The goal is not to chase and find enlightenment – it is already within. The goal and path is to uncover who we already are as beings, as people, as neighbors, as caretakers of this earth, with respect and peace.

So much time is spent chasing something out there, just beyond our reach. The energy expended causes a wave, a vibration. This wave pushes outward in all directions into the space and pushes further away what you are trying to reach. The fighting, anxiety, struggle, suffering that we feel, wastes energy, widening the chasm and deepening the gulf between who we think we are and who we truly are. Everything we need and desire is already here.

Look at a single tree within a forest. Just one of many and no different on the surface from the others. Yet this simple appearing being, is a complex organism on the inside with a purpose that it lives and breathes each day, individually and as part of a community. It consumes water and carbon dioxide and releases oxygen while living in harmony with the ecosystem it is within. The tree does not complain and does not judge.  We could learn a lesson from the tree, and just be.