? |
What if who you essentially are
right now is all that you are ever going to be?
|
How would this effect how you feel
about your future? |
What if the essence of who you are
and always have been is enough?
|
How would this effect how you see
and feel about your past? |
What if the question is not why am I so infrequently the
person I really want to be, but why do I so infrequently want to be the
person I really am?
|
How would this change what
you think you have to learn? |
What if becoming who and what we truly are happens not
through striving and trying but by recognizing and receiving the people and
places and practices that offer us the warmth of encouragement we need to
unfold?
|
How would this shape the
choices you have to make about how to spend today? |
What if you knew that the impulse to move in a way that
creates beauty in the world will arise from deep within and guide you
every time you simply pay attention and wait?
|
How would this shape your
stillness, your movement, your willingness to
follow this impulse, to just let go and dance? |
Oriah Mountain Dreamer
By
the author of the book 'THE INVITATION'
'Prelude' is excerpted
with permission from
'THE DANCE'
Copyright
© 2001 by Oriah Mountain Dreamer
All
rights reserved
May
not be reproduced in whole or in part without the
permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.,
10
E. 53 St., New York NY 10022
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