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Open Heart Extra - Polishing The Mirror - Its All Perfect

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Its All Perfect

Posted November 19, 2014

Having been in the presence of Maharaj-ji, I have come to trust the way a being like that is in the
universe. Its like knowing somebody who lives a little farther up the mountain and can see farther
than you can. The view from there is perfection not perfection as something to be achieved,
but perfection in what is. Maharaj-ji kept saying to me in various ways, Ram Dass, dont you see
its all perfect? And yet Maharaj-ji spent all his life being there for people, helping them with their
lives, feeding them, and just loving them.
The art of life is to stay wide open and be vulnerable, yet at the same time to sit with the mystery
and the awe and with the unbearable pain to just be with it all. Ive been growing into that
wonderful catchphrase, be here now, for the last forty years. Here and now has within it a great
richness that is just enough.
If somebody asks me, Ram Dass, are you happy? I stop and look inside. Yes, Im happy. Ram
Dass, are you sad? Yes, Im sad. Answering those questions, I realize that all of those feelings
are present. Imagine the richness of a moment in which everything is present: the pain of a broken
heart, the joy of a new mother holding her baby, the exquisiteness of a rose in bloom, the grief of
losing a loved one. This moment has all of that. It is just living truth.
The saving grace is being able to witness suering from the perspective of the soul. Another way to
say it is that the saving grace is having faith. Living in the fullness of the moment with joy and
suering, witnessing it in all its perfection, our hearts still go out to those who are suering.
If we live in the moment, we are not in time. If you think, Im a retired person. Ive retired from my
role, you are looking back at your life. Its retrospective; its life in the rearview mirror. If youre
young, you might be thinking, I have my whole life ahead of me. This is what Ill do later. That kind
of thinking is called time binding. It causes us to focus on the past or the future and to worry about
what comes next.
Getting caught up in memories of the past or worrying about the future is a form of self-imposed
suering. Either retirement or youth can be seen as moving on, a time for something dierent,
something new. Start fresh. Its a new moment. Aging is not a culmination. Youth isnt preparation
for later. This isnt the end of the line or the beginning. Now isnt a time to look back or plan ahead.
Its time to just be present. The present is timeless. Being in the moment, just being here with what
is, is ageless, eternal.
It is extraordinary how near we are to our deeper being. Its just a thought away. And the thoughts
that take us away from it create so much suering. The thought I am this body causes suering. I
might think, Well, my body used to be able to do this. My hair didnt used to be gray. I used to
be stronger. I used to be thinner. I used to be . . . Those thoughts cause suering because the
body is what it is. We do everything we can to stay safe and healthy, but illness, age, and accidents
still aect us. Maharaj-ji said, No one has the power even to keep their own body safe. The
Buddha is right: this body is in time. But we are just here, in this moment.
Excerpt from Ram Dass book Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from your Spiritual Heart. Buy the
book Here (http://www.ramdass.org/rds/polishing-the-mirror-release/).

Photo by Col Ford & Natasha de Vere on Flickr (https://www.flickr.com/photos/col_and_tasha/).

Used under the creative commons license.

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