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The first is an awareness of death.

Intellectually, we may “understand” that we will die but few people really get it. When you know, really and truly deep in your gut, that all of this is going to end as randomly and abruptly as it began, everything takes on a different significance.

Pettiness and dislike fall away, replaced with a sweet, sorrowful kindness. There is no time to care more about winning than loving. All of our human drama is limited to this brief time and place.

When we know that there is no guarantee we will have time “later,” attention is urgently given to the consciousness experienced uniquely in this moment. There ensues a fascinated inquiry into the nature of the one who is aware of all this.

The second is an awareness of the source of happiness.

Your natural state is the unobscured radiance of something so amazing that we don’t have a word for it. The divine, the infinite, the eternal, Emptiness, the Self, Suchness.

Whenever we feel happy, it is because a temporary circumstance has occurred such that something obscuring the natural state has partially receded. Like the sun glimpsing through the clouds. The radiance that peeks through is what we call happiness. However, that happiness is limited to those circumstances.

Once you realize, as in directly experience and understand, that all the happiness you’ve ever experienced is actually your own radiance, you stop seeking the temporary circumstances and instead turn directly toward the source: the natural state.

If you cannot be grateful for what you have, you will not be grateful for whatever it is you may gain or achieve.

Happiness is never a product of something gained or accumulated. It is the radiance of inner relaxation into your natural state. Gratitude is one such gateway to this place.

Namaste 😁

One day you may catch yourself smiling at the voice in your head, as you would smile at the antics of a child. This means that you no longer take the content of your mind all that seriously, as your sense of self does not depend on it.”

The spiritual way encourages us to live in and as freedom, our indelibly natural joy. It is spontaneous, meaning it is unfettered by predictable reactions and conditioned perceptions. 

The following are six qualities that can be cultivated today and continued across a lifetime. While many spiritual traditions have different practices and paradigms, one can observe the significance of these qualities across all of them. 

Allow these qualities to be written upon your heart.

1. Forgiveness

If we look at forgiveness from the outside, it seems to be a pardon. A person or party or situation has transgressed in some hurtful manner and they are being let off the hook. This is a common misconception.

When you look at forgiveness from the inside, you can see it is allowing you to be at peace. This peace is not the same as condoning the transgression but it means you are no longer resenting it. Why? Because it was enough for you to have to deal with it in the first place. You don’t deserve to also have your inner state in a place of suffering. By forgiving, you bless yourself and the situation such that you can feel at ease once more. It happened. Breathe, allow that to be what it is, and re-orient yourself to decide how best to move forward.

“Forgiveness means giving up the hope for a better past.” — Lama Surya Das

2. Acceptance

The elements of this quality are similar to forgiveness but with a different nuance. If anything, it is a part of forgiveness. So long as we refuse to accept the reality of something, we will suffer. Not only will we suffer but we will also feel powerless. Think of an army who refuses to accept that their country is being invaded. Once you accept it, then you can see more clearly and act accordingly.

Acceptance has an element of surrender to it as well. It means you meet things as they are, rather than as you want them to be. You meet people as they are rather than as your judgments of them. You meet situations as they are rather than your interpretations or preferences for them. And you meet yourself as you are.

Non-acceptance keeps you in a stasis where you habitually defend and justify your suffering. Acceptance opens door for you so that you may be free.

3. Detachment

Non-attachment could also be a fitting term instead of detachment. When we fixate on things in terms of attachment, we take them for granted. We rely on them in an unhealthy manner. Do not mistake attachment for love. An attachment is when you rely on something in order to feel happy, free, or peaceful. We can form attachments to living beings, objects, circumstances, identities, or even beliefs. Yet when we do so, we not only put limits on our peace, freedom, and happiness, but we also reduce our relationship with subjects of our attachment. It is reduced to them being used by us.

At the same time, certain things may repulse us or disgust us. This is another form of attachment. In a way, we are attached to the absence of those things. We feel and fear that the things which disgust us can somehow lower us or diminish us. Examining attachments is often brought up but examining what repulses us is of equal significance.

4. Gratitude

“Gratitude is the foundation for all abundance.” — Eckhart Tolle

If we cannot appreciate the good and beautiful we are and have in this day, nothing in the future will ever be truly meaningful. Never miss an opportunity to be grateful because you are missing an opportunity to be loving and joyful.

The spiritual way is very much about seizing opportunities. Human life is precious and we should be grateful for the immense power this human form has afforded the development of our hearts.

5. Humility

People often think that to be humble means you somehow lower yourself. This couldn’t be further from the truth. To be humble means to realize no one is lower than you, no one is higher than you, and no one is equal to you. It is an utter destruction of such hierarchical identifications. Within a workplace there may be such hierarchies and that is part of that game being played but within life itself it is only the eyes of humility that see clearly.

With that humility, you are ready to serve others, to lead others, and to cherish others. An insect is just as alive as a blade of grass or a human being. All living things know they are alive. It is not a mental knowledge but an existential knowledge. It is why they seek life and avoid death. Such is beyond higher, lower, or equality.

6. Humor

One of the most important of these qualities, humor makes sure life does not become too stale. Humor brings a juiciness to the spiritual path. If we take things too seriously, we may become tense, awkward, and confused. If you take life too seriously, everything takes on an edge of severity and fear. But if you approach life with sincerity, there is more authenticity and spaciousness. You can be at ease even while you are being genuine.

Humor is only possible if we don’t take things too seriously—especially ourselves. Being able to laugh, being able to release the tendency to become offended, we can be free from certain aspects of our ego that typically enslave us and force us to react in the same old ways.

“Laughter certainly is very special. Your whole body laughs. Each atom, each cell of your body laughs, participates in it…Seriousness can never be total. It is always partial, the very other extreme of laughter. It goes on becoming narrower and narrower and narrower. The more serious you are, the more narrow you become. The more you go towards laughter, the more wide and the more open, the more vulnerable, the more total, you become.” – Osho